English with Creative Writing

English with creative writing brings together two complementary modes of engagement with language and literature. English as an academic discipline develops your skills in critical reading, literary history, and the analysis of how texts produce meaning across different periods, genres, and cultural contexts. Creative writing develops your abilities as a writer, asking you to experiment with fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, or other forms, to give and receive critical feedback, and to develop your own distinctive voice and craft.

The two disciplines reinforce each other: close study of how published writers have solved the problems of narrative, characterisation, imagery, and form feeds directly into your own creative work, and the experience of writing gives you a practitioner's insight into the literary choices that critics analyse.

At Goldsmiths' College, this three-year full-time programme reflects Goldsmiths' particular reputation for creativity, critical independence, and intellectual risk-taking. Goldsmiths has produced a remarkable number of significant writers, artists, and cultural figures, and the environment it offers is one that encourages ambitious, experimental, and original work rather than conventional approaches. You will engage with literary texts across a wide range of periods and traditions, develop theoretical and critical frameworks for understanding literature and culture, and work on your own creative writing in workshops where you receive structured feedback from tutors and peers.

The programme allows you to explore different forms and find the creative territory that is genuinely yours.

Graduates from English with Creative Writing go on to careers in publishing, journalism, creative writing and teaching, copywriting, content creation, broadcasting, advertising, the civil service, education, and many other fields where strong writing and analytical skills are valued. Some go on to publish their creative work, either during the degree or in the years after graduation. Others pursue postgraduate study in creative writing, English, or publishing.

Goldsmiths' reputation in the creative world and the quality of the writing community it provides are real assets for graduates who want to build careers as writers or in the cultural industries.