Hi. So I'm Craig from creative writing, and I'm here to answer
some frequently asked questions about writing at QUT. Firstly,
what's it like to be a writer in Queensland at the moment? Well,
20 years ago, if you were a writer and you were based in
Queensland, probably the most important thing you could do is
move away from Queensland. In the 20 years since then, though,
we've seen a massive shift. We've seen Queenslanders become really
open and interested in reading about works made by other
Queensland writers. And what we have now is a thriving community
that consists, here in Brisbane and elsewhere across the state,
of hundreds of published authors, many of whom are making a full
time living from writing, be that literary writing, be that genre
writing or writing for children. We see literary salons. We see
book launches, poetry readings, reading and writing groups, and
so on. Basically what we have today here in Queensland is a
vibrant, dynamic community of readers and writers. And here at
QUT, you'll be right at the very heart of all of that going on.
What's the writing course like at QUT? Well, our goal here is to
give you technical skills as a writer, in a wide variety of
forms, from poetry to novels, from memoir to corporate and
business writing, as well as to give you practical skills in
things like editing, and philosophical and critical skills
as well. In your first year with us, you'll learn introductory
principles around creative writing. You'll learn to write
forms like poetry, creative nonfiction, and the short story
as well as learn about the writing scene in Australia
specifically, and what it's like for you to be an Australian
writer here and now. You'll also be looking at writing genre
fiction, such as science fiction and fantasy, as well as literary
fiction generally. So that's your first year. So in your second
year, what we'll be doing is deepening those skills, and
sharpening them significantly, looking at style and technique
and poetics. Really building on your technical skills that you've
picked up in first year, as well as looking at contemporary
debates in our field, as well as looking at things like becoming
an editor, at writing for corporate and business contexts,
and becoming more sophisticated and more rounded and more precise
as a writing practitioner generally. In your final and
third year you spend the whole year just making stuff. So over
the full course of the year, you will have a creative writing
project in an area that you choose. If you're wanting to
write a novel, you might choose a novel here. If you're wanting to
write a series of essays, you might choose a series of essays
here and you get to work on that in a workshop group, and with the
feedback from your tutor for the entire year. And at the same
time, you'll be working as a writer in a group of other
disciplinary practitioners, so perhaps a filmmaker, perhaps an
animator, those sorts of things to work on real world projects
for real world clients. So third year is all about taking that
stuff that you've learned in first and second year and
applying them to big year long, exciting projects. What
philosophies do we hold at QUT Creative Writing? More than ever,
writing is at the heart of our cultural conversation. Words are
being exchanged in short and long forms in volumes the world has
never seen before. Have a look at the world we live in today and
see how much of the attitudes in it are being driven by, for
example, online articles or essays, opinion pieces and the
conversations around those that occur in the digital space. So we
believe very deeply that writing is a socially engaged practice.
We believe that good writing is all about sharing ideas, and that
ideas have the power to make immense impacts in the world. We
believe we're working in a deep and deeply empathic form. Reading
a book changes how you think, and there's a bunch of science to
back this up. But when you think about it, when you're looking at
something on a screen, like you're looking at me now, you're
seeing another person from the outside just as we do in day to
day life. When you sit and read a novel, however, you're
transported inside another human being. You see the world through
somebody else's eyes, and you experience what it's like to be
them as a human being, their thoughts, their perceptions,
their ideas, their experiences. This is deeply, deeply empathic
and very unique to our form as creative writers. What are the
outcomes and career prospects having studied creative writing
here at QUT? Well, communication skills are continually listed in
the top new economy vocational skills required for the jobs that
we see emerging these days. Combine that with the critical
thinking skills will give you over the course of our degree and
you'll see that we create students with powerful workplace
advantages. Our graduates work both in the private and public
sectors as corporate and technical writers. As one
example, if you go and jump on seek.com.au, the job seeking
site, and type in "writer" and "Brisbane", you'll see that
there's dozens of jobs available there for writers today and
that's just a sliver of what's available because that's just the
corporate side of things. Our graduates also work in marketing,
in journalism, and in other creative careers using words
skillfully for a living. Some of our students go on to do
postgraduate work and become teachers. Others take double
degrees with courses like business and law to bring that
particular set of skills skills that writers can bring into those
fields. And then of course, we do have graduates who write. We have
dozens and dozens of graduates who have gone on to have novels
or poetry collections or scripts published and made and around
that often comes a rich career of consulting and other work.
Creative writing at QUT is actually a very vocational degree
that can open some really unexpected doors for you and I
really hope to see you here with us.