Canelo / Arts Council England

Lecturing and Creative Writing courses: In 1970, when it opened, 

the UEA Creative Writing MA was the first in the country. Since then 

it has produced an extraordinary roster of successful writers including 

three Booker Prize winners and six Costa Award winners. Now, 

however, it is far from alone. A huge number of universities offer not 

just MAs in creative writing but undergraduate courses and PhDs as 

well. The model has spread to the commercial world with, for example, 

both Faber & Faber and literary agency Curtis Brown also setting 

up their own creative writing courses. This has necessitated a large 

increase in the need for people to teach such courses and so offers a 

new chance of employment to literary writers. Given there are dozens 

and dozens of courses from Falmouth to Lancaster, and each requires 

a range of lecturers, this is a substantial and growing source of reliable 

income across the board for writers. Indeed even PhDs offer a system 

of support for literary writers: one of our interviewees said they had 

heard of scholarships worth up to £60,000 in total for Creative Writing 

PhDs although spread out over a few years. While such courses feel 

close to a writer and may even feed into their work, they also take up a 

large amount of time.