Creative Writing

Writing degrees at the University of Canberra focus on writing as creative practice. They prepare students for employment anywhere that involves writing. They also prepare students for being unprepared: flying with the strange whim of the moment is what real creative practice often in fact involves.

Morph1

Undergraduate degrees

Postgraduate coursework degrees

Higher degree research

Art and Other Questions public seminar series

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We provide training in creative non-fiction, prose fiction, poetry, writing for young people and the screen. We also provide training in editing and criticism. The third speciality of the programme is creative research, that is, research conducted not by formal academic report, but rather through and in the production of art.

Students in all writing degrees have the opportunity to be in FIRST, the programme's yearly book anthology of student writing. Students in the Bachelor of Writing and the postgraduate Diploma also have the opportunity of collaborating with graphic design students to compete in GET REAL, our yearly exhibition of student-created picture books. FIRST also offers opportunities for students who wish to develop hands-on editing skills. Higher degree research students have the opportunity to present works-in-progress at six-monthly mini-conferences, and are encouraged, along with all other students and all interested members of the public, to attend the faculty's flagship ART AND OTHER QUESTIONS weekly seminar series, which involves talks by local and visiting artists, and cutting-edge humanities research.

BACHELOR OF WRITING (984AA)

The Bachelor of Writing prepares students for employment anywhere that involves writing. This three-year degree gives them the opportunity to experiment and practise with different forms of professional and creative writing for a variety of audiences. Students develop fluency and skills across a number of genres, including creative non-fiction, prose, poetry, writing for young people and the screen. In this manner, students learn to make high-level creative and professional works, and to critique and contextualise their practice. The course also involves an extensive sequence of literary studies units, which provide a sophisticated understanding of writing and its role in contemporary and past societies. There are also a number of open electives. These offer students the chance to incorporate into their writing degree additional studies from an area (or set of areas) of their own choice.

For more detailed information:

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses-units/ug/984aa

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) (922AA)

The Honours course is a one year (full-time) degree, designed to allow students who have demonstrated merit in their undergraduate course to progress to higher degrees by research, and to prepare them for research or project-based employment.

Students from anywhere in the university (and from outside the university) who meet the entry requirements can apply for the Bachelor of Arts Honours program, and students within the Faculty of Arts and Design can apply into the program from their undergraduate specialisation.

The course includes a choice between three coursework units on research issues, and the completion of a dissertation under the guidance of an academic supervisor. This dissertation can take the form of either a traditional academic thesis, or a substantial creative, design or industry-relevant piece of work, accompanied by a theoretical exegesis. The dissertation can also be undertaken as a work-integrated project accompanied by theoretical exegesis.

For more detailed information:

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses/index.cfm?action=detail&courseid=922AA&year=2012

GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING - EDITING (901AA)

The Graduate Certificate in Professional Writing (Editing) provides a professional editing course at graduate level. It offers students the opportunity to develop high-level understandings of the structure and function of the publishing industry, and the conceptual and practical skills necessary to produce work in both print and electronic media. Students learn to organise, manage and complete small and major editing tasks, at they receive an introduction to being on the other side of the table, as writers.

For more detailed information:

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses-units/gc/communication/domestic-only/901aa

GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING (903AA)

The Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing is a capstone award designed to enable graduates in all disciplines to move into a new career in writing, or to enhance opportunities in existing career paths, by developing and honing their writing skills in a creative environment. Students learn to make high-level creative works and to critique and contextualise their practice, through training in creative fiction and non-fiction, poetry, writing for young people and the screen, and editing.

For more detailed information:

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses-units/gd/communication/903aa

MASTERS OF CREATIVE WRITING (191JA)

This program is for those who seek a professional qualification in Creative Writing. On completion graduates will have produced a sustained creative work in fiction or nonfication prose, and be able to: understand the principles and the context of writing; understand and critically analyse their own and other writings; and conduct research relevant to their creative practice.

The course will be taught either through a combination of online units and some intensive face-to-face workshops or, where students are unable to attend the face-to-face workshops, in online mode.

The Manuscript Writing Workshop units are designed to allow students to conceive, plan, research, write and edit a single, unified, major writing project across the course of a whole university year. At the completion of the unit, it is envisaged that students will have produced a substantive manuscript, of 50,000 words, which has been crafted and refined to a publishable standard.

Students can work in the following fields of practice:

Prose Fiction: Literary fiction, genre fiction, young adult fiction
Creative Nonfiction: Book-length journalism, memoir, biography, autobiography

The following fields of practice are specifically excluded from Manuscript Writing Workshop: Short Fiction, Poetry collections, Screenplays, Graphic Novels. Teaching in these units will consist of a combination of online peer-to-peer workshopping, mentoring by members of the UC Writing Department Academic Staff, and intensive face-to-face teaching during first and second semesters.

For more detailed information:

http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses/index.cfm?action=detail&courseid=191JA&year=2012

HIGHER DEGREES BY RESEARCH

The Writing programme also offers the opportunity to undertake:

1) Creative research degrees at Masters and PhD level

Creative research degrees generally involve creative work produced in response to a cogent question in either the candidate's field of practice or the field of humanities knowledge more generally. Research programmes are supervised by a team of research-active staff from the Faculty's Writing programme. We have supervisory expertise in poetry, short story, novel-writing, creative non-fiction, script and writing for young people, as they articulate with the broader fields of social theory, cultural studies, history, political theory, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and literary theory.

Applicants for creative research degrees will typically have an honours degree in a relevant discipline, which may or may not be creative arts. They will typically be required to submit a portfolio of published or exhibited creative work as well as a proposal for their research.

2) Research degrees in cultural theory, literary studies and social theory at Masters and PhD level

Writing staff can supervise across a broad range of disciplines, though we have particular expertise in questions of the body and its theorisation, visual culture and representation, the relation between art and human rights, the links between poetry and knowledge and the links between political theory and aesthetics. Our staff have published extensively on the theoretical work of Benjamin, Bourdieu, Foucault, Freud, Lacan, Marx and Peirce. A current collective project involves drawing on these various strands to test the hypothesis that art aims at inducing in its audience a realisation of their own ignorance of the world around them, as a spur to further thinking and/or action.

Applicants will generally have an honours degree in a relevant discipline.

For more detailed information on higher degree research, please see http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses-units/m-research/communication/230aa and http://www.canberra.edu.au/courses-units/doctorates/communication/phd-comm or contact the Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Arts and Design, Professor Jen Webb: Jen.Webb@canberra.edu.au

ART AND OTHER QUESTIONS SEMINAR

The Writing Programme, in collaboration with the Faculty's Landscape Architecture Programme, runs the weekly Art and Other Questions Seminar, which is a lunchtime seminar series designed to showcase the creative practice, cultural research and intellectual interventions of staff within the Faculty of Arts and Design, and to provide a forum for visiting artists and researchers. The Seminar is held at 12.30pm every Wednesday during the teaching term in 9c25. Staff, students at all levels and all members of the public are welcome.

For a full programme:

http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2670