Welcome to Creative Writing

The Creative Writing Programs attract students from interstate and overseas who are talented emerging writers, and developing or established writers who wish to write their next work with a mentor or who wish to gain professional qualifications.

The Creative Writing Programs develop a writer's skills through workshops and student-directed learning. Candidates produce what is often their first major manuscript, and develop as more proficient and versatile writers. Candidates also develop as critical readers through literary and technical analysis of Australian and internationally published works. As Higher Research Degree candidates, PhD students in creative writing develop as researchers.

As well, the Programs provide opportunities:

• for PhD students to work via email with mentors for a set number of hours, over a set period
• for Grad Dip/MA students to hear writers present in class and, with PhD  and Honours students, in the Discipline Friday afternoon seminars
• for students to experience professional publishing and performance of creative writing through working on publications and the organisation of reading events, and attending seminars on professional matters such as editing and copyright
• for PhD students to develop teaching/research careers in the academy in creative writing by tutoring and presenting seminars

Please see the Graduate Profiles and Graduate Snapshots sections of this website for details of graduate achievements, and News and Events for current news. Some of our students engage in the following during their courses or afterwards:

• publish books, and short pieces in magazines, journals and newspapers, online and in print
• teach in the English/Creative Writing Discipline and other Disciplines in the academy (Media, European Studies), and give seminars in community-based writing activities (WriteOn, Unley Youth Arts Festival; SA Writers' Centre; SA Writers' Festival; Salisbury Arts Festival; Victorian Writers' Centre)
• organise a symposium (unConventional, a 2007 symposium for creative writing students in the state of SA)
• present and read in state and national literary festivals (Feast, Sydney Writers' Festival, Salisbury Festival, SA Writers' Festival, Adelaide Festival of Arts Writers' Week)
• set up a new independent publisher (Ilura Press), 
• set up new literary magazines and zines (Etchings, Wet Ink, staples)
• initiate reading events (Wordfire, staples, Animate Quarterly and Lee Marvin readings),
• review (The Weekend Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Writers' Radio, Australian Book Review, The Australian Public Intellectual Network Review of Books, Altitude)
• edit (Etchings, Wet Ink)
• serve on the boards of literary organisations such as the SA Writers' Centre and Friendly Street,
• win state and national literary awards such as the Wakefield Press unpublished manuscript award, the SA Youth Arts Board literary scholarships, The Age Short Story Award, the Wirra Wirra Short Story competition.