Exciting news & opportunities for MA Creative Writing @EdinburghNapier University

Now is the perfect time to apply for the MA Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. We've got lots of exciting opportunities and news to share, but - unusually - we also have a few places left for the September 2016 intake.

Most years we are already full by now but several prospective students with unconditional offers of a place on the course have had to defer starting until September 2017. That's a shame for them, but it has created openings for late applications to our acclaimed MA programme.

If you've considered applying but thought it was too late for this September, there is still time to take action. There are direct links to our online application form on the right hand side of this blog - one for full-time students, one for part-timers.

If you want to know more about our MA and the application process, read this blogpost. But enough of the sales pitch, what about our exciting news and opportunities?

Firstly, we're proud to announce the creative writing programmes at Edinburgh Napier in Scotland and Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania, USA have signed an articulation agreement, enabling graduates of our MA to continue their studies on the Writing Popular Fiction MFA at Seton Hill.

What does that actually mean? Most students who graduate from the MA here at Edinburgh Napier have written the first 20,000 words of their Major Project, usually a novel. Going on to Seton Hill will give them continuing support and mentoring to finish that project.

Dr Nicole Peeler, director of the Seton Hill MFA

Seton Hill considers the MA as equivalent to a year spent on the MFA, meaning students articulating from Edinburgh Napier could complete the degree at Seton Hill in just over a year.

The MFA is a low residency programme [akin to distance learning], so students work from home most of the year and visit the Greensburg campus for week-long residencies.

And Seton Hill is offering a significant fee discount for the first few Edinburgh Napier MA Creative Writing graduates who articulate to the MFA.

Urban fantasy writer Nicole Peeler is director of the Writing Popular Fiction programme at Seton Hill, and is an enthusiastic supporter of the new agreement. [Click her name in this paragraph to read more about the MFA.]

More news: the Creative Writing MA programme team at Edinburgh Napier is expanding. We are in the final stages of recruiting a new part-time lecturer to help us grow and enhance the course.

Interviews are being held next month and - fingers crossed! - the new team member should be in place for the start of the 2016-17 academic year this September. Watch this space for more news...

One last piece of news: we are introducing a new learning journey for part-time students on our MA. When we discussed what we were doing with the current crop of part-timers, several of them admitted being jealous of the new structure their successors will enjoy!

Watch out for another blogpost later this week revealing the new-look part-time Creative Writing MA here at Edinburgh Napier. Frankly, we're not sure why we didn't think of it sooner... Onwards!

Admissions process for MA Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland

Unique is a good way to describe the postgrad creative writing programme at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. For a start, we put genre fiction front and centre in our course. If you love writing and reading science fiction, fantasy, crime or horror, most MFAs and MAs don't want to know - but we embrace great genre writing.

Another unique focus at Edinburgh Napier is comics and graphic novels, which most other programmes ignore. In fact, we love this medium so much we devote an entire module about it, Writing Graphic Fiction. [You don't have to be an artist to write comics, but a passion for collaboration helps.] We also specialise in creative non-fiction, applying the techniques for developing and writing a novel to a research-based narrative.

Edinburgh Napier's postgraduate creative writing MA does not offer a poetry option. I repeat, poetry is not a requirement. There are plenty of other great courses with brilliant poets on the faculty - if you want to study poetry, seek them out. We have had prize-winning poets as students on our programme, but we don't teach or critique poetry.

There are no peer review workshops in postgraduate creative writing classes at Edinburgh Napier. I repeat, no peer review workshops. This boggles the mind of some people, as such workshops are the bedrock of postgrad creative writing pretty much everywhere else. But we don't have peer review workshops in our classes. Yes, really.

We do set weekly writing assignments and expect you to bring the results to class. You're also expected to critically self-reflect on your work [with prompts from us], and to share that thinking. You'll receive professional editorial feedback, delivered in front of other students in a masterclass style. And you'll get six hours of one-to-one mentoring.

If that sounds enticing, here's how you apply for our course. Unsurprisingly, the admissions process we use to select students also seems to be unique to this programme...

First, you fill in and submit an application form [there are links for the online version top right of the blogroll on this page]. We welcome applicants who already have a degree [it doesn't have to be in English, English literature or some form of creative writing]. But we also recognise prior learning in people who don't  have a degree yet.

The crucial section of your application form is the personal statement. This is where you tell us about your journey as a writer so far, and why you want to come on our programme. Here's a hint: don't just paste in your usual personal statement. We always look to see if applicants have mentioned any of the unique elements on our course.

Do some research. There are links on this page to interviews we've given in the past about our ethos, our approach to  creative writing. Read other entries on this blog. If you want your application taken seriously, show us you've taken our course seriously. Plus: that statement is a first chance to showcase your writing. Blow our socks off!

All being well, we'll progress you to the next stage of our 3-step admissions process. We don't ask for a writing sample up front. Instead - if we like your application form - we'll invite you to take part in a writing challenge. We will ask you to write us an original short story of up to 1000 words, and you'll have two weeks to submit it.

To make this a challenge, we give you a choice of first sentences. You select one and use that as the opening for your story. We also let you decide when we send the brief, so you choose the two weeks for writing the story that best suit you. We even include the criteria we'll be using to assess your writing challenge submission.

Once you've sent us your story, we read and assess it. Some applicants get turned away at this stage [we take roughly one out of every five people who apply to our programme]. But if the story shows promise, we will invite you to a selection interview - either face to face, or via Skype if you live a long distance from Edinburgh.

The interview is the final stage of our admissions process. It can last up to an hour. During that time we use teaching and learning activities from our course to assess you as an applicants. But this process also gives you insight into our programme and how we teach it. The interview should be an enjoyable experience, not an interrogation!

We let you know within a day if we're offering you a place. We use a rolling admissions process, rather than stockpiling applications or making you wait months for a decision. Once we're full, we're full. Our MA takes a maximum of 16 full-time students a year, and up to four part-timers who study for two years to complete it.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch before you formally apply. Email programme leader Sam Kelly [her address is s.kelly@napier.ac.uk]. The class of 2013/14 is nearly full, and we have already offered places to several applicants for September 2014. The sooner you apply, the better your chances...