Creative Writing and English Literature

Creative writing and English literature is a combination that places the making of texts alongside the study of them. English literature develops your ability to read closely, think historically and engage critically with writing from different eras, traditions and cultural contexts, while creative writing invites you to do what writers do: draft, revise, experiment and find your own voice. The two practices reinforce each other in important ways.

Wide reading feeds the imagination and sharpens your sense of what language can do, while the discipline of creative work deepens your understanding of why literary choices matter.

At York St John University, this part-time programme includes a foundation year, a sandwich year, a year abroad and a work placement, offering a particularly rich range of structured experiences alongside the academic and creative work. You will explore writing from around the world, from different eras and from voices that have historically been underrepresented, alongside canonical texts, building a reading life that is genuinely broad. This extensive literary engagement is designed to inspire and inform your own original writing, as you develop an appreciation of the power of the written word and the craft involved in wielding it well.

Graduates from creative writing and English literature programmes go on to careers in publishing, editing, journalism, copywriting, content creation, teaching, arts administration, communications and broadcasting. Many continue to write, combining their creative practice with other work in the creative industries or beyond. The analytical and communication skills that the programme develops are valued across a wide range of employers, and graduates regularly find that their ability to read carefully, write clearly and think about audiences makes them effective in roles far beyond the literary field.

Postgraduate study in creative writing, English literature, publishing or education is a natural next step for those who want to develop their practice or move into teaching and research.