Creative Writing and Film & Media Studies

About the course

By choosing this course you will experience creative and academic worlds of writing, and learn the techniques and conventions to succeed in both. As a poet, fiction writer or dramatist, you will be able to refine ways of communicating what is important to you, while studying media analysis will develop your understanding of the forms that such communication takes. Critical studies will illuminate the uses that audiences make of texts and the pleasures they take from them, which will add a new perspective to your creative work. You can test your creative understanding of these forms by electing to take options in writing scripts for television, radio and film.

What you will learn

You will learn how to combine your imagination with analytical skills of understanding textual construction and narrative technique. Studying fiction, scriptwriting and poetry, you will learn the conventions and techniques that contemporary writers use, while film and media modules will give you opportunities to analyse a range of storytelling models that address audiences in different ways (as well as non-fiction forms). The teaching staff will support you in pushing yourself to fulfil your potential both in creative terms, and as an informed critic.

As with other courses at the University of Bolton, the creative writing degree reflects the practice of professionals in the field, and you are encouraged to learn from the way that published writers work, building up an understanding of your own creative process.

In addition, you will develop valuable transferable skills including strong written and spoken communication, organisation and motivation and the ability to mount a critical argument. You will become effective at research and information gathering, and develop confidence in your own ideas and your ability to express them.

Special features

• Creative writing at Bolton leads the way in incorporating work-related learning into a creative writing degree. All students take The Writing Industry module and meet writers and other industry professionals, while undertaking work-related projects and placements involving areas like publishing, production and literary festival organisation.

• Film and media studies teaching staff are published researchers and commentators on media culture and theory. Creative writing is taught by prize-winning authors.

• Our programme of readings and talks by professional writers is among the best in the country. Recent guests include Paul Abbott (Shamless, State of Play), Ali Smith, Jackie Kay, Melvin Burgess, Simon Armitage, Sophie Hannah, David Herd, Richard Price, Debbie Horsfield (Cutting It), Nicola Shindler (Red Productions), Tina Pepler, David Thacker, and Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who).

• The university is an educational partner of the BBC.

• The university now has a professional partnership with the highly regarded Octagon Theatre, Bolton, bringing many benefits including work placements and showcases for student work.

• Other placements have included the BBC, Granada, and independent film and television production companies.

• Film and media studies tutors regularly present their work at national and international conferences, and publish in journals within the subject area. A book authored by the programme leader was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009.

• The Octagon Theatre Prize for dramatic writing in any medium, won in 2008 by Bolton graduate Rachel Millett for her radio play Heavenly Poison. Scriptwriting students have also been honoured by the BBC.

Careers and professional development

The package of skills promoted and assessed by film and media studies are primarily those of research, selection, writing and expression, oral and visual communication, problem-solving, originality and independence. We hope to enable students to become confident and critically informed communicators.

Careers in teaching or the further study of writing are common destinations for students of this degree combination. Indeed, many different jobs require the sort of research and information handling skills that the course develops. Communication, presentation and analytical skills are prized by employers in a number of fields from the cinema/TV industries to arts marketing and administration. Film and media graduates have regularly gone on to further study (MA/PhD).

Mode of attendance: Full-time