English Literature and Creative Writing with a Placement Year

English literature and creative writing is a combination that develops both the critical and creative dimensions of engagement with written language. English literature teaches you to read with care, to analyse how texts produce meaning, and to situate works within the historical and cultural contexts that shaped them. Creative writing teaches you to make: to work with the material of language in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and drama, developing your own voice and craft through practice, revision, and the sustained attention to what makes writing work.

Together, these disciplines create graduates who are both thoughtful readers and capable writers.

At the University of East Anglia, which has one of the most celebrated creative writing programmes in the UK with a long lineage of distinguished graduates, this four-year programme with a placement year gives you the time to develop both your academic and creative capabilities to a serious level. You will study the literary canon alongside contemporary writing, developing your analytical skills across a range of periods and genres, while also producing creative work in workshops guided by professional writers. The placement year gives you direct experience in a literary, publishing, or creative organisation, providing the professional context and practical networks that creative careers require.

The typical entry tariff is 136 UCAS points.

Graduates work as writers, editors, journalists, copywriters, arts administrators, teachers, and communications professionals. Many combine creative writing with other professional work while developing an independent writing practice. UEA's reputation in creative writing is a genuine asset for graduates seeking to publish their work or enter the literary world.

Many graduates also go on to postgraduate study in creative writing, sometimes to develop a specific project to publishable standard, and the programme has a strong track record of producing published novelists, poets, and playwrights.