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By Katrina Allardyce


WANT TO BE AN AUTHOR? IS THE CREATIVE WRITING MASTERS THE RIGHT DECISION?


Like many aspiring writers, embarking on the one-year study of a Creative Writing Masters qualification, there were many things I thought I would learn.


One of these was not that, according to my tutor, the MA teaches the same skills you might learn if you had joined a good


creative writing group.


In much the same way as a creative writing group, he


explained, the Masters will focus on sharing pieces of your writing with the class and having other students explain what it was like to read, how you might improve it, which parts were really good and why they worked. He went on to say, what you get from the Masters that you do not get from a creative writing group is the level of critique. You are confident that your writing is being critiqued by somebody with a high level of academic skill and who knows the topic. Oh, and you also come away with a very handy postgraduate qualification that


can be useful in any career where good writing skills are important.


My second surprise when I began this course was that I had expected to be studying with other young people my age, who had just graduated from a degree. This was not the case. The people who chose to be on this course, ranged from a retired lady, a man who’d been laid off from work, and various professionals from teachers to administrators. The MA is popular with people of all ages. I think the range of backgrounds, and


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