Why study Creative Writing?
Creative Writing at Wits University offers an intensive workshop-based postgraduate programme focused on reading and writing across a number of genres. Students benefit from close attention to their work from staff and peers, and enjoy rigorous debate and discussion in a small-group forum. They are encouraged to make the most of their own artistic instincts and to realise, as fully as possible, their potential as writers.
Our staff represent a rich diversity of styles and genres, and teach from their expertise in both literary culture and creative practices. In addition, the programme regularly invites guest writers to lead workshops or give lectures and readings, and in some cases, to work closely with individual students.
At the end of the Honours degree, students will have in hand a substantial portfolio of writing. MA and PhD students will complete a draft of a full-length work of fiction or nonfiction; a collection of poetry; or a play script or screenplay.
Research Profile
A number of alumni of the Wits Creative Writing Department have published works of fiction and nonfiction following their completion of the MA.
Our staff actively publish works of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and have garnered several prestigious awards in recent years.
As writers and educators, we are committed to the public role of literature and see our Department as interconnected with a broader global network of writers and artists dedicated to understanding, challenging and reimagining our collective reality. In 2019, we received funding from the Mellon Foundation for a writers-in-residence programme and hosted seven writers from around the world. The Department continues to seek out new partnerships to bring in visiting writers and regularly participates in and hosts literary events.
