MA Publishing
1 Year Full-Time | September Start

This programme takes a student-centred approach to learning. You will learn through a combination of lectures, seminar and workshops in the classroom, one-to-one tutorials, and professional workplace supervisions as appropriate to the teaching content. You will be able to use online reading lists, and you are encouraged to use subject-specific, online library resources, electronic databases, and periodicals.

The MA Publishing is comprised of the core modules, Introduction to Publishing, Manuscript to Market, People in Publishing, Publishing Placement and Major Publishing Project only. This is to ensure that students gain the core skills and competencies required to meet the learning outcomes.

Our MA Publishing team is made up of award-winning novelist and poets, who are major figures in their field. Furthermore, through our partnerships with New Writing North and Hachette, we give you opportunities to meet and learn from agents, publishers, and writers from across the country.

Take a further look at who will be teaching you on this course:

Humanities at Northumbria is composed of three subject teams: History, Literature & Creative Writing, and English Language & Linguistics, and is also developing strengths in the fields of American Studies and Heritage Studies.

The Humanities department is made up of a community of learners all the way through from first year undergraduate to final year PhD level. All Humanities staff are engaged in research and actively create the knowledge that is taught in the department.

Publishing students, as part of Northumbria’s Humanities department, have access to the new Institute for Humanities which houses a range of specialist research resources. You’ll also get the chance to work with New Writing North, who provide unique opportunities for creative writers.

The research of the Institute brings together the disciplines of Art History, American Studies, Creative Writing, English Language and Linguistics, English Literature, History and Media Studies.

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is embedded throughout the course with tools such as the ‘Blackboard’ eLearning Portal and electronic reading lists that will guide your preparation for seminars and independent research. Our use of lecture capture software will help you revise challenging material.

Northumbria Humanities academics have engaged in teaching and research collaborations with New Writing North and Hachette UK for several years. The new MA Publishing has evolved from this established working base and responds to a cross-sector recognition that the changing landscape of contemporary publishing requires new skills and knowledge. Working directly with industry and academics will enable students to address both the known and the emerging professional skills needed to work successfully in the twenty-first century publishing world.

Research is embedded throughout the programme. Northumbria English and Creative writing academics have expertise in book culture and publishing across the ages, including digital publishing and contemporary literary publishing, literary awards and prizes and book festivals. Modules have been designed as research-led interventions in identified areas of key skillset within the contemporary publishing industry and have bene co-created by academics, publishers, and a writing development agency.

The programme introduces you to advanced research methods and equips you with contemporary research skills to engage in critical enquiry and discovery across a diverse range of topics within contemporary Publishing Studies. Taught modules enable you to recognise distinct approaches to research, the importance of critical reflection, and an ability to judge the essential characteristics of good research.

Our MA Publishing has ultimately been designed to prepare graduates for a career in publishing. The course will give you the skills and knowledge to equip you for a wide range of roles within the sector. 

Employability, in the form of critical and creative skills, presentation skills and reflective and evaluative abilities, is embedded into your course. During your course, you’ll be in contact with a range of professionals working in publishing and related industries which will help you to network and gain useful contacts for your future career.

All modules play a crucial role in developing the advanced skills and attributes necessary for employment, including effective time and workload management, oral and written communication, teamwork, and creative analysis of complex problems.

There are also opportunities for you to advance your studies further with advice in writing PhD and funding applications available.