1. Courses
  2. BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing
School of Social Science, Humanities and Creative Industries

BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing

BA (Hons) Full-time 3 years, Part-time 6 years

We are one of a handful of UK universities to offer a single honours programme in Creative and Professional Writing, offering you the unique opportunity to solely concentrate upon the act and art of writing for different audiences. 

Register your interest
Apply now

We are one of a handful of UK universities to offer a single honours programme in Creative and Professional Writing, offering you the unique opportunity to solely concentrate upon the act and art of writing for different audiences. 

Award
BA (Hons)
Start date(s)
14 September 2026
UCAS Code
W846
Course specifications
View course spec
Course length
Full-time (3 years),Part-time (6 years)
Campus location
University: City Campus
School
School of Social Science, Humanities and Creative Industries
UCAS points calculator
Open Points Calculator
'Writing my dissertation encouraged a lifelong passion and gave me the confidence to pursue academic writing professionally. I have a paper in the works that has been accepted as part of a collection curated by Fran Pheasant-Kelly by Edinburgh University press which is exciting!'
Alex Hackett, 2015

Why choose this course?

We are one of a handful of UK universities to offer a single honours programme in Creative and Professional Writing, offering you the unique opportunity to solely concentrate upon the act and art of writing for different audiences, in different contexts and genres, and with a view to fulfilling ambitions in your own practice.

We believe Creative and Professional Writing to be an art, a vocation, a craft, occupation, and practice that can be historicised, theorised, genderised, digitalised and regionalised, and all of our modules are dedicated to offering you the best start to your writing career.

With a real emphasis upon employability, we are passionate about nurturing new voices and encourage you to explore the subjects and stories you want to write about. It is why our programme is specifically designed to enable you to take ownership over your own learning from Level 5, giving you the choice of pursuing a specific learning pathway in a particular medium to develop your expertise – poetry, prose, professional – or to continue with the traditional piecemeal approach. There is also the chance to get involved and participate in The Wolverhampton Literature Festival.

Taught by a dedicated team of published writers with national reputations with an as you write it, we’re writing too ethos, we offer a variety of specialist modules that draw from our own practice and expertise including:

  • Writing, Region and Identity
  • Geo-Poetics and Eco-Narratives
  • Crime Writing
  • Children’s Literature – which includes the opportunity to work on a writing project with an illustrator from the School of Art.

In your final year, alongside your Independent Study Project, we have the unique opportunity to not only begin a novel in semester 1, but to continue working on that novel and perhaps towards completion, with a practising novelist throughout semester 2.

We also offer a dedicated Writing Week where you will have access to guest authors, industry speakers, and masterclasses, and be encouraged to write for personal projects. There is also the opportunity to perform your own work at the various Literature Festivals we partner in the region and to join us for our End of Semester panel events discussing the subjects that challenge us writers today.

 

What's unique about this course?

  • With a real emphasis upon employability, we are passionate about nurturing new voices and encourage you to explore the subjects and stories you want to write about.

  • This course is one of the few in the country to combine English with creative and professional writing (most exclude the former). Thus there is a real emphasis on employability.

  • The Black Country's only dedicated Creative & Professional degree course.

  • Extensive calendar of events including the Wolverhampton Literature Festival and workshops run by acclaimed visiting writers.

  • Our creative pathways allow students to tailor their own degrees

  • Academic expertise, taught by published and continuing-to-be-published novelists, short story writers and poets.

  • A department that inspires and nurtures, celebrating success and achievement, where future creative careers are at the centre of our teaching.

  • Tackling a broad range of creative and professional writing strategies to encourage experimentation, critical engagement and ever-improving creative writing practice.

What happens on the course?

This course is currently subject to revalidation in February 2026.

Level 4 provides an essential overview of Creative and Professional Writing practice by focusing upon the fundamental skills and techniques writers use and how they might apply to your own work.

