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Postgraduate Creative Writing - International Students

The Department of English & Creative Writing is increasingly the focus of teaching activity, action research and interdisciplinary academic research in the field of international writing. Postgraduate study in Creative Writing has recently been strengthened by the establishment of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research (CTWR), which aims to establish both virtual and face-to-face links between Lancaster University's postgraduate student community and extensive research activity in creative writing and its impact on society. Lancaster's Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing and our new distance learning PhD programme deploy the latest virtual learning technology to support their programmes of writing and research, which have a strong intercultural dimension, recruiting students from very diverse cultural backgrounds and their research is linked to a panorama of writings linking issues of location, migration, diaspora and intercultural exchange.

International Scholarships for the Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing. In 2009-10 and 2010-11, we were able to offer two International Scholarships (worth £8,000 over two years) to applicants resident outside the EU who needed assistance in financing their studies. Although we have been unable to fund the Scholarships for 2011-12, we are hoping to offer them again in future years.  Read more about the current recipients of our International Scholarships.

Major Research Projects and Events

The Centre, established in May 2007, incorporates a range of pre-existing transcultural and intercultural research activity (listed below - Moving Manchester, Crossing Borders, Radiophonics, Trans-Scriptions) and aims to create a transnational and interdisciplinary environment that will generate and promote the comparative study of creative writing across cultures. The activities of the Centre will stimulate and explore creative process - its definition through textual production, mobility, publication, transmission, adaptation, re-writing and translation - and its theoretical and cultural context.

Trans-Scriptions - writing culture location

The Trans-Scriptions seminar series has been running since 2005 and offers discussion plus readings from contemporary writers. The focus was on academic and creative writings that have developed in relation to decolonisation - defined variously as post-war European, postcolonial, Black British, British-Asian, first or second-generation migrant writing. The organisers of these events were Dr Graham Mort and Dr Lindsey Moore. A new Trans-Scriptions series will run the academic years 2007-08 and 2008-09, supported by the Faculty New Developments Fund.

‘Moving Manchester: Mediating Marginalities’: How the experience of migration has informed the work of writers in Greater Manchester from 1960 to the present

Moving Manchester explores creative writing from Greater Manchester that has been informed and influenced by the experience of migration. Over the last forty years, these written narratives have unsettled and transformed representations of Manchester life and have been expressed through an impressive range of literary forms, including fiction, poetry, autobiography, drama and screenplay. The project, which is funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council, aims to bring these writings to wider public and scholarly attention. In close collaboration with The Arts Council, local publishers and writers' groups, museums and holders of archives, the project will catalogue and survey the published work in English of Greater Manchester's varied writing constituencies. The research team comprises literary critics, cultural theorists and creative writers and the project is unique in combining critical analysis with pro-active literature development in its mission to produce an anthology of new work as well as a full academic study. Led by Professor Lynne Pearce (Department of English and Creative Writing), Dr Robert Crawshaw (Department of European Languages and Cultures) and Dr Graham Mort (Department of English and Creative Writing).

Radiophonics

Dr. Graham Mort developed Radiophoniics, an action-research radio-writing project in Uganda and Nigeria as legacy to the Crossing Borders project. Radiophonics was piloted with Sanyu FM, Kampala. Eight Ugandan writers - Adrian Baryamujura, Ebenezer Bifubyeka, Irene Luyiga, Jackie Olanya, Nancy Oloro Robarts, Roy-Moses Kalyesubula, Julius Caesar Sseremba, and David Tumusiime - all Crossing Borders alumni - were involved in the pilot scheme. A series of 8 short stories was developed for broadcast, focusing on issues of topical concern. The new scheme in Uganda and Nigeria builds on the pilot project and will focus on issues of access to democracy.

Crossing Borders

Crossing Borders was an exciting new initiative, piloted by Dr Graham Mort in 2001, that used information technology to link young writers in Africa with experienced mentors in the UK. The project was funded by the British Council in London, designed and managed by the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University and enabled by a network of British Council offices in Africa. Participants in the project were drawn from Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, S. Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ghana and South Africa. The mentors represented a wide range of cultural backgrounds and writing practice, creating a project that rich in cultural exchange as well as practical strategies for writing development. Crossing Borders created a new, international community of writers who communicated through the development of new writing to share their knowledge and experience.

Beyond Borders

In October 2005 some 45 writers from across Africa and the UK were welcomed at the British Council's Beyond Borders Literature Festival in Kampala, Uganda, to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of African Writing. The three day festival was took place in a range of venues - from the Sharaton Hotel to Makerere and Kyembogo Universities - and was packed with activities, including writers’ workshops, publishers' surgeries, discussion panels, readings, poetry performances and storytelling from within Africa and its diaspora to the UK.