MA Creative & Life Writing

Rosie Rowell

Award-winning young adult author

Rosie Rowell started writing fiction after her children were born. She completed the MA in Creative Writing and Life Writing at Goldsmiths and has published two novels for young adults, both set in her native South Africa. Her first novel, Leopold Blue, won the Brandford Boase award in 2015.

She is currently working on a young adult novel set in London, a story about mental health, identity and love. Her research topic focusses on examples of children’s fiction that have represented mental health and ill-health; how literature can help children and young adults forge a deeper understanding of their internal reality and how this can support their mental health.

Claire Adam

"What I liked about the Goldsmiths MA was the space, and freedom, and the respect with which the tutors treated our work. It was a good year, a year of figuring my writing out. I started work on Golden Child while I was at Goldsmiths, and it's just been awarded the 2019 Desmond Elliott Prize for best debut novel."

"The MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths was a huge turning point for me. I'd been writing on my own for ages, and I'd managed to produce two novels, but I knew they weren't very good and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I'd been reluctant to enrol in a Creative Writing course, because I worried that a teacher would walk into the classroom and start instructing us on "rules" of creative writing, but luckily the Goldsmiths MA isn't like that!

There are all the usual components of a Creative Writing MA, I suppose – workshops, reading, essays, one-to-one sessions with tutors, guest lectures, opportunities to meet published authors, literary agents, etc – but what I liked about the Goldsmiths MA was the space, and freedom, and the respect with which the tutors treated our work. It was a good year, a year of figuring my writing out. I started work on Golden Child while I was at Goldsmiths, and it's just been awarded the 2019 Desmond Elliott Prize for best debut novel."

Neil

"It was only really during the degree that I started contemplating writing something new, hitting on the idea of a memoir."

"During my degree I found myself being influenced by those around me, especially Blake Morrisson’s memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, which offered massive clues as to my own writing, and which suddenly changed midway through the degree with the likes of Stephen Knight, Francis Spufford, and the wonderful Maura Dooley all seemingly convinced that I was a ‘life writer’ hiding behind fiction.

I've just published my first book, Four Funerals and a Wedding (Journeys in Creative and Life Writing), on Kindle, and it will be followed by a paperback edition soon. I’d been working on the novel off and on for years, but if I’m honest, I didn’t really have the writing skills to bring it to a suitable end. I was never very ‘literate,’ and had not really read too many books of a classic nature, reading (and re-reading) mostly American crime novels. As such I simply kept writing, never really knowing how to finish, with one book turning into two, and then into a trilogy. It was only really during the degree that I started contemplating writing something new, hitting on the idea of a memoir.

By its very nature the book is extremely personal and reflective, but I’ve since realised that the themes I’ve tackled – love, death, relationships – are universal, especially the parts referring to bereavement and grief, which many people, those that have read parts of the book, have commented offer up similar experiences to their own."

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Staff who contribute to the programme include:

Maura Dooley –Programme Co-ordinator for the MA

Maura’s most recent collection of poetry is ‘The Silvering’ (2016). Her versions of Iranian poet Azita Ghahreman in ‘Negative of a Group Photograph’ (2018) won a PEN Translation Award. She has edited anthologies, worked as a script consultant in film and theatre and been involved in numerous initiatives to enhance the profile of poetry in the United Kingdom.

Stephen Knight – poet, novelist

Stephen’s poetry publications include ‘Flowering Limbs’, ‘The Prince of Wails’  ‘The Sandfields Baudelaire’, ‘Dream City Cinema’, and, for children, ‘Sardines and Other Poems’. He has published the novel, ‘Mr Schnitzel’ in 2000, and an anthology, ‘I Am Twenty People’, edited with Mimi Khalvati. He has worked as a theatre director and his fiction and Poetry reviews regularly appear in The Times Literary Supplement. He won the National Poetry Competition and his work has received a Poetry Book Society recommendation.

Francis Spufford – novelist

Francis is a writer of creative non-fiction, essays and more recently, fiction. His novel ‘Golden Hill’ (2016) won the Ondaatje Prize. His anthology of literature about the poles is, ‘The Ends of the Earth’ (with Elizabeth Kolbert), and he is the author of ‘The Child That Books Built’, ‘The Backroom Boys’, ‘Unapologetic’ and ‘Red Plenty’. 

Ardashir Vakil – novelist

Ardu’s first novel, ‘Beach Boy’, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and has been translated into 10 languages. His second novel, ‘One Day’, was shortlisted for the Encore Award. Ardu is currently working on a new novel and a collection of shorter fiction.

Blake Morrison

Blake has published a wide range of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. His memoir ‘And When Did You Last See Your Father?’ won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has written a study of the murder of James Bulger, ‘As If’, as well as collections of poetry, most recently ‘Shingle Street’, novels which include ‘South of the River’ and many plays and adaptations.

Erica Wagner

Erica has published a novel ‘Seizure’, a collection of short stories ‘Gravity’, and ‘Ariel’s Gift’ a study of the writing of Ted Hughes’s ‘Birthday Letters’.  ‘Chief Engineer’ a biography of the man who built the Brooklyn Bridge, is her most recent work (2017). For many years she was literary editor of The Times. She is a regular reviewer and interviewer for a variety of media.

Tom Lee

Tom’s short stories have been published widely and shortlisted for many awards, including the Sunday Times Short Story Award. ‘Greenfly’, his debut collection, was followed by his first novel, ‘The Alarming Palsy of James Orr’, (2017). He is currently working on a memoir.

Tutors include:

• Romesh Gunesekera
• Diana Evans
• Eva Salzman
• Clare Fisher
• Ross Raisin 

Find out more about staff in the Department of English and Comparative Literature.

Careers

Graduates of this programme include writers Tom Lee, Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin, Amy Sackville, Rohan Kriwaczek, Evie Wyld, Sara Grant, Naomi Foyle, Bronia Kita, Claire Adam, Lijia Zhang, Luiza Sauma, Ashley Dartnell and Suzanne Joinson and the poets Emily Berry, Andy Spragg, Kate Potts, Jack Underwood, Abigail Parry, Anthony Joseph, Katrina Naomi and Matthew Gregory.

Among them they've won or been shortlisted for awards including:

• Desmond Elliott Prize 2019
• The Sunday Times/EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2012
• Rooney Prize for Literature 2011
• Dylan Thomas Prize 2008 and 2011
• The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2009
• John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2009 and 2010
• Several Eric Gregory Awards
• Guardian First Book Award
• New Writing Ventures Prize
• Several Betty Trask Awards

Other graduates have gone on to work in publishing (for example, as senior commissioning editors), journalism, public relations, teaching, advertising, the civil service, business, industry, and the media.

Skills

The MA will enable you to develop transferable skills, including: enhanced communication and discussion skills in written and oral contexts; the ability to analyse and evaluate different textual materials; the ability to organise information, and to assimilate and evaluate competing arguments.

Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.