Creative Writing BA (Hons) at Coventry University

Career-focused and practical, the BA (Hons) Creative Writing course is for students who are serious about a career in writing.
Innovative teaching and learning is central to the course, which utilises social media, avatars, blogs, student writing groups, writing-focused study trips and online and virtual environments. Classical modes of writing such as poetry, prose and drama are reworked in digital environments and delivered alongside new and innovative modes such as video games, graphic narratives, eco-writing and other forms of digital storytelling. The course is contemporary, distinctive, inclusive and radical.

Students will have the opportunity to experiment with exciting new modes and genres, customise their coursework outputs to their own interests, hone their writing towards income-generation, develop their digital skills and graduate with a portfolio attractive to employers in the creative industries. Students will have the chance to collaborate with students from other disciplines and institutions nationally and internationally, and can extend their writing skills if they wish to partake in themed study-trips and retreats (subject to availability, additional fees and/or application). The course aims to prepare students for personal, professional and vocational development at home and abroad and active engagement in their communities and society.

Why Coventry University?

An award-winning university, we are committed to providing our students with the best possible experience. We continue to invest in both our facilities and our innovative approach to education. Our students benefit from industry-relevant teaching, and resources and support designed to help them succeed. These range from our modern library and computing facilities to dedicated careers advice and our impressive Students’ Union activities.

Course information

The course is designed to develop individual student voices within a community of writers. It offers opportunities for collaborations with performers, artists and media producers.

Students can design, edit and produce the ground-breaking CovWords magazine, publish their work across a variety of platforms, engage with an international audience and develop an online writer’s presence. They will have the opportunity to graduate with a range of transferable skills, a strong writer’s CV and a digital portfolio of original creative work. Their portfolios will include multimedia picture books, theatre scripts, short film screenplays, videos, games narratives, recorded radio dramas, and many more artefacts and materials.

Career prospects

Embedded employability will be delivered through an optional placement year (which may be subject to additional costs, application and/or availability), alongside skills and core competency development for all students throughout the course, including engagement with literary festivals.

Embedded employability will be delivered through an optional placement year (which may be subject to additional costs, application and/or availability), alongside skills and core competency development for all students throughout the course, including engagement with literary festivals. 

While the development of transferrable skills that have value for employability is a factor in all modules, Creative Writing employability modules will undoubtedly provide an opportunity for the course’s efforts to embed these skills. They aim to provide you not just with an experiential opportunity to research and learn about the cultural industries but also to learn about a much wider range of employability-related issues. Creative Writing lecturers have close links with industry professionals, utilising WWM and NAWE to expose students to the real-world activities of professional writers.

Students may even have the opportunity to have your radio dramas broadcast by the BBC and to produce the CovWords Creative Writing magazine (online and printed). Students can engage in submitting work for publication and enter competitions. CovWords exists in multiple formats: as a print version, as a YouTube site for digital performance and as a website which includes conventional and multimodal texts such as poems, stories, digital picture books and radio dramas.