96% of research world leading or internationally recognised (REF21)
Our rich literary connections extend from Lancaster's LitFest and medieval castle to Grasmere's Wordsworth Centre
World Top 40 English Language and Literature QS World University Subject Rankings 2024
Lancaster was one of the very first universities to teach creative writing. Today we continue to lead in the discipline with our celebrated novelists, poets and playwrights.
We’ve been helping writers reach their potential since 1970. From day one, our focus has always been on helping our students hone their work, and sharpen the myriad skills involved in writing at the very highest levels.
This emphasis continues today so that the focus in all your modules will, ultimately, be your own writing.
With our many author-tutors, you can explore traditional forms such as the short story, the novel, poetry, theatre, as well as digital media, life-writing, place-writing, graphic novels, writing for games, the lyric essay, and writing for young adults.
There is plenty of opportunity to meet your tutors face-to-face to discuss your work, and you’ll find they are friendly, interested and encouraging. You’ll also have an academic advisor who will develop an overview of your progress and offer further support.
In the third term, we assign you a genre-specific expert to help develop your final portfolio. This is intended to be suitable for submission to literary journals or agents, setting you on the road to publication.
Many of our special literary events (readings, conversations etc) take place in the Castle Quarter, with the Department’s flagship events, the October Lecture and May Gathering, being usually held at Lancaster’s ancient Priory. In addition, we have a unique partnership with the archive-rich Wordsworth Museum at Grasmere, which includes internships, an annual study retreat day, and free entry at any time of the year.
Most years our Creative Writing MAs publish an anthology, and compete for a place within our student showcase at Lancaster city’s very own LitFest
Thanks to generous endowments, in addition to the support offered by the University, the Department is currently able to offer:
One award of £500 is made each year to a student starting a Master’s programme in Creative Writing.
The course provides many opportunities to develop professionally. You can get involved with our student-run journals, and will also benefit from our rich programme of guest events featuring leading authors, and specialists from the publishing industry.
Each year we encourage our students to bring together and edit their own anthology of student work which is then celebrated in a reading event in the summer term. This event is also a chance to meet summer school students from our distance learning Creative Writing MA.
We hope most of our students go on to publish their own work, and many of the Department’s alumni are now celebrated authors. Recent success stories include Camille Ralphs, Andrew McMillan, Nguyen Phan Que Mai, Martha Sprackland, and Daisy Johnson, the youngest-ever author shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2018).
You’ll also develop a host of professional skills, such as researching, drafting, editing, listening, persuading and presenting. From advertising to professional services, your skills will be sought after across many different sectors.
Graduates of this course go on to careers in areas such as:
You may choose to continue your studies at PhD level to deepen your knowledge and progress into an academic career. Graduates of this course have gone on to teach at universities throughout the world.
Discover the key features of studying a master's degree in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Our Creative Writing courses offer flexible study options, to allow the opportunity for you learn in the way that suits you best.
Being so close to the spectacular Lake District, home of the Romantic poets, the Department has world-class strengths in Romanticism. Our partnership with the Wordsworth Trust, at Grasmere, is long-established, and has a number of new benefits for all our students.
The Castle Quarter is both a wonderful place to enjoy, with many excellent places to eat and drink, and a wonderful resource for literary studies here at Lancaster. Our students in the Department of English Literature & Creative Writing have many opportunities to make the most of this resource.
2:1 degree in a related subject is normally required. We will also consider applications on an individual basis where you have a degree in other subjects, have a 2:2 or equivalent result or extensive relevant experience. You should clearly be able to demonstrate how your skills have prepared you for relevant discussions and assessments during postgraduate study.
Please contact us for more information.
If you have studied outside of the UK, we would advise you to check our list of international qualifications before submitting your application.
As part of your application you also need to provide
We may ask you to provide a recognised English language qualification, dependent upon your nationality and where you have studied previously.
We normally require an IELTS (Academic) Test with an overall score of at least 7.0, and a minimum of 6.5 in each element of the test. We also consider other English language qualifications.
If your score is below our requirements, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language programmes.
Contact: Admissions Team +44 (0) 1524 592032 or email pgadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk
Delivered in partnership with INTO Lancaster University, our one-year tailored pre-master’s pathways are designed to improve your subject knowledge and English language skills to the level required by a range of Lancaster University master’s degrees. Visit the INTO Lancaster University website for more details and a list of eligible degrees you can progress onto.
