Creative and Life Writing

Overview

Why study MA Creative and Life Writing  at Goldsmiths, University of London ?

• You may be writing regularly; you may be returning to it after focussing on your career. Whatever your background, if you're serious about your writing, we can help you to develop your practice.
• Our students bring with them a lively range of interests, cultures and experiences. We welcome students of any age who share the drive to take their writing seriously.
• You’ll have the chance to experiment with different forms – poetry, the novel, short story and life writing - as well as to specialise in one of those areas -  and you will receive expert guidance in each field. Read work by our students.
• Some seminars will be taken by visiting writers who will talk about their work, introduce you to different theories of creative writing and engage you in discussion about their writing. Recent visitors have included Ali Smith, Caryl Phillips and Daljit Nagra.
• We regularly host panels of literary agents, editors, organisers of literature schemes and projects as well as weekly readings and discussions organised by our Writers Centre. 
• Several graduates of this programme, including Jack Underwood and Emily Berry are published by Faber, long regarded as the pre-eminent poetry publisher in the UK. They join a list of Faber publishees that includes TS Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Many of our other students are published authors. In fact, over 80 of our students have published their work.
• Awards won by our creative writing alumni include The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award, Authors’ Club First Novel Award, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Betty Trask Prize, Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Desmond Elliott Prize. There have also been shortlistings for the Costa Prize (in both the poetry and fiction categories), the Encore prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Orange Award for New Writers, the Dublin International IMPAC Prize, The Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the TS Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Poetry.

• The Pat Kavanagh Prize is presented annually to an outstanding graduate from the programme. The £500 prize, created in memory of the much-admired literary agent, is awarded by a team of her colleagues at United Agents. This has been the catalyst for publication by several previous winners.

Careers

Graduates of this programme include Tom Lee, Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin, Amy Sackville, Rohan Kriwaczek, Evie Wyld, Sara Grant, Naomi Foyle, Bronia Kita, Lijia Zhang, Ashley Dartnell and Suzanne Joinson and the poets Emily Berry, Andy Spragg, Kate Potts, Jack Underwood, Abigail Parry, Anthony Joseph, Katrina Naomi and Matthew Gregory.

Among them they've won or been shortlisted for awards including The Sunday Times/EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2012, the Rooney Prize for Literature 2011, the 2008 and 2011 Dylan Thomas Prize, several Eric Gregory Awards, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2009, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2009 and 2010, the Guardian First Book Award, the New Writing Ventures Prize, and several Betty Trask Awards.

Other graduates have gone on to work in publishing (for example, as senior commissioning editors), journalism, public relations, teaching, advertising, the civil service, business, industry, and the media.

Skills

The MA will enable you to develop transferable skills, including: enhanced communication and discussion skills in written and oral contexts; the ability to analyse and evaluate different textual materials; the ability to organise information, and to assimilate and evaluate competing arguments.