Why study Creative Writing?
Creative Writing at Wits University offers an intensive workshop-based postgraduate programme focused on reading and writing across a number of genres. Students benefit from close attention to their work from staff and peers and enjoy rigorous debate and discussion in a small-group forum. The programme regularly invites published writers to lead workshops or give lectures and some agree to work closely with individual students on their portfolios. The written components of the course are closely supervised and comprehensive feedback is provided on all writing assignments. At the end of the Honours degree, students will have in hand a substantial portfolio of writing. MA students complete a full-length manuscript of fiction or non-fiction deemed worthy of submission to a publisher.
Research Profile
A number of alumni of the Wits Creative Writing programme have published works of fiction and non-fiction following their completion of the MA. In 2013, we launched the first Wits issue of the creative journal Itch. The journal is published occasionally as a special issue, featuring work by the students in the Creative Writing programmes. In 2019, we received funding from the Mellon Foundation for a writers-in-residence programme and have hosted four writers to date. Our staff continue to publish works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and have garnered several prestigious awards in recent years.
