MLitt Creative Writing

The Shape of Stories 1 works with the bones of good stories across genre and form, resembling a seminar in format. This class introduces you to classic and contemporary writers and writing approaches that will be useful in future work. It also includes workshop time to share work with your peers and benefit from editorial feedback from tutors who are also published writers. We're mindful from day one that you're working towards the Major Project of your final Semester. The first semester is the time for planning and experimentation that will later be useful when tackling that Major Project.

The Writing Life is all about the contemporary literary landscape. It introduces you to the practicalities of a life in the creative industries – how writers make a living, and how that living is changing in the 21st Century. Through a series of talks and seminars from visiting speakers from across the writing worlds, you'll have direct access to those who have been there and done it. In assignments, you'll choose a target, for example, a publisher, a journal, an online magazine – then write a new piece of creative work to submit to that target, as well as an essay profiling the target they have chosen. This ensures you increase knowledge of the publishing industry you wish to enter while also having a practical challenge, writing to a brief you've chosen.

Finally, Semester 1 also includes a Research Skills class which prepares you for how to work critically at an advanced level in the humanities, both in academia and the professional creative industries, providing an introduction to a crucial range of interdisciplinary research methods.

These three introductory modules – one creative workshop, one industry-facing seminar series and one interdisciplinary research skills class – give you the grounding you need to prosper. It also prepares you for what comes next.

The Shape of Stories 2 is a partner to The Shape of Stories 1, the Semester 1 workshop focused on the bones of good stories across genre and form. This module takes that a step further, exploring hybrid writing across fiction, script, screenwriting, poetry and creative non-fiction, closely studying innovative contemporary works that blur the boundaries between different kinds of writing. You'll broaden your reading and experience, and will be encouraged to experiment with hybrid forms in your own creative work. From short stories containing to poetry, from ekphrastic responses to art and photographs to autobiographical, illustrated vignettes, The Shape of Stories 2 is an opportunity to explore new possibilities, in exciting ways.

The Made Project encourages experimentation across literary forms, genres and media, with opportunities to work collaboratively or individually on a substantial project. This course adds diversity to your writing portfolio, while also developing core researcher skills in organisation, engagement and project management. From editing to publication, archival visits to web design, adaptation to broadcasting and performance, this is an eclectic module which offers the chance to work creatively with new approaches, methods and materials.

Building on The Writing Life module in semester one, you'll apply critical and practical skills to a ‘made project’ which shows awareness of its readership/audience, literary contexts, process and potential circulation. Classes will involve student-led planning sessions and peer feedback, a field trip, visiting speaker, small group work, podcast training and supervisions.

The Made Project consists of two assignments: a short oral presentation in response to a creative brief, and a final ‘made project’ developed in discussion with your course tutor over a number of weeks, with an accompanying craft essay which reflects on the process and outcomes of the assignment. Previous made projects have included works such as short films, handmade books, graphic novels, a recipe book, a deck of tarot cards, ekphrastic works and visual poems. You'll also be involved in editing and publishing our in-house literary magazine, The Strathclyde Review.

The Writers' Studio is a student-led class. By this we mean that students who take this option are free to choose the focus, research area, genre and form of their work.

The ‘advanced topic’ you select will be the beginning of a conversation with your tutor about the kind of work you wish to produce for the module. Independent research is key, as is robust debate with your tutor and classmates about the direction, nature and rigour of the project. You'll work in editorial groups and pairs, as well as with the tutor to develop your work over the course of the semester.

Being placed in Semester 2 alongside The Shape of Stories 2 and The Made Project for all Creative Writing students who select it, The Writers' Studio is designed to complement the experimentation encouraged in the other two Creative Writing modules at this point in the MLitt in Creative Writing. It may also provide good preparation for The Major Project in Semester 3, acting as a research basis for future creative work.

