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Study postgraduate online with Macquarie University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

The Master of Creative Writing teaches emerging writers to understand and develop their craft in a small community of writers. The focus is on developing your creativity and writing skills, and to provide expert training if you are aiming for professional publication. You are encouraged to experiment, hone your writing proficiency, and develop a technical vocabulary for critiquing your own work and the work of others. Specialist units in the degree engage with novel and short story writing, literary and popular fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction (such as memoir, writing about place, personal essay), and manuscript development.

Master of Creative Writing

An Introduction to Creative Writing

Creative Writing

Introduction to Creative and Professional Writing

Professional Writing

Travel Writing

Writing the Short Story

Writing for Children

Writing Short Fiction

Writing Long Fiction

Writing Genre Fiction

Genre fiction often features distinctive storyworlds ranging from gritty realism to the whimsically fantastical. This unit explores the ways in which genre helps writers explore complex themes and issues through the lens of these genre-driven worlds. Rather than viewing genre conventions as restrictive to the creative process, students will investigate how genre conventions can be utilised (and, in some cases, challenged or subverted) to help writers build exciting and immersive worlds. Students will have the opportunity to experiment with writing memorable characters, creating unique fictional worlds, and structuring engaging plots through a range of popular genres.

Genre Fiction for Writers

This unit focuses on developing pathways to publication via traditional magazines, digital platforms, and grassroot community events and activities. Creative writing topics include literary and genre fiction, and creative nonfiction topics such as food, health, lifestyle, travel and entertainment. Students learn to analyse readerships, identify market opportunities, determine the most appropriate publication venues, pitch to magazines, and use digital platforms to build author profiles and distribute content. Students will also be invited to look at mentorships, fellowships, and residencies as part of a writing pathway.

Getting Published: Traditional, Digital, and Community Pathways

This unit trains students in poetics and language-usage as applicable to poetry and prose. The unit focuses on experimentation in craft and technique with particular attention to language, including poetic tropes, traditional and contemporary approaches to form as well as strategies for sequencing poetry and short-form prose works.In addition to writing workshops, students undertake close reading and analysis of published Australian and international poetry and prose and explore theoretical texts that investigate questions of form and the relationship of the reader to the text. Activities are structured so that students can make productive links between theoretical concepts and their own writing. At the outcome of the unit students will have produced major and minor works of creative writing and extended their skills in practical analysis of poetry and language-focused prose.

Word, Image, Form: Language-Based Strategies in Poetry and Prose

This unit demystifies the “literary” by examining the rise and development of literary fiction, noting its attributes as well as understanding what literariness is defined against. Students begin by having fun writing overwrought “purple prose” stories which they then analyse and learn to revise and edit according to a literary aesthetic. The unit also focuses on developing complex characters who drive plot, exploring significant themes and issues, and experimenting with different narrative styles.

Writing Literary Fiction

This unit focuses on the short-form creative writing in its evolving forms, including micro narratives and the short story , poetry cycles, the short story sequence . In addition to the weekly writing workshops, students read Australian and international short-form writing, and narrative studies texts that investigate questions of form and the relationship of the reader to the text. Students develop a critical awareness of the broader national and international contexts in which short-form writing is to published. At the conclusion of the unit, students will have produced a range of short-form creative works and a book plan.

Short Form Writing

This unit offers students the opportunity to develop a research project based on specific genres of creative writing and to reflect on how this affects their own creative practice. Students will have the opportunity to read and analyse different genres and to research current scholarship and publishing trends in these genres. Working independently, students will hone their critical research, writing, and presentation skills. By the end of this unit, students will gain a critical understanding of the contemporary academic and professional contexts of their own writing.

Research for Creative Writing

In this unit, and assessed across two stages, students produce a 10,000 word creative manuscript (or equivalent in the case of poetry or other forms), which may be a complete work such as a themed collection of poetry or short stories, creative nonfiction essays, the opening chapters of a longer work such as a novella or novel, or a digital interactive text-based work. There are no compulsory classes or workshops: students work independently with regular written and verbal feedback from a writing supervisor.

Manuscript Project

This practical writing unit reflects on the dynamic relationships that exist between creative writing practice and digital, networked and interactive cultures. Students will be introduced to techniques in authoring short-form narrative or poetry-based digital and interactive works, exploring technological and literary questions relating to the writing and production of digital works. Students will engage with open-source software and network media to develop skills that advance their digital literacy. At the end of the unit students will have utilised two or more technologies in the writing and production of a minor and major digital creative work.

Digital Creative Writing

This unit introduces students to planning and researching a long-form creative fiction work such as a novella or novel. It provides students with an opportunity to produce a detailed roadmap of their novel or novella, applying their knowledge of literary genres and drawing on techniques of characterisation, plotting, story arc, and themes that will be developed through intensive weekly writing exercises. By the end of this unit, students will have produced a detailed story outline and the opening to their novel or novella.

Developing the Manuscript Project: Novel, Story Cycle, Memoir

In this unit students develop their writing across one or more genres including poetry. The unit encourages students to experiment with new approaches to craft and technique, with particular attention to language. Close reading skills are developed, and reflect upon and interrogate their writing processes, explore new methods in relation to craft and technique or genre. Students undertake close reading and analysis of published creative works and contemporary narrative and poetry studies. Writing workshops and discussion of the readings are structured so that students can make productive links between concepts in narrative studies and their own writing. At the outcome of the unit, students will have produced major and minor works of creative writing and extended their skills in practical analysis of narrative and poetry.

Word Essentials: Prose and Poetry

Macquarie University Postgraduate Creative writing Courses & Degrees | Open Universities Australia

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