IMPORTANT DATES 2009-2010 AUTUMN TERM Monday 5 October 2009 Beginning of Autumn Term. Monday 5 October Introductory Meeting of all MA students at 6.00 pm (room tba). Wine to follow in H502. Wednesday 7 October All module choices to be finalised. Hand in completed orange registration cards to Reception (H506). Monday 9 November All Bibliography Exercises to be submitted to the English Office (H506) by 12.00 noon. Saturday 12 December End of Autumn Term. SPRING TERM Monday 11 January 2010 Beginning of Spring Term. Monday 15 February First Term 1 portfolio to be submitted. Saturday 21 March End of Spring Term. SUMMER TERM Monday 26 April Beginning of Summer Term. Monday 24 May Second Term 1 portfolio to be submitted. Monday 28 June First Term 2 portfolio to be submitted. Saturday 3 July End of Summer Term. Wednesday 1st September Submit all remaining portfolios and/or Long Project by 2.00 pm. Wednesday 20 October 2010 Taught MA Examination Board 1 THE WARWICK WRITING PROGRAMME Master’s Programme in Writing This handbook should be read in conjunction with the general MA Students’ Handbook for the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies. The general handbook contains practical information on practical matters such as registration for options, mail and messages, use of Common Room, IT services, transport, portfolio / essay binding, complaints procedures, and so on. Please consult your personal tutor if you have questions not answered by this documentation. STAFF CONTACTS Director of Graduate Professor Room 024 76 573092 [email protected] Studies, Department of Jackie Labbe H523 English & Comparative Literary Studies Graduate Secretary Mrs Cheryl Room 02476 523665 [email protected] Cave H505 MA in Writing: Maureen Freely Room 024 76 523348 [email protected] Convenor, Admissions H527 Tutor and Examinations (Autumn Term Room 024 76 524473 Secretary 09 Jeremy H526 [email protected] Treglown Director of the David Morley Room 02476 523346 [email protected] Warwick Writing H521 Programme 2 INTRODUCTION The MA Programme in Writing The degree is intended for students who are already experienced as well as ambitious practising writers, whether published or not. While we don’t believe that creativity, as such, can be taught, or that it is only fulfilled in ‘the marketplace’, we do aim to help develop technical writing skills which students will find useful professionally, whether in full-time authorship or in related professions such as publishing, the media, or teaching. Course content and methods of teaching and assessment involve a mixture of approaches based on workshops (see page xx) and portfolios, combined with more traditional academic pedagogies. At least as important as the teaching, though, are the space and stimulus to write within a community of people who have similar aspirations and are facing similar practical, imaginative and intellectual problems. The literary community at Warwick is a scholarly as well as a creative one: the University is one of the most highly ranked research institutions, nationally, to offer such a degree. Much of the value of the course comes from students’ working on the University campus and making use of the full range of activities which it offers. ‘Litbiz’, ‘Work in Progress’, ‘Writers at Warwick’ and other series and external links Staff of the Programme have excellent links not only with other writers but also with publishing houses, literary journals and agencies, with national and regional organizations such as the Arts Council, PEN and the Royal Literary Fund, and with other creative writing schools in Britain, continental Europe and the USA. An exchange programme enables MA students undertaking long projects to work in Milan under the supervision of Tim Parks. A regular series under the title Litbiz brings literary professionals – among them, publishers and agents - to the Writers’ Room, where they meet students informally over sandwiches before giving a talk chaired by one of the MA students. Another occasional series, Work in Progress, gives an opportunity for writers – including Warwick staff - to read from and discuss their current projects. In partnership with the Warwick Arts Centre, the Writing Programme also helps to organize Writers at Warwick, a weekly series of public readings and talks by visiting authors throughout the academic year. More than 300 writers have appeared in the series since 1997, among them Monica Ali, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Umberto Eco, Bernardine Evaristo, Michael Frayn, Christopher Hampton, Tony Harrison, Nick Hornby, Clive James, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hanif Kureishi, Hermione Lee, Doris Lessing, Mario Vargas Llosa, David Lodge, Ian McEwan, Anne Michaels, Andrew Motion, Tim Parks, Michèle Roberts, Salman Rushdie, Will Self, Wole Soyinka, Meera Syal, Derek Walcott, Marina Warner, Fay Weldon Edmund White and Gao Xingjian. We regard students’ active participation in these events as an essential part of their experience on the Writing Programme. Full details can be accessed at the Warwick