Lancaster was one of the very first universities to teach Creative Writing, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We host the world’s longest-running Distance Learning MA Programme in Creative Writing and, in 1997, awarded the first-ever PhD in Creative Writing – this was to Andrew Miller for his novel Ingenious Pain (Sceptre) which went on to win the IMPAC Award in 1999.
Creative Writing at Lancaster
Celebrated Author Tutors
We continue to lead in the discipline with our celebrated author-tutors (three of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature), our student-centred teaching, our rich programme of free and open-to-all literary events, many in Lancaster’s historic Castle Quarter, our long-running student-run literary journals (Cake and Flash), and our close ties with Lancaster LitFest.
Our author-tutors currently include: novelists such as Jenn Ashworth, Elen Caldecott, Oliver K. Langmead, Okechukwu Nzelu, Conor O'Callaghan; playwrights such as Tajinder Hayer and John Schad; poets such as Sarah Corbett, Paul Farley, Eoghan Walls, Michelene Wandor, and Catherine Spooner; short fiction writers such as Zoe Lambert, Saleel Nurbhai, and Veronica Turiano; and word-image specialists such as Brian Baker, and Ines Gregori Labarta.
Finally, our author-tutors have won or been listed for the Betty Trask Award; Portico Prize; BBC National Short Story Award; Waterstones’ Children’s Book Prize; Tir na n-Og Award; Carnegie Medal; Somerset Maugham Award; Whitbread Poetry Prize; TS Eliot Prize; Costa Book Award; Edge Hill Prize; Papatango Prize; Eric Gregory Award; Crashaw Prize; Bridport Prize; Pigott Poetry Prize; Desmond Elliott Prize; and Polari First Book Prize.
Form and Genres
At both undergraduate and master’s levels, we offer a wide range of modules that enable you to develop your writing in the following modes and genres:
- poetry
- the novel
- the stage
- the short story
- creative non-fiction
- radio and podcast
- fantasy and science fiction
- fiction for children and young adults
- the graphic novel
- games (both digital and analogue)
Paul Muldoon
In addition, have until June 2025, Paul Muldoon as our Distinguished Visiting Professor Poetry, who not only gives lectures and public talks but also offers specialist workshops and one-to-one tutorials. Paul Muldoon has won both the Pulitzer Prize and T. S. Eliot Prize for his work, and described by The Guardian as ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.’
Students as authors
Many of our students have gone on to careers as authors themselves – for example: Andrew Miller (PhD), winner of Costa Book of the Year, 2011; Andrew McMillan (BA), winner of The Guardian First Book Award, 2015; Daisy Johnson (BA), youngest-ever author shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2018; and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (PhD), winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize in Fiction, 2018; and Camille Ralphs (BA) author of After You Were I Am (Faber, 2024)