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

Be prepared for a future career as an innovator, communicator and creator. With our innovative majors you can tailor your degree to both your professional pursuits and your personal interests, creating a unique skill set that could help you secure your dream job.
You will gain the understanding, insight and skill to find and communicate creative solutions to important world issues. You will develop advanced writing and presentation skills as well as research and project management skills. You will also learn about societies and cultures, past and present.
You will have the option to develop specialist expertise in contemporary fields such as journalism and public relations, or more traditional fields such as sociology, history and literary studies to name some.

Develop critical thinking, writing, and research skills in demand across all industries. You can follow your passion with majors and electives that interest you. Develop connections through peer learning, networking, and work experience.

Bachelor of Arts

This program offers postgraduate training in writing as a preparation for creative and professional practice and/or advanced study. You will hone your writing skills for work as a creative writer, social commentator or narrative journalist and for careers in speech writing, public advocacy, information and media communication.You will gain certified expertise in the theory and practice of creative writing and be introduced to the intersection between writing and information publishing industries. You will develop the techniques of creative and professional written expression, learn concepts and methods in creative research and gain the foundations for advanced study in writing and related fields.

Whether you’re keen on a writing career or looking to scratch a creative itch, you’ll get an overview of the writing and information publishing industries. Build a basis for work in journalism, speech writing, public advocacy, and communications.

Graduate Certificate in Creative and Professional Writing

Writing the Short Story

Creative Writing, Forms and Structures

Writing for Children and Young Adults

Writing Crime and Contemporary Romance

Creative and Professional Writing

Drama Screenwriting

Writing Poetry

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From its beginnings the gothic novel and its cousins, speculative and fantasy fiction, have been popular and sometimes controversial story forms that explore the outer edges of the imagination through fantasy, space, myth, the future the supernatural and the borderlands of desire. This is a realm where nothing is as it appears to be. Safe suburban homes, families, planets, cities and the human body are all vulnerable to authoritarian powers, strange beings, dark spaces, unknown territories, uncanny secrets, and the return of the repressed.
This subject offers you a chance to study and practise writing genre narrative. We will look at a selection of popular gothic and speculative fiction, past and present,Â by practitioners that range from Le Fanu to Bacigalupi, as a springboard for discussion and creative practice. Â 
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Wrap yourself in genre narrative storytelling techniques. Read up on popular and contemporary examples of the Gothic genre. Identify recurring themes and characters. Create written worlds inspired by the Gothic and speculative fiction canons.

Writing Gothic and Speculative Fiction

In this subject you will explore a range of poetic styles and approaches. With an emphasis on creative writing that is informed by the discovery and critical reading of poetry, writers will examine and write poetry from various historical and contemporary traditions. These will include such forms as free verse, sestinas and rhyming couplets, through to narrative prose poems and dramatic monologues.
From this subject you will gain a broad understanding of poetry&#39;s history and evolution, with the primary focus of compiling a portfolio of poetic works within these traditions. An emphasis will be placed on weekly writing exercises and weekly discussion of wide reading throughout the Study Period, with the ultimate goal to begin to develop their individualised poetic voice.

Explore the broad church of writing styles that make up the poetic form. Get swept up by sonnets, free verse, rhyming couplets and narrative prose poems. Analyse the role of language and expression. Find out about the poetry publishing industry.

This subject provides you with an understanding of technical aspects of writing in various genres, styles and viewpoints in the short story form. You will explore a range of practical, critical and editorial strategies. You will examine aspects of your own writing process in critical depth and also aspects of the nature of creativity and creative skills through reading acclaimed writers&#39; works.
You will have opportunity to develop skills and understandings related to a variety of publishing outcomes and will be provided with a supportive environment for producing a folio of original work reflecting your development during the Study Period.

Craft short stories while taking into account themes, viewpoints and structure. Query short story genres. Take a look at your own writing process and look for ways to improve it. Examine the writing industry and ask how you can break into it.

Creative and Professional Writing is a foundation subject that enables beginner and more experienced writers to develop their creative and professional writing skills across a range of genres. Throughout the Study Period, you will examine the role of structure, plot, opening lines, character development, dialogue and settings in the production of exciting and effective writing.Through a series of voluntary writing and learning tasks and formal assessment pieces you analyse and critique the following writing styles: Short story writing, dialogue and promotional writing, critical reviews. You are encouraged to become part of an online writing group and to share your work with each other in response to set writing tasks.

This subject examines current and past contexts for writing for children and young adults in Australia and internationally. It investigates trends, issues, literary concerns and developmental influences on children&#39;s and young adults&#39; publishing, and provides opportunity for the student to develop a folio of short original works relevant to the market.The student will explore social and cultural issues including gender, race and sub-culture, adult and teenage issues, the position of the writer/reader and literary/political demands being made on producers of younger people&#39;s fiction and poetry in texts today.

Explore the blurred boundaries between children’s and young adult fiction. Sift through nursery rhymes, folk tales and fantasy fiction. Spot recurring themes like gender and sub-cultures. Experiment while creating fiction for your own folio.

Running with the idea that the distance between pleasure and pain is never too far in popular culture narratives, this subject examines two highly successful popular fiction genres: Crime Fiction and Chick Literature/Lad Fiction.
Students will be asked to examine historical and artistic developments in these two genres, consider popular culture theory and develop practical techniques in order to produce a folio of original creative and analytical work. The folio consists of two stories written in either genre utilising different perspectives and techniques, and a critical analysis of a popular culture product.

Go populist and examine two of fiction’s most beloved genres. Stroll through the history of crime and romance. Investigate noir detective fiction. Dip into chick lit and lad fic. Put pen to paper and produce writing to fit into one of these genres.

This subject provides an introduction to the fundamentals of contemporary practice in a range of forms pertinent to creative writing industries and the student&#39;s progress through a creative writing major in a bachelor&#39;s degree. The forms focussed on are: the poem, the performance script and film script, electronic literature forms, the critical review, the essay and the exegesis.You will have opportunity to develop basic skills and understandings of the structures in each of these forms, and will be provided with a supportive environment for producing a folio of original pieces reflecting your development.

Break down the fundamental elements that go into specific creative writing forms. Focus in on how poems are structured. Compare the way that scripts are written for the screen versus the stage. Write pieces of your own that demonstrate your knowledge.

Learn the script formats and development processes to design and write a short piece of drama screenwriting, up to 15 minutes in screen duration. The subject requires you to plan and develop a screenplay concept from idea through to an effective design plan. From this, you will then write the first act of your screenplay for critical assessment, before refining the work into a professionally formatted full draft including revised first act, second and third act of your screenplay. The primary focus of the subject is on mastery of the elements of effective screen story design, structure and dynamics.

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