Creative, Digital and Professional Writing – MA

Why study this course?

Do you want to earn a living from your love of writing? This Creative, Digital and Professional Writing MA will help you develop your creative writing abilities and train you in the multimedia and digital skills required by professional writers working in the creative industries. You’ll be taught by leading professionals with the skills, contacts and industry profiles to help you develop your own distinctive and individual writing voice that will be attractive to employers.

More about this course

On the Creative, Digital and Professional Writing MA, you’ll develop an advanced variety of writing skills suitable for a wide range of professional settings and literary modes.

We’ll help you develop your own creative ideas so you can thrive in creative roles such fiction and nonfiction writer or editor. It will also open up career opportunities in industries including media, journalism, film, publishing, e-books, marketing and communications.

You’ll also benefit from field trips that will fire your imagination, as well as work placements in some of the prestigious media organisations based in London. Our students have gained work experience at Harper Collins, The Sunday Times, Harper’s Bazaar UK, BBC, leading health magazines and websites and many more.

What makes the course unique is its equal emphasis on creative work and professional employability. Independent external reviewers have judged our Creative, Digital and Professional Writing MA “innovative and versatile”, praising its “exciting and varied content” and calling its focus on professional skills “up-to-date and outstanding”. The quality of personal feedback that students receive has also been singled out. 

Accreditation of Prior Learning

Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2022/23 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:

Creative Writing (core, 20 credits)

Creative, Digital and Professional Writing Project / Dissertation (core, 60 credits)

Digital Storytelling (core, 20 credits)

Feature Journalism (core, 20 credits)

Researching Media, Communication and the Creative Industries (core, 20 credits)

Accredited Work-Based Learning in the Creative Industries (option, 20 credits)

Creative Nonfiction (option, 20 credits)

Digital Journalism (option, 20 credits)

Digital Video Production (option, 20 credits)

Principles of Digital Media (option, 20 credits)

Scriptwriting (option, 20 credits)

Where this course can take you

This master’s course will give you the skills needed to help you forge a career in the media and creative industries. Almost every commercial and public company now requires a communications manager, and as a graduate of this course you’ll be equipped with the specialist skills this role demands. More diverse roles will also be open to you, including creative writer (fiction and creative nonfiction), journalist, editor, publisher, arts manager, web designer, arts curator and consultant and events manager professions.

Sectors you could work in include the arts, creative, cultural, publishing, public relations, music, media and marketing industries. Students have gone on to find success as writers, editors and digital innovators around the world. One ex-student, now teaching part-time on the course, is helping pioneer the use of virtual reality in journalism.