Our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies offers supervision for PhD Creative Writing in all fields of staff research interest within this area. Creative writing is an area of particular growth for us, and all genres are catered for, with published novelists, poets, and playwrights on our teaching staff and great programme of visiting writers through the Essex Book Festival to stimulate your imagination.
Several our graduates have gone on to undertake successful careers as writers. Other past students are now established as scholars, university lecturers, teachers, publishers, publishers’ editors, journalists, arts administrators, theatre artistic directors, drama advisers, and translators
We also offer an MPhil and a master’s by dissertation in this subject.
Assessment
From the first day of your research within our department, we encourage you to plan your work so that you can expect to submit your thesis for examination by the end of three years. Aside from strong financial reasons to do this, it is wise to limit the scale and scope of what you can achieve in a set period. Indeed, to work within limits allowed by the time available is part of the exercise of research itself.
A typical first year of undertaking research within our department would involve developing a statement in which you will define the aims, theories and methods proposed for the thesis, an indicative bibliography, and a timetable for the thesis completion. During this year, you will start collecting your primary and secondary research material according to your chosen topic and timeline.
Your typical second year should involve continuing to investigate and write. In this second year (or the end of your third year, if studying part-time), your first supervisory board of the year will be your Confirmation Board. This will review the evidence to confirm whether you should progress and whether your work is at PhD level. After confirmation of your status, you should undertake further substantial research and writing over the next 12 months.
In a typical third year, you should complete the writing of your draft chapters and move to revise your work into a final version ready for submission.
Your future
Several our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies graduates have gone on to undertake successful careers as writers.
Other past research students are now established as scholars, university lecturers, teachers, publishers, publishers’ editors, journalists, arts administrators, theatre artistic directors, drama advisers, and translators.