Not available for international students
Use your passion for writing to transform yourself and the world through an intense exploration of language.
The Master of Creative Writing (MCW) is a 180-credit programme that can follow on immediately from your bachelor’s degree in any subject.
Produce your own creative writing to challenge your innovative energies. Discover new ways to unlock ideas and connect with readers.
Work alongside award-winning authors to write your own novels, poems, short stories, plays, scripts, creative non-fiction and more.
“I finished the course with a feeling of real accomplishment…”
I enrolled in Massey’s MCW programme because I wanted to take my writing in a new creative direction, and I had a vague but hopeful idea that the formal structure of a MCW would help me achieve this. It most certainly did! First and foremost, I benefited so much from learning to articulate my ideas within a thesis framework. Then, the critical component challenged me to seriously research my topic, and a brilliant door-to-door library service allowed me to read extensively around the themes of my work.
The creative component was both challenging and exhilarating. For me it was an opportunity to test myself with long-form fiction, and I used it to write a substantial portion of a novel. The feedback from my supervisor was incredibly helpful in pinpointing my strengths and weaknesses and also in motivating me to keep going for the long haul. I finished the course with a feeling of real accomplishment, having extended myself into a whole new area of learning and a whole new writing discipline, and – icing on the cake – being close to finishing my novel. Strip was published by Makaro Press in 2016 and subsequently longlisted for the fiction prize in the 2017 Ockham NZ Book Awards.
A Master of Creative Writing is one of the most creative and enriching degrees you can do. Employers seek out arts students for their lateral and analytical thinking, communication skills and creative ability.
There are various possibilities for creative writing graduates, including:
Bryan is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Native Bird, a collection of short stories, Ephraim’s Eyes, and a scholarly book, Resistance to Science in Contemporary American Poetry. He has received writing awards in New Zealand, Australia and the US, a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and a national Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award.
Ingrid is the author of two poetry collections and a genre-bending travel book, Travelling with Augusta, 1835 and 1999. In 2016 she was awarded Massey’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences Teaching Award for her innovative creative nonfiction courses. Ingrid is the co-editor of and a contributor to a collection of essays, Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Jack’s publications include five poetry books, three collections of short fiction, and four novels - most recently The Annotated Tree Worship (2017). He has edited numerous anthologies and literary magazines, and is the managing editor of Poetry NZ.
Thom is the author of the novels The Naturalist and The Salted Air. He is the editor of a collection of essays, Home. His short fiction has been recognised by Best American Short Stories 2012 and has won other awards. In 2013, he received a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching. He has extensive experience supervising Master of Creative Writing and PhD students in fiction.
Claire teaches screenwriting and filmmaking in Massey’s digital media production courses.. She has written and directed several short films screened in film festivals across Europe and Australia, and in New York. As a film theorist, she also has expertise in genre, national cinema, and the cultural politics and ethics of screen violence.
Stuart has been Playwright in Residence at the Mercury Theatre; Literary Fellow at Auckland University; Burns Fellow at the University of Otago; Writer in Residence at Canterbury University; and Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow. He has won the Bruce Mason Award for Playwrights. His screenplay for Lovelock won the New Zealand Writers’ Guild Best Screenplay Award, and his screenplay for I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.
Angie’s work for stage includes Despatch, After Kafka, Amnesia, Memento, The Politician’s Wife, The Bowler Hat, Before the Birds and The River. Herradio plays include All Packed Up, New Zealand Lamb, Carrion, Speed of Light and The Beauty Business. She’s also written three anthologies of plays. Angie has received numerous international awards and was awarded Outstanding Contribution to New Zealand Drama by the Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand in 2011. Angie has won five teaching awards.
Tina’s most recent book is The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke. Her short story ‘Black Milk’ won the Pacific Regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2016). She co-edited an anthology of Māori and Pasifika short fiction, Black Marks on the White Page. Her first novel, Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings, was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and won the 2014 Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction, also won by her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (2011). Tina is of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Rangatahi, Pākehā and, according to family stories, Moriori descent.
Elspeth predominately writes political theatre, especially short comedies that subvert the status quo. She is a two-time winner of the British Theatre Challenge international playwriting competition, a two-time invited playwright for Climate Change Theatre Action, a 2018 winner of the Westcliffe Colorado Center for the Arts International Playwriting Competition, and has received audience choice awards in Australia and New Zealand. Her short plays have been published in the USA, UK and Canada.
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