Creative Writing at Glasgow
The Masters in Creative Writing is one of the most celebrated creative programmes in the country.
Students have access to the best of the new and also develop a sense of the origins and histories of the genres they practice. They enjoy the guidance of writers and critics including John Coyle, Jane Goldman, Laura Marney, Willy Maley, Rob Maslen, Kei Miller, Andrew Radford, Elizabeth Reeder, Michael Schmidt and Zoe Strachan.
Distinguished visiting speakers from the world of writing and publishing have contributed to the programme including Margaret Atwood, Eavan Boland, Gillian Clarke, Peter Davidson, Niall Ferguson, Lorna Goodison, Jorie Graham, Kirsty Gunn, AL Kennedy, Marina Lewycka, Toby Litt, Bernard MacLaverty, Harry Mathews, Maggie O’Farrell, Andrew O’Hagan, Sharon Olds, Alice Quinn, Ian Rankin, Christopher Ricks, Jane Stevenson, Louise Welsh and Zoe Wicombe. In addition, there have been contributions from outstanding editors, journalists and agents from across the UK.
The department also boasts a sophisticated electronic learning environment and a dedicated resource centre, the Edwin Morgan Writing Room, with its book, periodical and audio-visual library. For more information about the MLitt programme visit the University of Glasgow’s Official Site.
Course Convenor
Michael Schmidt
Professor of Poetry
Convenor of the Creative Writing Programme
Born in Mexico in 1947, he studied at Harvard and Wadham College, Oxford. He is editorial and managing director of Carcanet, one of the leading British literary presses, and editor of PN Review, the journal now in its thirty-fifth year, which is edited from the Edwin Morgan Writing Centre. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the English Association. He has written novels, books of poems, and has translated from Nahuatl and from Spanish. As a literary historian he has written Lives of the Poets (1999), Lives of the Ancient Poets(2004) and the ongoing series The Story of Poetry. He is currently writing Lives of the Novelists. He has compiled introductory anthologies of new poets’ work, educational anthologies, and The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English.
Course Tutors
Laura Marney
Laura Marney gained an MLitt in Creative Writing from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. Many of her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies or broadcast on radio. Her first novel, No Wonder I Take A Drink, was published in 2004 by Transworld under the Black Swan imprint. Her second novel Nobody Loves A Ginger Baby was published in 2005, her third, Only Strange People Go To Church, appeared in July 2006 and fourth novel My Best Friend has Issues was published in 2008.
Kei Miller
Kei Miller, Deputy Convenor of the Creative Writing M Litt, was born in Jamaica in 1978. He read English at the University of the West Indies and completed an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. His work has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Snow Monkey, Caribbean Beat, PN Review and Obsydian III. His first collection of short fiction,The Fear of Stones, was short-listed in 2007 for the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize. His first poetry collection, Kingdom of Empty Bellies, was published in March 2006 by Heaventree Press and his second, There is an Anger that Moves, by Carcanet in 2007. He is also the editor of Carcanet’s New Caribbean Poetry: An Anthology (2007). He is the author of two novels The Same Earth (2009) and The Last Warner Woman (2010). He has been a visiting writer at York University in Canada, the Department of Library Services in the British Virgin Islands and a Vera Ruben Fellow at Yaddo, and was recently a Fellow of the Iowa Writing Programme.
Elizabeth Reeder
Elizabeth Reeder, Convenor of the CW Distance Learning MLitt, recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow which consisted of a novel, Ramshackle, and lyrical essays on landscape, creativity and loss. She graduated BA Hons, Summa Cum Laude from Kenyon College, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her fiction has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies including a recent story in the Kenyon Review; her BBC Radio 4 broadcasts include a Women’s Hour Serial, stories, and abridgments of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Sara Wheeler’s Magnetic North. She received Scottish Arts Council bursaries in 2001 and 2006, and was the Writing Fellow for the North East of Glasgow 2002-2004. She has particular interests in contemporary fiction and crossover forms like lyrical essays, and in how we as writers make our best work. Current writing includes a book of lyrical essays, direction is the moment you choose, and a novel. For more information visit her site: ekreeder.com
Zoë Strachan
Zoë Strachan was born in 1975 and grew up in Kilmarnock. She gained an MLitt in Creative Writing from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde in 1999 and is the author of Negative Space and Spin Cycle (both Picador). The former won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the SAC Book of the Year Award. Zoë also writes short stories, essays and journalism, and drama, stories and features for radio. Recent publications include: ‘The Secret Life of Dads’ in New Writing 15(British Council/Granta, 2007), ‘Ever Fallen in Love?’ in Bordercrossing Berlin (Germany, 2007) and ‘Is that a Scot or am Ah Wrang?’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature (EUP, 2007). She has received two SAC writers’ bursaries and a Hawthornden Fellowship, and in autumn 2006 she was UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. In 2008 she was awarded the Hermann Kesten Stipendium in Nuremberg. She has taught on the Creative Writing Programme at Glasgow since 2003. Her work in progress includes a third novel, Play Dead; an interdisciplinary art collaboration, I throw my prayers into the sky; and a play, Old Girls. You can find out more at www.zoestrachan.com.
Writer in Residence
Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh is the writer-in-residence for the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow School of Art. She is the author of three novels: The Cutting Room (2002), The Bullet Trick (2006) and Naming the Bones (March 2010), and one novella, Tamburlaine Must Die (2004), all published by Canongate Books. She’s also produced many short stories and articles and written for radio and the stage including a libretto for opera. For more information, visit http://www.louisewelsh.com.
With thanks to the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing Program for text and images.
