Compulsory modules

The Writing Studio

This is the core module taken by all our students at the beginning of the MA. Through workshops led by our staff and Creative Writing Fellows, it’s designed to lead you out of your comfort zone and get you writing in ways you might never have contemplated. In our virtual space – the studio – you are free to think, write and depart in new directions. It demands a readiness to go out of the “comfort zone” and ask real questions of your own writing.

Optional modules

Bringing a Story to Life

You’ll learn about the techniques – the “tricks of the trade”, in a completely positive sense – which highly successful authors use to achieve their aims. You’ll explore how narratives and stories are constructed through elements like plotting, pace, perspective and structure. You’ll be aiming to identify these writerly techniques, to describe them and - most importantly of all – to incorporate them in your own writing.

We’ll look at:

 characterisation through dialogue
 unspoken stories
 the unreliable narrator
 omniscient narrators
 the slow reveal.

Writing Poetry Now

What is poetry? What is it for, and what can it do that prose can’t? You’ll focus on contemporary poetry in terms of its functions, as well as its form. While the emphasis will be on your own writing, we’ll also study the poetry of both contemporary and traditional writers from Britain and further afield, who work or have worked in a variety of forms and using a range of techniques.

You’ll also look at topics like:

 poetry and place
 narrative poetry
 voice
 confession
 experiments in form.

Writing the Lives of Others

If you’ve ever wanted to write about your own life, or the lives of others, this module is for you. We’ll look at autobiography, biography, hagiography, diaries, fictional recreations of real lives, and fictions taking in individual or family lives. Using the set texts as a basis, each session will consist of a short, tutor-led discussion, focusing on the technical issues. You’ll follow these with intensive attempts to apply these techniques to your own writing.

Topics on this module include:

 The Diary
 Autobiography
 Biography
 Hagiography
 Fictionalising Lives.

Writing Voice

You’ll explore methods for writing creatively in relation to voice. We’ll discuss and analyse works by contemporary authors in a range of forms (poems, novels, short stories), to inspire you to explore different voices in your own writing.

We’ll investigate:

 how writers create distinctive voices to control and modulate tone and register in a text
 the interplay of multiple voices (author, narrators, characters)
 interrelated notions of identity, authenticity, social construction, style and aesthetics.

Topics will include:

 Monologue and Dialogue
 Unreliable Voices
 Polyphony
 Children’s Voices
 Dialect
 Historicised voices.

Independent Study

This is a great chance to design your own course of study, allowing you to explore an area of writing that fascinates you. You’ll start by producing a detailed project plan, to be agreed with your supervisor and module leader. You’ll develop high-level research skills, manage your own schedule and produce well-structured, articulate work at master’s level. Examples of independent studies have included: an extended poem developed from the literature and art of ancient Persia, and a pacy novel for young adults set in a militaristic dystopia.

Final Project

Compulsory modules

The Writing Project

You’ll complete an extended piece of your own creative writing, in any genre, accompanied by a self-evaluating critical commentary. You’ll develop your work in group sessions, through one-to-one tutorials, and in workshops with Creative Writing Fellows.

Your writing project will be a maximum of 20,000 words in length, but the minimum word length may vary according to the genre and format. You’ll decide all these factors – genre, format and length – in consultation with your module leader and supervisor.


Research

Our commitment to research-led teaching means that all our teaching staff are recognised experts in their field. They contribute to the canon of published work in their specialist fields influencing debate and discussion. And they value the opportunity to share their ideas with students through their teaching.

We are home to the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre, which:

 creates a space for discussion and research
 promotes connections between poets, academics, and readers of poetry in the local community
 sponsors readings by poets, such as Simon Armitage, and a regular seminar series.

Research supervision is offered in the following areas:

 English 20th-century poetry – particularly Eliot and Heaney
 Irish writing
 Modernist drama
 Witchcraft in the 19th century
 John Clare and eco-criticism
 Sir Walter Scott
 Ben Jonson
 Shakespeare
 Theatre and science
 Utopia
 Contemporary literature
 Thomas More
 Modernist poetry
 Stylistics
 Creativity
 Franz Kafka
 Victorian religion
 Literature and war.