Creative Writing

At the heart of the Manchester Writing School are our masters programmes in Creative Writing, available to study on campus in Manchester, City of Literature, or from anywhere in the world as part of our dynamic international online distance learning community. On our Master of Arts (MA) Creative Writing programme, you will explore and practice techniques and styles of modern and contemporary writing and apply these through the development of your own creative work. You will undertake a taught element blending writing workshops with reading modules and option modules, and then complete your stu

Application is by submission of an online form including a personal statement, and a sample of your own creative work. Your application should be tailored to one of our specialist routes: Novel, Poetry, Writing for Children & YA, Scriptwriting or Creative Non-Fiction. Please indicate at the top of your personal statement which specialist route you are applying for. You should use the rest of the statement to tell us a bit about yourself, give a good overview of your reading and writing interests, and a sense of what has led you to apply for our course and any ideas you have for what you’d like to write with us. Personal statements should be up to 500 words long. For the creative sample, applicants to the Novel, Children's & YA and Creative Non-Fiction routes should submit up to 2,000 words of prose; poetry applicants should submit up to 15 poems; and scriptwriting applicants should submit up to 15 minutes running time of script. The work submitted can be a complete piece, or an extract or a number of extracts from a longer work. We have intakes into the programme in September and January each year. For application deadlines, please see the 'How to Apply section'. In each application assessed we will be looking for evidence of: A very high standard of written English Control of form, style and technique Substantial reading of contemporary work within the relevant field Commitment to the craft of writing and willingness to engage with the editorial process of receiving feedback and redrafting work-in-progress Experience of the development of writing skills through workshops, supervision, mentoring or previous study Applicants whose first language is not English are required to produce evidence of English Language proficiency. Overseas applicants will require IELTS with an overall score of 6.5, with no sub-component below 5.5, or an equivalent accepted English qualification. Accepted English qualifications can be viewed here. If your application meets these criteria, a tutor may contact you to arrange a telephone or face-to-face interview at a mutually convenient time.

IELTS with an overall score of 6.5, with no sub-component below 5.5, or an equivalent accepted English qualification. Accepted English qualifications can be viewed here. If your application meets these criteria, a tutor may contact you to arrange a telephone or face-to-face interview at a mutually conve

International students: £20,000 per year

UK students: £10,250 per year

UK/Home: £10,250 per year

International: £20,000 per year

September 2025 January 2026

• Manchester, Online, United Kingdom