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Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Master

In Dublin (Ireland)

£ 8,576.80 VAT inc.

*Indicative price

Original amount in EUR:

10,000 €

Description

  • Type

    Master

  • Location

    Dublin (Ireland)

Study in one of the Top Colleges in Ireland

Based in the childhood home of Oscar Wilde at 1 Merrion Square and delivered in association with the Irish Writers’ Centre, the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing offers aspiring or published writers a one-year course of study which examines the process and practice of producing prose fiction. The work of the last two years’ classes has included pieces that were shortlisted for the Penguin Ireland Short Story Competition, twice longlisted for the Fish Short Story Competition, and two students who were selected as finalists in the IWC Novel Fair. Within a critical workshop and mentoring format students are provided with tuition and advice in completing either a novel or a short story collection. Consideration is given to the intellectual, psychological, economic and cultural influences that underpin and drive the creative writing process. The course also emphasizes the business and professional environment of writing, with seminars presented by agents and publishers and master classes by established writers. The programme provides the student both with expert guidance in producing a substantial written work of publishable standard, and with a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and practical requirements of successful participation in the activity of writing, whether as a professional career or as part of a lifelong personal commitment to creative endeavor.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Dublin (Ireland)
See map

Start date

On request

About this course

Graduates of MFA in Creative Writing will be prepared to participate in a range of complementary fields including:

Journalism
Publishing
Editing
Online writing
Advertising
Marketing
Teaching

An honours bachelor degree in a cognate discipline may be an advantage but is not a necessity for entry to the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. The principal requirements for admission to the programme are demonstration of a sufficient interest in the activity of creative writing and furnishing of evidence of an ability to undertake and benefit from a course of master’s level study and tuition in creative writing.

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Subjects

  • Creative Writing
  • Project
  • Writing
  • Publishers
  • Short Story
  • Novel
  • Storytelling
  • Fiction Writing
  • Publishing
  • Imagination

Course programme

The MFA in Creative Writing consists of a variety of taught classes, workshops, and a culminating final project, which is a substantial portion of a novel or a collection of short stories. All modules are mandatory, with the exception of one of the writing workshop classes in the first semester; novelists are required only to take the novel writing workshop and short story writers are only required to take the short story workshop, not both (however, though attendance in both is not mandatory, any student is wishes to participate in both is welcome to do so). The creative writing project is developed throughout the course of the programme (indeed, some students may come to the degree with work already in some stage of completion which is developed in the programme) and is completed during the summer, with a submission date in the first week of September)

Semester 1

Imagination and storytelling
Writing workshop 1: the novel
Writing workshop 1: the short story
The writer as critic
The craft of creative writing

Semester 2

The business of writing and publishing
Writing workshop 2
Masterclass in fiction writing
Creative writing project

Module descriptions

Imagination and storytelling

The module examines the human propensity of using language to transform personal and social experience into imaginative constructs expressed in narratives, oral and written. Storytelling is one of cultural universals, from tribal myths to the modern novel and TV sitcoms, and its main functions include artistic self-expression, imposing cognitive order onto lived experience, and addressing the elusive questions of the purpose and meaning of life.

Writing workshop 1: the novel

The module is designed to develop greater competence and self-management in the complex process of writing a novel. Taught by an established novelist, the workshop guides students through the stages of planning, drafting, revising and completing a novel, with a focus on controlling and developing plot, characterisation, dialogue, and narrative style.

Writing workshop 1: the short story

Taught by an established short story writer, the workshop is designed to help writers to develop ideas for short stories and to draft and revise their stories effectively. Students are advised on such aspects of short story writing as setting up, developing and resolving the plot; introducing setting and context; developing characters; writing meaningful dialogue; establishing narrative point of view, tone and style.

The writer as critic

The module is designed to aid writers in developing skills and techniques of literary criticism; in other words, how to write effective, interesting, and persuasive reviews and interpretive analyses of literary fiction based on one’s experience, knowledge of literature, and insight into the creative writing process.

The craft of creative writing

This module provides students with practical guidance on the structural and technical aspects of fiction writing. Using examples from canonical fiction, the course discusses such topics as planning and preparation; relations between story and plot; plot structure and development; authorial and narrative voice; objective and subjective narration; characterization and character hierarchy; individualization of dialogue; employment of style, tone, metaphor, diction, and other literary devices.

The business of writing and publishing

Presented by agents, publishers and other professionals from the publishing industry, the module offers expert guidance on successful interaction with literary agents and publishing houses, publishing rights and contracts, applications for bursaries, e-publishing, publicity and marketing, editing and copy-editing, copyright law.

Writing workshop 2

In this workshop tutorial students are devided into two groups: one devoted to writing a novel and the other to the short story. The workshops provide writers of fiction with further opportunity to share and discuss their work-in-progress with an experienced writer and other student-writers. Students offer drafts of their chapters and short stories for classroom discussion, thus obtaining the benefit of professional feedback and peer review to help them in the creative process.

Masterclass in fiction writing

In this module an established writer shares his or her experience and gives expert advice on writing fiction effectively and successfully. The discussion focuses on such aspects of the creative writing process as generating and researching ideas for new fiction; thinking about story and characters; developing the plot; refining sentences and paragraph construction, and developing authorial voice and tone. Students are also given first-hand advice on how to promote their work, how to deal professionally with publishers, agents, and editors.

Creative writing project

In the second semester students are assigned an experienced writer as a superviser to guide them through the process of writing a work of fiction: a novel, a short story or a collection of short stories. Students work on their writing projects on their own, meeting their supervisor regularly to receive helpful feedback and professional advice on their work in progress.

Attendance in all assigned modules is mandatory. Students are assessed by their participation in classroom activities, as specified by the lecturer. The final award is based on course work and the final project: 50 percent is made up from assessments in the taught modules, while the remaining 50 percent is related to the creative writing project, which involves a portfolio of about 15,000 words of original literary fiction, corresponding approximately to three chapters from a novel or to four short stories.

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

£ 8,576.80 VAT inc.

*Indicative price

Original amount in EUR:

10,000 €