You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.
Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.
The portfolio module is your opportunity to develop an individual project that will lead to a fully-realised piece of creative work. Typically, you will be supervised by a specialist in your chosen area of interest.
The creative work may be several pieces of short fiction, a radio play, a coherent collection of flash fiction, prose poetry, poetry, an extended personal essay/memoir/autofiction, or a continuous extract from a proposed novel or other book-length work.
You will:
You will receive informal, verbal feedback during regular dissertation meetings with your supervisor. This will include suggestions for reading and research as well as feedback on the development of your creative project. When the portfolio is graded, it will be returned to you with detailed written feedback.
This module prepares you for your dissertation project and supports the development of the research, scholarly and critical skills that it will require. You will be introduced to the idea of ethical practice and any students working on memoirs or verbatim work will be offered specific guidance. You’ll also explore the ideas, concepts and issues around reflective practice and the vital role of research within creative writing.
We’ll study in a cohesive group, bringing students on combined courses and those following different pathways together to create a wider forum; our discussions will focus on professional practice and research issues.
This module aims to enhance your knowledge of library, archival and online research and develop your understanding of the creative process - taking you from first draft to final submission, including problem-solving strategies for creative blocks or obstacles. The module also places your creative work in the context of a professional literary world.
Indicative study themes:
This module will allow you to develop an idea for a novel, select techniques appropriate to your genre, theme and style and prepare you to complete an extract or series of extracts from a novel in progress. Through reflective exploration of several contemporary novelists, targeted writing exercises and workshops, you will explore character, voice, point of view, genre, form, setting and place.
The module will be taught by a combination of interactive lectures on the set texts, plus workshops and individual feedback on work in progress from your tutors.
You will be assessed on the submission of a portfolio and a reflective essay.
This module will enable you to develop your understanding of prose writing for young people, with a focus on Children’s Fiction (8-12 years) and Young Adult Fiction (11+ and 14+). During the module, you will develop an idea for a manuscript suitable for one of these audiences. The manuscript will be informed by the critical discussion of the set texts, targeted writing exercises and participation in workshops. Together, we will explore voice, point of view, story structure, setting and place, as well as formulate conceptions of the role of gatekeeping, reader expectations, and current movements and trends in the children’s publishing landscape. You may come prepared with a manuscript idea you wish to work on, or you might build on an idea generated in class. Towards the end of the course, you will also be asked to write reflectively on your creative process.
This module aims to do two things: to encourage the student to think about contemporary poems in several different visual dimensions but always from the viewpoint of the practitioner; and it offers an opportunity for them to develop their own work in progress, while at the same time actively promoting their critical reflection upon the process of writing and the visual dynamics a poem can activate and contain. The module admits that the ‘how to’ approach might be of less use when it comes to writing poetry, and instead promotes and explores a wider sphere of influences, encouraging experiment and engagement. A critical exegesis allows the student to reflect upon the decisions made and the effects sought in their creative project. These aims will be achieved through a variety of methods:
The short story is a complex and malleable form. This module considers the multiple forms and styles of contemporary short fiction from a range of cultural backgrounds and nationalities.
You will have the chance to develop your understanding of short fiction by drawing upon contemporary writers as well as secondary and critical reading - which will also help you to build a critical and theoretical framework around your own writing.
Peer and tutor review, both oral and written, will encourage you to work reflectively as a creative practitioner. And you’ll be encouraged to demonstrate your knowledge of the forms and genres used in contemporary short story writing by incorporating them in your own short story portfolio.
Indicative study themes:
This module introduces you to the personal essay: a flexible, hybrid form incorporating elements of cultural and literary criticism, memoir, journalism, fiction and auto fiction. We will explore a number of modes of personal writing, assisting you in the development of a form that best serves your creative intentions.
Taught via literature seminars and creative workshops, you will experience a range of literary techniques, including generative writing prompts and exemplar texts. You will also learn how to respond reflectively and creatively to feedback - to this end, one seminar each term will be replaced by a one-to-one personal tutorial.