Arts Centre website: www.warwickartscentre.co.uk. The Writing Programme is closely involved with the CAPITAL Centre - Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/capital/ - a joint project between the University and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Centre facilitates a number of activities which overlap with those of the Writing Programme - among them, writing for performance. The Centre is housed in a large, newly converted block next to University House, ten minutes’ walk from the Humanities Building. It contains studios, exhibition space, IT facilities and a new Writers’ Room which we use for a range of literary activities. It has a resident theatre company and fellowship programme of its own which has brought to Warwick people like the poet and editor Fiona Sampson and the dramatist Adriano Shaplin, both of whom worked with the Writing Programme. 3 Other aspects of the Writing Programme’s work include international conferences and public debates on topics which have included Censorship, The Needs of Writers, Minority Cultures and the Establishment Press, Science Writing, Creativity, Women in the British Theatre, Writing for Children and Journalism and Public Policy. In 2008, students on the Programme organized Pencilfest: the First National Student Writers' Festival. Writers’ Lunch: Please make a point of bringing your sandwiches to the Writers’ Room on Thursdays, any time between 12.00 and 2.00, and feel free to invite a friend with an interest in writing. The Writers’ Lunches are an opportunity for staff, students and visiting writers to meet informally. They are usually followed by an event at 2.00, and the visiting speaker is usually at the lunch. 4 THE COURSE STRUCTURE IN OUTLINE There are two pathways through the Warwick MA in Writing. A) involves five taught modules in which a wide range of written work is produced. B) - the 'Long Project' route - involves three taught modules plus, as the title suggests, a long written project in any genre which the Programme is able to supervise. Permission to follow the 'Long Project' route depends on an assessment of the student's prior experience of writing as well as the availability of a qualified supervisor or supervisors. This decision is made after an interview in the first week of the autumn term. Route A: five taught modules Full-time students take three modules in the autumn term, two in the spring. The summer is given to ‘writing up’, supported by additional workshops and 1:1 tutorials. The course is structured so as to give students a strong basis in creative work in the first term, followed by an element of optionality afterwards. What follows describes the normal pattern, but there is some flexibility over it. For example, a student who chose to switch to more ‘academic’ study in the second term would be able to do so, subject to her / his previous academic experience. Part-time students work out their programme in conjunction with the MA Convenor. We try not to make last-minute changes in course plans but modifications are sometimes necessary because of staff illness or other unforeseen circumstances. AUTUMN TERM All of the following: Research Methods (for module details, see page 8) Warwick Fiction Workshop I (for module details, see page 9) Life Writing since 1900: History and Practice (for module details see page 11) Participation in workshops and other events SPRING TERM Module choices for the second term need to be made by the end of September. As numbers may be restricted on some modules, students will be asked to name their second and third choices. Two of the following: Warwick Fiction Workshop II (for module details, see page 15) Writing and the Practice of Literature (for module details see page 13) or Another module selected from those offered at MA level by the Faculty of Arts, subject to the permissions both of the director of the MA in Writing and of the module convenor.* Modules change from year to year and may be restricted in terms of student numbers but the list might include: Society, Economic & Empire in the British Novel: 1688- 1815; Literatures of War; The British Dramatist in Society, 1965-2005; Crossing Borders: Writing, Language, Cultural Transfer; Feminist Literary Theory; Shakespeare in Performance. More details can be found on the websites of individual departments – in the case of English, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/postgrad/current/masters/modules/ 5 *Because some Warwick MA programmes involve foundation elements such as a preliminary training in literary theory, students interested in a particular module should be careful to find out whether their previous academic experience gives them sufficient grounding for it. Plus participation in workshops and other events SUMMER TERM Continuation of written projects under supervision Participation in workshops and other events Route B: Long Project Permission to follow the 'Long Project' route depends on an assessment of the student's prior experience of writing as well as the availability of a qualified supervisor or supervisors.