The Course
Explore and define your creative skills as a member of our dedicated, diverse writing community, within a vibrant arts environment.
Our three-year degree programme is creatively stimulating, experimental and industry focussed. You will be part of a committed creative community, supported by our enthusiastic team of lecturers and visiting professionals to develop your own voice and understanding of who you are as a writer. The course delivers contemporary approaches, creative provocations and critical thinking across prose, poetry, script and beyond, allowing you to develop a striking portfolio of creative and critical writing.
Taking full advantage of our place within the North’s only dedicated arts university, you will engage with peers across the spectrum of arts practice, producing work that reflects real world, industry collaborations. Recent cross-course collaborations include Visual Communication, Photography, Illustration and Popular Music Performance.
Our writers fully engage with the lively arts and literary scenes in Leeds and beyond, where we run open mic nights, present work as part of literary festivals and spoken word nights, and support our writers to share their work. You will consider career paths and how to professionalise your creative practice, working with and gaining feedback from industry professionals. You will submit work to awards and competitions, supported by your peers and tutors, and make connections across the creative industries and literary world.
The Structure
Writing workshops play a central role as a collaborative method to accelerate and consolidate student learning. It will expand your critical vocabulary and develop technical skills in the drafting and editing work required of a professional writer. Tutorials, lectures, seminars, masterclasses, and cross-disciplinary project work also feature in year one.
Course Facilities
BA (Hons) Creative Writing students are based in purpose-built classrooms in our modern university building.
Computer suites house networks of Apple Mac computers featuring regularly updated, industry-standard software for a wide range of creative applications that support all our courses, with equipment consistent with that used in the creative workplace. A purpose-built specialist library is open to all students and includes a range of carefully curated specialist resources. Digital Collections enable an enhanced learning experience and information literacy whilst our special collections include artists’ books, photobooks and illustrated books as well as the University archive. Self service facilities are available throughout, supported by a dedicated and experienced team of library staff.
BA (Hons) Creative Writing
Virtual Tour
Study Abroad
Studying abroad can help Leeds Arts University students gain valuable experience, broaden their horizons, develop international networks and experience their practice from a different perspective. Leeds Arts University has a global network of international partner universities in 15 different countries. Students can apply for a semester abroad in their second year of study.
Accolades
Regular event as part of Leeds Literature Festival, open to all students to perform.
Student secured a six month publishing mentorship with Penguin Random House.
Students have been published in Serious Flash Fiction and in Coffin Bell.
Students involved in the Bone Down Literary Affinity Group, a group aiming to reclaim public spaces for performance.
Student performed at Leeds Poetry Festival and Matt Abbot and Maria Ferguson’s Tub Thumping, a regular spoken word event.
Students published in the online music and culture magazine Hive.
Career Opportunities
Good writers are welcome everywhere; the arts sector requires a broad set of skills. Talented new voices with cultural awareness and critical thinking skills are also welcome in science, industry, commerce, education, research centres, journalism, editing, HR and marketing. You will benefit from the University’s already well-developed industry, commercial and creative links, and its strong careers advisory provision. Graduates may also continue to postgraduate study.