MFA Creative Writing

See our website for entry requirements.

See our website for fees.

More than 100 of our students and graduates have embarked upon publishing careers, launching first books, with others achieving publication in journals and magazines, winning writing awards and prizes, setting up small presses and anthologies, and seeing their work go into production and performance. Our alumni include winners of the Costa First Novel Award, Forward Poetry Prize and Yale Windham-Campell Prize, and a long-listing for the Man Booker Prize. 

Our School plays a leading role in establishing Manchester as a city of writers with a commitment to finding diverse new voices and creating opportunities for writer development, enabling new writing and building audiences for the next generation of talent. Manchester has been designated a UNESCO City of Literature in recognition of its thriving live literature scene, with a year-round programme of author events, writers’ forums, networking opportunities and open mic nights. 

We are home to a suite of ground-breaking outreach projects including the Manchester Children’s Book Festival and Mother Tongue Other Tongue, an international multilingual poetry competition that celebrates cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools in the UK. Our Manchester Poetry Library holds over 12,000 books and recordings that can be explored through our online catalogue, in person and through our annual events programme. Our School has a strong Manchester presence, with links to many of the city’s major cultural and arts organisations, and also a global reach with students and alumni based across the UK and continental Europe, and in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia. 

Our strong partnerships and innovative projects mean that you will have plenty of opportunities to develop your industry experience and network. 

On completion of this course you may decide to pursue PhD study, or to develop a career in bookselling, agenting, publishing, editing, producing or directing for screen, stage or radio, or in teaching creative writing. Students have access to the Careers and Employability Hub located in the Business School, offering a host of information resources, one-to-one careers support and employability events throughout the year. This service is also available for up to three years after you graduate. 

Year 1

Classes for core Workshop and Reading modules take place in the evenings (6-8pm UK time) during the autumn and spring semesters. Full-time students take all of these modules in a single year and usually have classes two evenings per week. Part-time students spread these modules over two years (running order may vary depending on specialist route) and usually have classes one evening per week. All students take 30 credits of option modules, which run in the spring semester; delivery models and scheduling vary depending on choice and availability. This part of the MFA concludes with the submission of the Creative Dissertation, completed through independent study with one-to-one support from a Dissertation Supervisor. 

In the option slot, students can choose a second Reading module in their own specialism, or a Reading module from one of the other specialist routes.

Core modules:

Creative Dissertation
Reading 1
The Workshop

Year 2

Year two of our MFA includes the development of a manuscript for a full-length book or script within your specialist route, completed through independent study with one-to-one support from a Manuscript Mentor. This is usually a continuation of the Creative Dissertation, but can be a new project. The year also includes a series of seminars and Q&A sessions with experts from the publishing, literary and arts industries in the spring semester. These modules take place in year three for those studying the MFA part-time. 

Core modules:

The Industry
Manuscript