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Undergraduate courses/English and Creative Writing courses/Creative Writing and English Literature

Key facts

Entry requirements

112 or DMM

Full entry requirements

UCAS code

W899

Institution code

D26

Duration

3 yrs full-time

3 years full-time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

See all the key facts

Entry requirements

112 or DMM

Full entry requirements

UCAS code

W899

Institution code

D26

Duration

3 yrs full-time

3 years full-time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

See all the key facts

This innovative course allows you to combine creative writing with the study of classic and contemporary literature. Learn from successful published writers and internationally renowned academics while becoming part of a vibrant, supportive writing community.

We welcome you if you are passionate about creative writing, eager to build on your strengths, and excited to explore new ones. Our thematic modules encourage exploration across different forms and styles, providing flexibility while helping you craft original works informed by research, experimentation, critical reflection, and diverse published writers' work.

Alongside creative writing, you will study a diverse range of literature, from medieval to contemporary, including Victorian, Romantic, and postcolonial writing. You’ll learn to analyse how texts function and debate literature’s role in society, gaining valuable skills in critical thinking and research. Graduates of Creative Writing and English Literature at DMU pursue careers in media, marketing, publishing, teaching, public relations, and the civil service.

  • Learn from published writers and join a vibrant community dedicated to creativity, studying literature from Britain, America, and around the globe, including fiction, poetry, drama, and film.
  • Develop diverse writing skills across practices such as screenwriting, memoir, digital writing, academic essays, and blogs, preparing you for various professional fields.
  • Engage with regional writing networks and participate in events like spoken word showcases, book fairs, and DMU's States of Independence festival to build industry connections.
  • Expand your creativity in dynamic environments such as Leicester Gallery, local museums, and DMU’s Special Collections archive, including ghost story workshops in a historic chapel.
  • Gain transferable skills in critical analysis, independent and collaborative work, and research through innovative teaching and varied assessment methods.

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Block teaching designed around you

You deserve a positive teaching and learning experience, where you feel part of a supportive and nurturing community. That’s why most students will enjoy an innovative approach to learning using block teaching, where you will study one module at a time. You’ll benefit from regular assessments – rather than lots of exams at the end of the year – and a simple timetable that allows you to engage with your subject and enjoy other aspects of university life such as sports, societies, meeting friends and discovering your new city. By studying with the same peers and tutor for each block, you’ll build friendships and a sense of belonging. Read more about block teaching.

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What you will study

Block 1: Exploring Creative Writing

Both in workshops and through independent study, you will explore a wide range of short-form writing, including a variety of modes: international strict form poetry (e.g., sonnet, rondeau, terza rima, ghazal, villanelle, sestina), free verse, flash fiction, and historical flash fiction. Ethical questions about combining fact and fiction are addressed in an introduction to historical fiction. You may also explore review writing in real-world contexts and digital short-form writing on social media platforms, enhancing your transferable employability skills.

The focus on short-form writing across various genres enables you to develop clarity of expression and conciseness while practising redrafting and editing, building your confidence as a writer. A range of exercises will generate new writing. You will give one another formative feedback, and evaluate the responses your work receives, providing structured opportunities to consolidate writing skills for your final submissions.

Assessment: Collaborative Writing (20%) and Short Form Portfolio (80%)

Block 2: Journey and Places

This module focuses on journeys and places, offering the chance to explore key concepts underpinning your studies. You will take a post-disciplinary approach, using techniques from diverse areas to address questions related to journeys and places.

Interactive lectures with students from across the School of Humanities and Performing Arts provide opportunities to apply these concepts in subject-specific workshops and assessments.

Themes may include journeys, spaces, and the concept of welcome; (im)mobilities and journeys through time and space; representation and imaginative geographies; gender and placemaking; belonging and place attachment; and sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Assessment: Subject-specific Coursework 1 (30%) and Coursework 2 (70%)

Block 3: Multimodal Writing

This module explores how traditional texts and digital innovations can improve your writing practice. Through core readings, including work from global majority writers and translations, you will develop craft skills in voice, form, structure, and genre. A key aim of the module is to help you optimise your growth as a writer in the digital sphere.

In addition to producing creative work, you will work individually or collaboratively in a ‘writers’ salon’. You will lead discussions, select material, and devise writing activities, consolidating your learning and employability skills, particularly in educational settings.

Assessment: Writers' Salon (20%) and Portfolio (80%)

Block 4: Poetry and Society

Through this module you will develop your understanding of poetic form and genre and consolidate your close-reading skills by scrutinising a range of poems and poets from different historical periods. You will explore the historical origins and development of specific poetic genres such as epic and pastoral and learn the conceptual tools and technical vocabulary needed for critical analysis of poetry at undergraduate level.

Assessment: Essay 1 (40%) and Essay 2 (60%)

Block 1: Exploration and Innovation: Medieval to Early Modern Literature

This module covers the birth of English literature, introducing texts written between the medieval era and the early modern period. You will explore poetry, drama, and prose, comparing early English literature with key European works of the time.

