David Craig Memorial Fund

About the Award

The David Craig Writing Award was set up in David’s memory by his four children, Marian, Peter, Donald and Neil, and his wife Anne Spillard Craig, with the support of Lancaster University.

Applications are welcomed for this award. One award is made each year to a student starting a Master’s programme in Creative Writing. The award is made on the basis of the student having applied and received an offer to join the programme, and a short statement about how they would use the award. We look for evidence that the award will help them become a successful writer whose work connects experience, place, and history.

The award is for one year only i.e. one payment of £500, and it will be paid directly to the student after they have started the programme. The award cannot be deferred to a subsequent year of study.

UK and International applicants for the David Craig Memorial Fund need to have an offer for one of the following programmes starting in October 2025 to be eligible to apply:

Applicants wishing to apply need to complete the David Craig Application Form. A copy of the form must be uploaded to your application account and emailed to pgadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk by 30 May 2025.

The successful candidate will be informed by 31 July 2025.

The award will paid to the successful candidate after they have registered at Lancaster University.

The award is for 2025 entry only and cannot be deferred.

David crouching down beside his labrador dog.

About David Craig

David Craig was a distinguished author and pioneering creative writing teacher. In 1964 he was one of the first lecturers at Lancaster University, and in 1970 founded an undergraduate creative writing programme. This made Lancaster, along with the University of East Anglia, the first UK university to teach the subject.

David subsequently set up Master’s and PhD creative writing programmes at Lancaster University – the latter being the very first in the UK. All three programmes are now hosted by the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing.

David's own writing encompassed poetry, short stories, novels and plays, literary history and criticism, travel and landscape writing, memoir and oral history, and a rock climber’s guide to the Buttermere and Newlands valleys of the Lake District. His work appeared in both The Spectator and the London Review of Books but also in Marxism Today and the Burton Village Newsletter.