You will take six core modules across two semesters that are designed to challenge and develop your own practice and to further understand the writing process. We’ll introduce you to the craft of short fiction and the various strands of creative non-fiction. You will engage in how to read and write poetry and be introduced to the ideas behind the authorial intention and the reader-engagement theories underpinning subjective interpretation in Reading as a Writer. You’ll be introduced to the art of Screenwriting and explore the literature by writers living and working here in the Midlands, past and present.

Level 5 shows our dedication to your writing career and is therefore all about your module choices. Here, you take ownership over your own learning by choosing to pursue a particular learning pathway – in poetry, prose or professional writing – in order to specialise in a medium and further develop your practice within it, or to pursue the traditional piecemeal approach which enables the flexibility to try your hand at multiple writing crafts.

This means no core modules and a stronger focus upon where you intend to take your writing. We offer more specialist topics in terms of genre writing, such as

  • Crime
  • Thrillers
  • Regional Narratives
  • Horror,
  • Speculative
  • Children’s Literature

whilst enabling you to advance your studies in Creative Non-Fiction via the Life Writing module or to develop your poetry practice in From Page to Stage. Professionally, our module Writing Features introduces you the foundations of journalism and features writing with the opportunity to contribute your work to our departmental blog.

Level 6 offers a continuation in your learning pathway or to again embrace the piecemeal approach. The poetry pathway shifts the focus to Geo-Poetics and Eco-Narratives, and the prose pathway offers you the unique opportunity of producing a novel (or part of) over 2 semesters, better preparing you for the publishing industry.

Our Writing Futures module enables practice within the multitude of writing-specific careers, and Literature in the Digital Age explores how writers have adapted to and used the medium of cyberculture as a means of production. You will also be expected to complete an independent creative writing study as a way to reflect and represent your 3 years here as a student of Creative and Professional Writing.

Many of our modules have Book Clubs discussing set texts, collaborative writing opportunities, group presentations, informal workshops, and online discussion forums to continue thinking beyond the seminar.

Our dedicated Writing Week is scheduled in week 7 each semester, its aim to bring all students of all levels together as one learning community to engage in a series of events and masterclasses and have access to guest authors and industry speakers. Our End of Semester panel events culminate a semester’s learning by discussing the topics that continue to challenge writers with a guest author in the hot seat.  

Placements on the course

We’ve built professional placements into every degree, every student will be guaranteed a professional placement. Our placements give you the real-world exposure and proven experience your CV needs, while building the industry networks essential for your career.

These short-term, structured experiences include:

  • Short duration: condensed work-like experience in professional environments
  • Academic integration: always linked to coursework, assessments or professional development modules
  • Project-based learning: students work on specific tasks or research with an organisation
  • Flexible format: can be in-person, remote, hybrid or virtual
  • Skill development: enhances workplace skills like communication, teamwork and problem-solving
  • Experiential learning: helping to close the gap between knowledge gained and the skills needed to succeed

Employability on the course

Our courses are designed from day one to prepare you for your future career. You will benefit from:

  • Extended induction: a period to familiarise yourself with your new university
  • Structured learning pathways: courses are crafted with a focus on preparing students for future careers
  • Hands-on project experience: projects and practical activities designed around real-world activities
  • Embedded professional development: all courses are designed with workplace skills development and professional placements as part of the course
  • Industry-informed modules: course content is kept up-to-date with industry standards through our industry links, staff's research and work in the field
  • Placement opportunities: professional development placements for every student

Potential Career Paths

You!

Copy Writer

Technical Writer

Copy Editor Commissioning Editor

Proof Reader

Professional/ Freelance Writer

Publishing

Press & Publicity

Marketing & Sales

Additional Information

Everything you need to know about this course!

  • This course is one of the few in the country to combine English with creative and professional writing (most exclude the former). Thus there is a real emphasis on employability.
  • The course is taught by prize-winning, published writers whose books cover a wide range of creative, professional and critical disciplines (fiction, poetry, journalism, critical writing and scholarship etc).
  • Special visiting lecturers from the world of publishing are invited to speak on modules, as are internationally renowned authors.

