English Literature & Creative Writing

English literature and creative writing are disciplines with a natural relationship: reading with analytical depth is the best possible training for writing with precision and ambition, and the act of writing helps you understand how literary effects are achieved from the inside. Together they build a comprehensive engagement with language as an artistic medium, from the close reading of canonical and contemporary texts to the development of your own voice as a writer in whatever genre or form most interests you.

At the University of Kent, located in Canterbury, a city with a literary heritage that encompasses Chaucer, Marlowe and Dickens, you will study across a broad range of genres, styles, periods and traditions over three years of full-time study. The literature component introduces you to the diversity of what English literature has been and continues to be, from early modern drama to dystopian fiction, the gothic, postcolonial writing, American literature, critical theory and modern and contemporary poetry. The creative writing component develops your own practice through workshops, tutorials and writing projects, with the support of tutors who are themselves practising writers.

The two strands feed each other: your critical reading sharpens your writing, and your writing sharpens your reading. Typical entry is around 120 UCAS tariff points.

Graduates from English literature and creative writing programmes go on to careers in publishing, journalism, copywriting, content creation, teaching, arts administration, public relations and communications. Many work as novelists, poets, scriptwriters and essayists, often in combination with other professional work. The skills developed, close reading, precise and effective writing, the ability to think about language critically and creatively, are transferable across almost any profession where communication matters.

Further study includes MFA programmes in creative writing, postgraduate degrees in English literature or publishing, and research degrees exploring literature and writing from a variety of critical perspectives.