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Study masters degree media & communication online with Macquarie University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

The Master of Creative Writing is designed to extend and challenge emerging writers to hone 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 craft and to 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, creative nonfiction (such as memoir, writing about place, personal essay), poetry, writing for young adults and manuscript development.

Enrich your writing with academic perspectives. From print to digital, you’ll cover all the genres. Explore creative non-fiction and feature writing. Develop your manuscript. Edit. Revise. Give and receive feedback. Write with peers under expert guidance.

Master of Creative Writing

An Introduction to Creative Writing

Editing

Creative Writing

Academic Writing

Grammar and Writing

Web Communications

Academic and Professional Communications

Introduction to Creative and Professional Writing

Introduction to Video Production

Professional Writing

This unit focuses on developing work for magazines that publish different genres of creative writing: literary fiction, genre fiction, and creative non-fiction periodicals that publish writing on lifestyle and entertainment topics such as food and travel. Students learn to identify markets and publication outlets. They analyse specific readerships, styles, and topical content before developing their own publication-ready projects targeting a specific market and learning how to pitch to these magazines.

Professional Contexts of Literary and Feature Writing

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

In this practical introduction to creative non-fiction, students learn to research and write narrative non-fiction pieces such as the memoir, personal essay, travelogue, and environmental writing. We examine some of the great non-fiction essayists and analyse the local and international contexts in which these works are produced. This introductory unit is suitable for students from interdisciplinary backgrounds including creative writing, ethnography, cultural studies, journalism, philosophy and history. You devise your topics in consultation with the lecturer, and are guided in the development of skills in primary research and narrative writing techniques.

Writing Creative Non-Fiction - An Introduction

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 students produce on a book proposal and work on a 10,000 word creative manuscript (or equivalent in the case of poetry), 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 classes or workshops: students work independently with regular written and verbal feedback from a writing supervisor. It is expected that the final work will be of a potentially publishable standard. This unit is only available to students who have achieved an excellent result in ENGX8026. Contact the Course Director for further information on how to apply for direct entry to this unit.

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 Novel or Novella

Research is fundamental to creating innovative writing and constructing a believable storyworld: the shared universe within which settings, characters, and events unfold in a narrative. This unit focuses on developing the different types of research skills needed to create believable characters and vivid settings, and to use historical and contemporary events to ignite the imagination. Students learn how to engage in research that provides: relevant factual information for their topic; background material to assist with world-building; up-to-date scholarship on their genre of writing to gain a critical understanding of how their field has developed, and to identify current trends. Skills learned apply to different genres of writing such as historical or contemporary fiction, fantasy or futuristic writing, romance, crime, local or family history, and biography.

Writing the Past, Building New Worlds: Fiction and Non-Fiction

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

In this unit students develop their creative writing practice across one or more writing genres, drafting new creative work in the genres of the short story or novel chapter. Students extend their skills both in the crafting and the analysis of the craft of writing, and practice close reading skills. New approaches to craft and technique or genre are explored, and students reflect upon and interrogate their writing and writing process. Analysis and evaluation of published creative works and contemporary narrative studies inform and enlarge students’ writing skills and technical vocabularies. At the end of the unit students will have drafted, workshopped and written a new creative work in their chosen genre.

Creative Writing Seminar: Narrative Fundamentals

Macquarie University Masters Degree Media & communication Courses & Degrees | Open Universities Australia

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