 Comments from our External Examiners on provision:
“The team in themselves are highly active and productive as writers - their publications in contemporary fiction, humour writing, literary criticism and creative writing pedagogy are important contributions to their respective fields and ensure the relevance and currency of their teaching."

 

On successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

  • Think critically, reflectively and creatively about writing
  • Engage in the comprehension, analysis and appreciation of written texts using variety of written, oral and digital resources
  • Demonstrate key employment skills (e.g. self-management, IT, digital literacy, enterprise, working in groups)
  • Produce artistically coherent, original and technically adept writing
  • Articulate both orally and in writing knowledge and understanding of texts, theories, discourse conventions and strategies relevant to the study of creative and professional writing within a multicultural context
  • Source, research, assimilate and articulate material relevant to the production of creative and professional writing.

 

Location Mode Sep intake Fee Jan intake Fee Year
Home Full-time £9535 per year £9535 per year 2025-26
Home Part-time £4768 per year# £4768 per year 2025-26
International Full-time £15995 per year £16950 per year 2025-26

The University is committed to a transparent fee structure, with no hidden costs, to help you make an informed decision. This includes information on what is included in the fee and how fees are calculated and reviewed.


If a tuition fee is not showing, we may not offer this intake for this course. Please check the start date information on the course finder for start dates.

# Undergraduate part-time fees for 50% rate of study

Typical entry requirement: 96 UCAS points

  • A Levels - grades CCC / BCD
  • BTEC L3 Extended Diploma or OCR Cambridge L3 Technical Extended Diploma - grades MMM
  • BTEC L3 Diploma - grades DD
  • Access to HE Diploma (60 credits) of which a minimum of 45 must be at Level 3 (96 UCAS point equivalence, minimum 45 credits at merit)
  • T Levels with an overall grade of Pass and a minimum grade of C in Core.

    • Use the UCAS Tariff calculator to check your qualifications and points

    Other Requirements

    Students must usually have studied for a minimum of two years post GCSE level. However, we will consider applications from mature students who do not have two years of post-16 study, where they have relevant work experience. Please see http://wlv.ac.uk/mature for further information.

Tuition Fees Loan (Home Fee Status):

Most students will be able to apply for a loans to pay for these subject to eligibility. To find out more information please refer to the government Student Finance website.

Changes for EU students:

The UK government has confirmed that EU students starting courses from 1 August 2021 will normally be classified as having Overseas Fee status. More information about the change is available at UKCISA:

EU citizens living in the UK with 'settled' status, and Irish nationals living in the UK or Ireland, will still be classified as Home students, providing they meet the usual residency requirements, for more information about EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS)


Self-funding:

If you don’t want to take out a loan to pay your fees or if you aren’t eligible to receive a loan, you might want to take advantage of the University’s scheme to pay by instalments: See How to pay.

For more information please contact the Gateway.


Your employer, embassy or organisation can pay for your Tuition fees:

If your employer, embassy or organisation agrees to pay all or part of your tuition fees; the University will refer to them as your sponsor and will invoice them for the appropriate amount.

We must receive notification of sponsorship in writing as soon as possible, and before enrolment, confirming that the sponsor will pay your tuition fees.


Financial Hardship:

Students can apply to the Dennis Turner Opportunity Fund.

for help with course related costs however this cannot be used for fees or to cover general living costs.


Bursaries and Scholarships:

In addition the University also offers a range of Bursaries and Scholarships packages

You can find more information on the University’s Funding, cost, fee and support pages.

Telephone

01902 32 22 22

Email

enquiries@wlv.ac.uk

Online

Order a prospectus

How we compare

Find out how our course is rated on Discover Uni, the official website for comparing UK higher education courses.

Find out how our course is rated on Discover Uni, the official website for comparing UK higher education courses.

Full-time Course

Part-time Course

Make it happen

Order a prospectus Visit an Open Day
Ask a student about University Life

Related Courses

BA (Hons) Professional Policing
BA (Hons) Sociology and History
BA (Hons) Sociology and History with Foundation Year
BA (Hons) Animation with Foundation Year
BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing with Foundation Year

Your recently viewed courses Recently Viewed