Centre in Creative Writing

We aim to support members in their research by providing opportunities for collaboration, discussion and exchange of ideas both within and beyond their specialist form or genre. The Centre advances the University’s strategic research themes in critical thinking and effective expression, with the specific aim of bringing together academic and industry perspectives.

We are one of the largest research centres at Bath Spa University and operate on two campuses. The Centre celebrates a wide range of talent, in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, spoken word, scriptwriting, writing for theatre, writing for young people, writing digital, nature writing, professional writing and pedagogical research.

Many of the writers who belong to The Centre are producing work that is transnational in various ways, and there's strong interest in trans-cultural dialogues and collaborations.

Our teaching staff have either won or been shortlisted for:

• The Man Booker Prize
• The T.S.Eliot Prize
• The Whitbread Poetry Prize
• The Costa Prize
• The Costa Poetry Prize
• The Ted Hughes Prize for Innovation in Poetry
• The Bolton Book Award
• The Betty Trask Award
• The Macmillan Silver Pen Award
• The Roger Deakin Award
• The Authors Club First Novel prize
• The Orange Award for New Writers
• The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
• The Baileys Prize
• The Windham Campbell Prize
• The Somerset Maugham Award
• The Carnegie Medal
• The Whitbread Award
• The Eleanor Farjeon Award
• The Costa Children's Book Prize
• The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
• The Michael L. Printz Award (USA)
• Le Prix Sorcieres (France)
• The Hans Christian Andersen Award.

The Research Centre hosts a dynamic programme of events, lectures and public readings, featuring a wide range of distinguished writers and practitioners. We also host conferences and symposia at the forefront of literary and research developments in the UK and internationally.

Everything we do starts from our excellence as writers and the excellence of our student writers.