Teaching Creative Writing at Postgraduate Levels: the Sheffield Hallam Experience

Abstract

This paper discusses the history and philosophy behind the MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. Through this I tease out those elements and issues I believe are important to postgraduate Creative Writing teaching. Established in 1993 and one of the first postgraduate Creative Writing masters in the UK, the MA consists of a core module, ‘What is Contemporary?’ This includes first a main option, which represents the student’s preferred genre and second, a subsidiary option, that is, a second genre. Options include novel, poetry, scriptwriting, short story, writing for children, the writer as teacher and literary editing. Teaching is delivered mainly through workshops, individual tutorials and feedback. At postgraduate level there is input from professionals outside academia (literary agents, publishers and professional writers). The course also offers several publishing outlets of its own. Requirements for acceptance onto the course are usually a first degree in English or a related subject, and a sample of Creative Writing showing potential to succeed at this level; ‘non-standard’ applications are also welcomed and considered. There has never been any desire to make the Hallam MA into a ‘writing school’; the intention has always been to help those with talent become the best writers that they can be.