Assessment: Commentary (30%) and Comparative Essay (70%)

Block 2: Exploring Work and Society

This module prepares you for post-degree pathways by focusing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge needed to thrive in professional environments. Emphasis is placed on core attributes and transferable skills while developing familiarity with the world of work.

You will critically engage with themes such as race, gender, identity, and geopolitical issues in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, conceptualizing a more equitable and sustainable society.

Through subject-specific workshops, lectures, seminars, and independent learning, you will explore work environments related to your discipline. Activities may include responding to real-world briefs, placements, community projects, and creating project proposals tailored to your programme.

Assessment: Written Portfolio or Recorded Presentation (100%)

Block 3: Story Craft

This module focuses on storytelling in diverse forms, such as poetry, hypertext, and scripted works. Narrative remains a powerful tool across media, marketing, advertising, and fiction. Themes may include narrative structure, characterisation, and story-world building.

You will study how storytelling adapts to contemporary settings, exploring narrative structure and how writers keep readers engaged. Additional topics may include writing for stage and screen, with a focus on structure and narrative.

Assessment: Story Craft Proposal (40%) and Story Craft Creative Work (60%)

Block 4: Romantic and Victorian Literature

You will explore literature from the Romantic and Victorian periods (1780–1901), studying texts by writers like Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, and Charles Dickens. Themes will include class conflict, urban poverty, faith, national identity, and gender roles.

Assessment: Coursework (40%) and Essay (60%)

You can choose between two routes, one that allows you write a dissertation with a focus on Creative Writing OR the English Literature dissertation route. Both routes combine the study of Creative Writing and English Literature.

Block 1: Screentime

The theme of this module is writing for screens and with screens. You’ll develop skills in writing for various screen genres and platforms, focusing on optimising your writing for the 21st-century context. Genres may include podcasts, poetry films, TV or film scripts, web novels, and social media flash fiction. Collaborative work, such as creating a TV sitcom episode or web novel, is also included.

Assessment: Screentime Reflection (30%) and Screentime Project (70%)

Block 2: Print and Digital Revolutions

This module explores the Gutenberg and Digital revolutions, focusing on how printing and computing have influenced writing. You will create your own texts using historical and digital technologies.

Assessment: Test (30%) and Report 1 (35%) and Report 2 (35%)

Block 3: World Englishes: On the Page and Beyond

This module examines ‘World Englishes’ from a global perspective, focusing on literature from postcolonial nations. You will explore themes like memory, class, and ethnicity in both written and oral traditions.

Assessment: Blog/Vlog (40%) and Research Essay (60%)

Block 4: Dissertation

The final-year dissertation provides an opportunity to work on a single form or genre of your choice. You’ll produce a professional creative work, accompanied by a critical reflective essay. This module focuses on redrafting, receiving feedback, and managing a professional writing project from conception to completion.

Assessment: Concept Testing (20%) and Dissertation (80%)

You can choose between two routes, one that allows you write a dissertation with a focus on Creative Writing OR the English Literature dissertation route. Both routes combine the study of Creative Writing and English Literature.

Block 1: Dissertation

Throughout the year, you will research and write a dissertation on a chosen topic, with guidance from the English Literature team. Workshops will support your project development, introducing key theoretical approaches such as Marxism, feminism, and ecocriticism.

Assessment: Research Portfolio (20%) and Dissertation (80%)

Block 2: Writing and Publishing

This module provides professional skills and industry knowledge relevant to creative writing. Topics may include international publishing trends, copyright, digital marketing, and self-publishing. You’ll also hear from industry professionals and explore global developments in writing and publishing.

Assessment: Marketing Plan (30%) and Publication Project (70%)

Block 3: Uncreative Writing

This module challenges the traditional notion of ‘creative writing’ by exploring ‘uncreative writing’ practices. You’ll engage with chance procedures, conceptual writing, found texts, and experiments with artificial constraints. The module emphasises play and experimentation as key elements of creativity, encouraging you to transform everyday materials into artistic works.

Assessment: Uncreative Portfolio (100%)

Block 4: Modernism and Magazines

This module investigates Anglo-American modernism and its publication in 'little magazines.' You will study modernist texts by authors like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf and explore how these works responded to modernity.

Assessment: Essay (40%) and Research Portfolio (60%)

Note: All modules are indicative and based on the current academic session. Course information is correct at the time of publication and is subject to review. Exact modules may, therefore, vary for your intake in order to keep content current. If there are changes to your course we will, where reasonable, take steps to inform you as appropriate.

Structure

Throughout the course, you will learn through hands-on practice, collaborating with successful published writers and becoming part of a dynamic community. Workshops are a key element of the course, fostering collaborative learning and helping you develop as a writer. You will explore a variety of genres, from poetry and fiction to digital and multimodal writing, and engage in critical reflection, learning to read as a practitioner. The programme places emphasis on the creative process, encouraging you to experiment, edit, and refine your work while understanding its broader social and cultural context.

Alongside your creative writing practice, you will study English literature through lectures, seminars, and tutorials, focusing on critical analysis, close reading, and discussion. You’ll engage with a wide range of literary traditions and themes, from classic texts to contemporary works, enhancing your understanding of the role literature plays in shaping societies. Teaching sessions may include discussions, film screenings, and digital projects, giving you a broad range of experiences. Throughout your studies, you’ll complete research and reading in advance, contributing actively to class conversations.

