Creative Writing
Creative Writing is a medium used to communicate, resist, provoke and seek or find understanding. Our research investigates the artistic, historical, cultural and societal impacts of the written word.
Creative Writing at Melbourne
Academic staff in the Creative Writing program are widely published writers, industry professionals, and leading researchers in areas including:
- Fiction, non-fiction and poetry, creative nonfiction
- Contemporary Australian writing and Aboriginal literature
- Writing for screen, theatre, live art, videogames and performance
- Graphic narratives and experimental poetics
- The theory and teaching of creative writing, creativity and composition
Our graduate students and researchers position Creative Writing as political, cultural, and critical discourse. We value working and writing together: generating connection, collaboration, and collegiality.
Our academic staff publish on dynamic and diverse topics including living poetry, video games, storytelling and genre-shifting work. Recent examples of this published work include a project investigating the history of contemporary Australian comics, an examination of the function of the theatre in Western culture and a project exploring artistic innovation and the work of disability artists in Australia.
Featured writing
Academic staff within the Creative Writing program are also published authors in genres such as creative non-fiction, graphic memoir, poetry and fiction.
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Death at the Dog Park
Death at the Dog Park (Glom Press, 2021) – Dr Radha O’Meara, Senior Lecturer and Eloise Grills
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Once Upon a Pixel
Once Upon a Pixel (CRC Press, 2019) – Dr Eddie Paterson, Head of Program
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Axiomatic
Axiomatic (Brow Books, 2018) – Dr Maria Tumarkin, Senior Lecturer
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Intention and Unintention
Intention and Unintention or the Hyperconscious in Contemporary Lyric Impulse (Aracadia Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018) – Dr Grant Caldwell, Senior Lecturer
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Walk Back Over
Walk Back Over (Cordite Books, 2018) – Dr Jeanine Leanne, Senior Lecturer
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Drawing Sybylla
Drawing Sybylla: The Real and Imagined Lives of Australian (UWA Press, 2017) – Dr Odette Kelada
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Rendition
Rendition for Harp and Kalashnikov (Puncher & Wattmann, 2017) – Dr Amanda Johnson
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The Xenotext
The Xenotext: Book 1 (Coach House Books, 2015) – Professor Christian Bök
Featured research
Our research engages with a wide audience through industry and community partnerships, and is supported by a range of funding sources, including the Australian Research Council (ARC).
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Disability and the Performing Arts in Australia: The Last Avant Garde
The Last Avant Garde is an ARC Linkage project exploring artistic innovation and the work of disability artists in Australia.
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Contemporary Australian Comics 1980-2020: A New History
An ARC Linkage project mapping the contemporary history and cultural impact of comics as a narrative art form in Australia.
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Indigenous Storytelling and the Living Archive of Aboriginal Knowledge
An ARC Discovery Indigenous Fellowship project that aims to develop a non-linear, interactive archiving system in collaboration with Aboriginal people.
Study with us
Develop your expertise in Creative Writing through our undergraduate, higher degree and other programs.
Learn more about applying for high degree programs, including Graduate research and Graduate coursework, in which students participate in writing, publication, thesis and seminar programs designed to foster creative and critical debate.
Undergraduate
Graduate coursework
- Graduate Certificate in Arts
- Graduate Diploma in Arts
- Graduate Certificate in Arts (Advanced)
- Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced)
- Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing
Graduate research
Meet our Creative Writing staff
Academic staff in the Creative Writing program are leading teachers, researchers and industry professionals, with expertise across fiction, creative non-fiction, screenwriting, graphic novels, critical scholarly work and beyond. Our award-winning staff have also been recently recognised across the industry – Maria Tumurkin has received the Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction in Australia and Amanda Johnson received the 2020 Peter Porter Poetry Prize.
