- Duration
- Full-time: 1 year
- Next start date
- 2025 Semester Two – 21 July
- 2026 Semester Two – 20 July
- Available locations
- City
- Points
- 120
- Programme type
- Postgraduate
- Research options available
Programme overview
The MCW is for writers working on a large-scale creative writing project: a novel, short story collection, full-length work of creative nonfiction, or poetry collection.
The programme is convened by the award-winning fiction writer and essayist Paula Morris. Selina Tusitala Marsh, a former Poet Laureate, co-supervises poets in the programme.
Each week writers meet for both workshops and seminars. Our visitors include local and international writers; practitioners from the world of film, radio and theatre; and speakers from the publishing and literary arts world.
Recent visiting writers include Airini Beautrais, Teju Cole, Michel Faber, Aminatta Forna, Stephanie Johnson, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elizabeth McCracken, Amy McDaid, Frankie McMillan, Karlo Mila, Ben Okri and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
Programme structure
The MCW is a one-year, full-time programme of study with entry in Semester Two only. You will enrol in CREWRIT 797 Creative Writing (120 points).
If you are writing a novel, short stories or creative non-fiction, you are expected to produce a portfolio of between 40,000 and 80,000 words. Poetry collections should have a minimum of 80 pages.
Class contact time and peer interaction are an essential part of the programme. In both semesters of the MCW, you must be able to attend two weekly classes – workshops and seminars. In the workshop you will submit drafts for discussion and give considered feedback to the other writers in your cohort. The weekly seminar is a forum for thinking and talking about writing. In these classes we discuss published work and explore the key issues of technique you need to consider in your work.
You'll also need to meet other requirements, including time limits and total points limits. See Postgraduate enrolment.
Where could this programme take you?
This programme will help refine the skills you need to finish your book and develop your creative practice. Our graduates have published books with a range of publishers including Allen and Unwin, Penguin Random House, Cuba Press, Bloomsbury, Auckland University Press, Canterbury University Press, Huia and Text. These graduates include Rosetta Allan, Caroline Barron, Rose Carlyle, Gina Cole, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Daren Kamali, Angelique Kasmara, Renee Liang, Amy McDaid, Linda Olsson, Emily Perkins and Ruby Porter. As the MCW is entirely comprised of creative practice research, it is not a qualifying programme for a PhD at the University of Auckland. If you are considering a PhD with a creating writing component please contact p.morris@auckland.ac.nz to discuss entry requirements.
Student career planning service
Once you become a student at the University, you can get help with planning and developing your career from Career Development and Employability Services.
A Kiwi story about a visit to a rest home and a kapa haka performance was a regional winner in a global literary prize for a creative writing alumna.
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