Creative Writing

An introduction to writing techniques focussing primarily on the crafting processes of poetry and prose. 

This module introduces key skills for university study, progressing to research, writing and project development. You will learn skills of close reading and textual analysis, practice on a range of cultural forms and focussed on representations of Manchester as a diverse, international city. You will then develop your own independent project and put into practice the analytical skills developed. 

An introduction to the conventions of storytelling focussing on forms such as flash fiction, short stories, screenwriting and writing for theatre.

This module will introduce students to professional opportunities in Creative Writing and the skills needed to access them. 

Students focus on two literary forms chosen from a list (for example prose, poetry, scriptwriting) and follow an intensive workshop for one semester. 

Students focus on two literary forms chosen from a list (for example prose, poetry, scriptwriting) and follow an intensive workshop for one semester. 

Students explore literary adaptation, analysing how texts survive and evolve - how the meanings of stories, characters, poems, songs and ideas change across time and across forms. Students will be supported to make adaptations of material encountered on the module. Students then explore the artistic process underpinning literary adaptation, examining a range of strategies by which a text or existing cultural artefact might be re-made. Students will make their own literary adaptation of an existing story, character, painting, videogame, piece of music or film, whilst reflecting critically on the process.  

Students focus on one creative writing form chosen from a list (for example creative non-fiction, life writing) and follow an intensive workshop for one semester. 

This module investigates cultures of resistance and their historical conditions. To do so, it places a range of resistant cultural texts in dialogue with relevant theoretical and critical material. 

An innovative module that applies interdisciplinary methods, approaches and perspectives of humanities and social science disciplines to contemporary socio-economic challenges, complementing Engaging the Humanities 1. Each year the module will address a different contemporary issue or theme. The module will give you the opportunity to develop and apply your academic skills in an applied, practical setting by undertaking an individual engagement project. This can include a work placement, volunteering, social/community enterprise, RAH! Project, awareness-raising campaign, multimedia piece, blog, creative writing, poetry or artwork performance/exhibition. Each project will be supervised and mentored by one of the module tutors. Finding external partners to work with will be supported by the Engagement and Outreach team.

The module will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the module.

This module will analyse the current climate crisis applying the methodologies of creative writing, English literature, or film and media studies.

This module will explore the organisations and activities that make up Manchester’s UNESCO City of Literature network, and assess ways in which literary activity can help cities address contemporary global challenges.

How can literary and cultural texts write back to the former colonial centre, enact the decolonisation of the mind, and unpick the stereotypes and ideologies central to the establishment of the British empire? How do literary and cultural works represent the lingering effects of imperialism in the present day? What does contemporary inequality, nationalism, Islamophobia and racism have to do with Britain’s colonial past? This module supports students to address the formal, ideological and ethical questions negotiated in postcolonial literature and cinema. The module offers an introduction to postcolonial theory as it relates to the texts and contexts we discuss. Areas of investigation might include climate change, migration, war, gender and sexuality, race and religion.

This module explores professional practice and the application of creative skills in the wider world. You will encounter practitioners from a diverse range of writing and creative professions and gain perspective on accessing and working within the cultural industry. You will take a literary text of your own - an original piece or something written within another module - and conceive a strategy for its dissemination, reinvention, publication or performance, whilst reflecting critically on this process.

On this module, you will be asked to devise, scope, plan, conduct, report and reflect on a creative project of your own choosing. The project should involve a significant stretch from your core work on the programme and explore a new practice. This can be either working in a writing discipline different to your main route through the course, or by adapting or applying your work in a new context.

The Study Abroad module will involve study for one semester at an approved partner University overseas.

This module teaches you how to tell true stories in a post-truth world, how to narrate real-life events (escapades) through innovations in essay writing, observational fieldnotes, literary journalism, life writing and narrative scholarship in a range of media and to understand the ethical consequences of doing so. 

The module will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the module.

This module will introduce students to all parts of the book publishing process and industry. Through practical exercises and interactive lectures, students will learn how the industry developed, specialist genres such as children's publishing and how publishers commission, edit, design and produce books in all formats. 

The module will aim to introduce English as a core curriculum subject in secondary schools and as an A-level subject. It will provide students with insight into the application of their subject specialism to teaching in school and colleges in England, covering aspects of both curriculum content and subject pedagogy.

This module explores novels and novellas for adults that can be categorised as belonging to recognisable commercial and popular genres. You will be expected to engage both critically and creatively a range of genres.

This module provides an analytical study of a range of classic and modern texts written for children. It also uses these texts as models for the production of new texts. The module also covers appropriate techniques for writing for children. It provides you with the skills to analyse a range of children's literature, and to use the resulting knowledge to produce original texts suitable for teenagers and children. 

This module provides an analytical study of a range of twenty and twenty-first century games, both analogue and digital. Students will be introduced to the critical and historical field of game studies, and given guidance on the appropriate techniques for writing for gaming and the experience of working with pre-determined project briefs.

This module focuses on reading and analysing a representative range of work by contemporary poets, and introduces students to relevant critical work. It equips students with critical, analytical and writing skills to read and write poetry effectively. Assessment will give students the opportunity to produce written work in critical and creative modes, and to reflect analytically on their own work. The module will provide students with the opportunity to attend a major poetry event (e.g. the Forward Prize or the T. S. Eliot prize awards) and to visit poetry readings. 

Students will read and research a range of texts and map the terrain of contemporary literary fiction. Students will engage in current debates around the meaning and vitality of literary fiction and the way it intersects with various political movements. Students will engage and experiment with the formal innovation that defines contemporary literary fiction. Students will ultimately offer their own creative responses to the formal and political concerns of the moment through their own creative writing. 

A creative advanced Scriptwriting course which develops skills in team storylining and individual scriptwriting skills in the context of the study of contemporary professional practice.