Art and Creative Writing
Art and creative writing are disciplines that have always been in conversation: visual artists write and reflect on their practice, writers use imagery and form in ways that owe much to visual thinking, and the histories of these two fields are deeply intertwined. Studying them together at the University of Reading gives you the opportunity to develop both practices in parallel, allowing each to inform and challenge the other. This four-year full-time programme takes that dialogue seriously, treating art and writing not as separate options but as genuinely integrated fields of study.
You will make visual work across a range of media, developing your practice through studio sessions, critiques, and engagement with contemporary and historical art. At the same time, you will write fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, learning the craft of writing through workshops, close reading, and sustained independent projects. The programme asks you to think about what it means to communicate creatively: how images carry meaning, how language creates worlds, and what happens at the edges of each form.
Research, reflection, and the ability to talk and write critically about your own work are developed throughout. Reading's campus environment, its galleries and cultural links, and the close academic attention the programme offers provide a strong context for this kind of interdisciplinary creative study.
Graduates from art and creative writing programmes pursue careers as practising artists, writers, illustrators, art teachers, literary editors, arts administrators, curators, and creative directors. Many work across both fields, or use the flexibility of the combined degree to move between creative practice and cultural work. The skills in communication, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving developed here are valued across a wide range of sectors.
Postgraduate study in creative writing, fine art, or arts education is a natural progression for graduates who want to deepen their practice.