This class allows you to engage with materials from Scottish, cultural, historical and literary studies. You'll read a range of primary literary and cultural materials in a historical and theoretical context, and will develop skills in textual analysis and critical engagement. In doing so, the class will provide knowledge of some of the main developments in Scottish literary and cultural studies throughout the 20th Century. You'll gain an understanding of the relationships between literature, culture and theories of nationalism, also developing an awareness of a range of major issues in contemporary Scottish culture.

This Masters option explores online fanfiction and fan communities and investigates how they work with and transform key popular texts and genres from British literary history. We'll study reading and writing practices and consider questions of adaptation across cultures, in relation to texts and themes which may have a global presence across different forms of media. Fan studies is a growing area within media/cultural studies, and fanfiction studies is rapidly developing as a new field of exploration for literary scholars. We'll read cutting-edge, as well as. canonical critical works in fan studies, and consider through this class how this field is developing and what new directions are emerging for research and scholarship. Students on this class are welcome to choose their own topics to explore, outwith the texts specifically covered in our classes.

This class is suitable for anyone interested in learning more about transformative works and fan cultures: no prior knowledge of fanfiction or experience with fan culture is necessary. For students with a background in English studies and Creative Writing, it features questions about literary genre and form, about online writing communities and their readers, and about the global re-interpretation of British culture and literature. For students primarily focused on 'TESOL and Intercultural Communication', it offers opportunities to consider how fan communities enable language learners and use particular kinds of intercultural communication through shared knowledge of and admiration for a 'canonical' work. For students with a background in gender studies, fanfiction and fan cultures supply an extraordinarily rich source for investigating how gender is depicted, discussed and debated by a very large cohort of predominately female-identifying or LGBTQ+ fans.

This class will engage students with literary and historical materials, and with theoretical work from animal studies and ecofeminism. This will inform discussions about the place, meaning and function of meat eating and meat avoidance, and debates about human-animal relations, from the early modern to the modern world.

As well as philosophical and religious work you'll read a range of primary materials, including literary works from A String of Pearls (aka Sweeney Todd) to Roald Dahl’s Pig; from Swift’s Modest Proposal to Coetzee’s Lives of Animals, via Dracula, and develop skills in textual analysis and critical and theoretical engagement.

The English & Creative Writing Research Placement class provides an opportunity to gain practical, research-based experience in an area where you can apply literary critical and/or creative writing experience and knowledge in a setting that is professionally relevant to you. The class is a one semester 20 credit class, undertaken in second semester, which equates to around 100 learning hours overall (this includes travel time to and from placement, assessment preparation, and attendance at campus supervisions). By the end of the class, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between Interdisciplinary English Studies or Creative Writing and the operations of a specific organisation working in a relevant field within Scotland
2. Reflect critically on issues of language and communication, representation, and narrative within an organisation
3. Articulate the transferrable skills developed through their Masters degree to potential employers
4. Produce a piece of research to a specific brief
5. Gain experience in collaboration through working within a partner organisation
6. Gain communication skills and be able to present their research findings to a range of audiences within and outwith academia

This class will provide you with an opportunity to build your portfolio of experience and develop personal and professional skills that are relevant to gaining employment and/or further study. Please note that all placements have to be arranged during first semester, and approved by early December. Please contact Dr Eleanor Bell (eleanor.bell@strath.ac.uk) for more information.

The only module in Semester 3 is the triple module we call The Major Project. This is an extended piece of creative work in students’ chosen field, that they will develop with a supervisor who will get to know them and their work closely.

The process starts with students sending an outline of their planned project for discussion with staff, before a supervisor is assigned to work with students regularly over the summer. This is the time for more focussed work on the page, and closer editing.

Using the skills acquired in Semesters 1 and 2, students will now be fully independent researchers, ready to pursue their signature work which is intended to be a potential submission to an agent or publisher. Whatever form it takes, when students leave us, their work will be ready to present to the world at large. Novelists will make serious headway into their manuscript; poets and essayists and short story writers will amass the beginnings of a collection; screenwriters will have a full draft of a feature film or series pilot.