Indicative study themes:
This module will introduce students to writing for games of all kinds, both digital and pen-and-paper. We will explore the basic principles of collaborative narrative experience as we seek to engage both critically and creatively with this new and extremely popular branch of contemporary writing. The weekly workshops are currently supplemented by a weekly, evening Games Study Night in the University Library to explore existing games, play-test your own, and enjoy the Library’s rich collection of board games.
This module looks at poetry culture in the UK and beyond, preparing you to enter the world of the publishing poet by closely examining the prize culture, some of the significant prize- winning collections by new poets over the last few years, and current poetry journals.
You will investigate current trends, having the chance to learn what it takes to get your work read - by editors, publishers and the poetry-consuming public. And you’ll put together a publication package with the aim of building your own portfolio in readiness for the vibrant and varied poetry marketplace - which continues to defy predictions of its demise.
Each seminar will typically be divided into reading and workshopping of your creative work in light of what we've read.
Indicative study texts:
The aim of this module is to enable you to write drama for radio, developing your own scriptwriting style and gaining an awareness of the professional requirements of the genre. We will study exemplar radio dramas and use them to contextualise the creative choices in your own work whilst also exploring the effects of different structural and stylistic approaches.
Peer and tutor feedback will guide the development of your creative portfolio as you work towards a single radio drama script of 25 pages. Reflective practice will help you to develop the art of redrafting and editing and you will pen a 1,000-word essay placing your experience of this in the context of radio drama.
Taught through a combination of seminars and workshops, we will initially focus on the key elements of writing for radio, with weekly tasks corresponding to study themes. Latterly, we will move on to more intensive workshopping of your own work.
Indicative study themes:
Science Fiction and Fantasy are two incredibly popular, historied genres. This module gives students the opportunity to study the particular techniques and processes employed by writers of SFF, and exposes them to a diverse selection of contemporary speculative texts. Students will be tasked with looking back over the rich history of both genres with a critical eye, tracing the sources of many of the genre traditions they will be familiar with, before recontextualising and interrogating those traditions in their own work, or working explicitly beyond them. This module explores forms commonly associated with Science Fiction and Fantasy, such as the trilogy and the series, but also looks at experimental and marginal forms, such as genre poetry. There are a tremendous amount of sub-genres, and ways of incorporating SFF into literature, and students will be encouraged to consider the broad spectrum of contemporary Science Fiction and Fantasy, and where their own work belongs in regard to it.
We set our fees on an annual basis and the 2025/26 entry fees have not yet been set.
There may be extra costs related to your course for items such as books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation, you may need to pay a subscription to a professional body for some chosen careers.
Specific additional costs for studying at Lancaster are listed below.
Lancaster is proud to be one of only a handful of UK universities to have a collegiate system. Every student belongs to a college, and all students pay a small College Membership Fee which supports the running of college events and activities. Students on some distance-learning courses are not liable to pay a college fee.
For students starting in 2024, the fee is £40 for undergraduates and research students and £15 for students on one-year courses. Fees for students starting in 2025 have not yet been set.
To support your studies, you will also require access to a computer, along with reliable internet access. You will be able to access a range of software and services from a Windows, Mac, Chromebook or Linux device. For certain degree programmes, you may need a specific device, or we may provide you with a laptop and appropriate software - details of which will be available on relevant programme pages. A dedicated IT support helpdesk is available in the event of any problems.
The University provides limited financial support to assist students who do not have the required IT equipment or broadband support in place.
For most taught postgraduate applications there is a non-refundable application fee of £40. We cannot consider applications until this fee has been paid, as advised on our online secure payment system. There is no application fee for postgraduate research applications.
For some of our courses you will need to pay a deposit to accept your offer and secure your place. We will let you know in your offer letter if a deposit is required and you will be given a deadline date when this is due to be paid.
The fee that you pay will depend on whether you are considered to be a home or international student. Read more about how we assign your fee status.
If you are studying on a programme of more than one year’s duration, tuition fees are reviewed annually and are not fixed for the duration of your studies. Read more about fees in subsequent years.
Details of our scholarships and bursaries for 2025-entry study are not yet available, but you can use our opportunities for 2024-entry applicants as guidance.
Check our current list of scholarships and bursaries.
Level of Study: Master's degree
Details of 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. 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.
David Craig Memorial FundThe information on this site relates primarily to 2025/2026 entry to the University and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.
The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.
More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.
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