Assessment is varied and designed to reflect both the creative and academic aspects of the course. You’ll submit creative writing portfolios, critical essays, reflective pieces, and professional projects, all of which will help you grow as a writer and thinker. The programme also aligns with the university’s EDI and sustainability strategies, encouraging self-awareness, collaboration, and critical thinking as key competencies. Additionally, you’ll gain skills in enterprise and entrepreneurship, preparing you to thrive in diverse professional environments.

Contact hours

You will be taught through a combination of workshops, lectures, tutorials, group work and self-directed study. In your first year you will normally attend around 8-10 hours of timetabled taught sessions each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 28 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.

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Our facilities

Learning beyond the classroom

In some modules you may undertake independent or guided field trips for creative practice research. This may include exploring DMU campus, the local area, your home area or further afield. Other facilities at DMU may also be visited, such as the DMU library, The Gallery, Trinity Chapel and DMU Special Collections. On occasions, you may be encouraged to visit local museums and galleries, green spaces and historic sites of interest, such as Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Newarke Houses, the city’s statues and monuments, Bradgate Park.

Find out more

Library and learning zones

Kimberlin Library offers a space where you can work, study and access a vast range of print materials, with computer stations, laptops, plasma screens and assistive technology also available. As well as providing a physical space in which to work, we offer online tools to support your studies, and our extensive online collection of resources.

Library and learning zones

Where we could take you

Students sitting in the DMU Careers Hub

Placements

During this programme you will have the option to complete a paid placement year, an invaluable opportunity to put the skills developed during your degree into practice. Placements are available in diverse industries, and recent students have benefitted from positions in copywriting and marketing and events management. This insight into the professional world will build on your knowledge in a real-world setting, preparing you to progress onto your chosen career.

Our Careers Team offers a range of careers resources and opportunities so you can start planning your future.

Rubyna Cassam secured a placement with Penguin Random House in London. She gained invaluable knowledge of the publishing world, from creating presentations for new book releases and producing spreadsheets of international sales figures, to contacting buyers about merchandise and attending marketing meetings about the London and Frankfurt book fairs.

graduate-careers

Graduate careers

Employability skills are embedded in the curriculum to prepare you for a range of careers both related to creative writing and in wider industries.

The programme will equip you with a broad range of transferrable skills for careers within and beyond the creative industries including creative thinking, critical analysis, problem solving, research, independent study, editing, digital writing, publishing and proof reading. We will encourage you to think more widely about employability, and to recognise – and articulate to employers – the rich skills you bring to any workplace.

Our graduates have gone on to forge successful careers in various professions, such as writing, teaching, publishing, marketing and PR, film making, fundraising, library services, archival work and the civil service. Graduates have earned roles such as Associate Producer at the BBC, Picture Book Editor at Pan Macmillan and a Senior Press Officer in the Children's Department at Penguin Random House. Graduates also have the opportunity to undertake further studies at DMU such as the MA Creative Writing.

What makes us special

Education 2030 - Block Learning

Block learning

With block teaching, you’ll learn in a focused format, where you study one subject at a time instead of several at once. As a result, you will receive faster feedback through more regular assessment, have a more simplified timetable, and have a better study-life balance. That means more time to engage with your DMU community and other rewarding aspects of university life.

DMU-global

Global experiences

Our innovative international experience programme DMU Global aims to enrich studies, broaden cultural horizons and develop key skills valued by employers.

Through , we offer an exciting mix of overseas, on-campus and online international experiences, including the opportunity to study or work abroad for up to a year.

A student has recently taken the opportunity to study creative writing at university in New York. Previous short DMU Global trips available to our students have included exciting opportunities to visit Tokyo, Japan, and Vancouver Island in Canada.

Course specifications

Course title

Creative Writing and English Literature

Award

BA (Hons)

UCAS code

W899

Institution code

D26

Study level

Undergraduate

Study mode

Full-time

Start date

September

Duration

3 years full-time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

*subject to the government, as is expected, passing legislation to formalise the increase.

Entry requirements

GCSEs

  • Five GCSEs at grade 4 or above including English and Maths

Plus one of the following:

A levels

  • A minimum of 112 points from at least two A levels

T Levels

  • Merit

BTEC

  • BTEC National Diploma - Distinction/Merit/Merit
  • BTEC Extended Diploma - Distinction/Merit/Merit

Alternative qualifications include:

  • Pass in the QAA accredited Access to HE overall 112 UCAS tariff with at least 30 L3 credits at Merit.
  • English GCSE required as separate qualification. Equivalency not accepted within the Access qualification. We will normally require students to have had a break from full-time education before undertaking the Access course.
  • International Baccalaureate: 30+ points

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, an IELTS score of 6.0 overall with 5.5 in each band (or equivalent) when you start the course is essential.

English language tuition, delivered by our British Council-accredited Centre for English Language Learning, is available both before and throughout the course if you need it.