Literature and Creative Writing

Literature and creative writing are disciplines that speak to each other in fundamental ways. Reading literature deeply, with attention to craft and form and an understanding of the traditions from which it emerges, makes you a better writer. Writing creatively, with awareness of the choices that produce effect and meaning, makes you a better reader.

Together, they develop a relationship with language and storytelling that is not merely appreciative but active, generative, and critical.

At the University of the Highlands and Islands, this four-year programme offers the opportunity to engage with both strands at your own pace, making it accessible for students with varied commitments or educational backgrounds. You will read widely across literary traditions and periods, developing the close reading and interpretive skills that literature demands, while also practising creative writing across different forms and genres. The programme encourages you to see yourself as a writer in dialogue with the literary tradition you are studying, bringing your own creative sensibility to bear on the questions that literature raises.

The setting of the Highlands and Islands offers distinctive access to Scottish and Gaelic literary traditions, as well as to the kinds of landscape and community that have inspired writers for centuries.

Graduates go on to careers in writing, education, publishing, editing, journalism, and the arts. Some become professional writers, others move into roles in cultural organisations, libraries, community arts, and literacy work. The skills in reading, writing, and communication the degree develops are transferable across many professional fields, and many graduates continue to postgraduate study in creative writing, literature, or journalism.

The combination of critical and creative capability the degree develops is a genuine asset in any career that depends on working with language.