The University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course was founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970. The M.A. is widely regarded as the most prestigious and successful in the country and competition for places is notoriously tough.
Susan Kay is a British writer, the author of two award-winning novels: Legacy and Phantom.
Tobias Fleet Hill was a British poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist.
Susan Fletcher is a British novelist.
Joanna Briscoe is an English writer who has written four novels and several short stories and has worked as a freelance journalist. Her first novel, Mothers and Other Lovers, won a Betty Trask Award in 1993, and her third, Sleep with Me (2005), was adapted for television.
Gwendoline Riley is an English writer.
Dorothy Koomson is a contemporary English novelist, who is of Ghanaian descent. She has been described as "Britain's biggest selling black author of adult fiction".
Anne B. Montgomery is an American sportscaster, sports official, author and teacher. She was among the first women sportscasters on television, and is reported to be the only woman high school football referee in the state of Arizona.
Louise Dean is an English author. Her novels won the Betty Trask Award and Le Prince Maurice Prize, and were longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and The Booker Prize. Short stories of hers have appeared in Granta Magazine. She was a finalist in the 2021 Costa Book Awards. She founded and directs a worldwide creative writing school, The Novelry. The Nobel Prizewinner J. M. Coetzee is among many authors to acclaim her writing.
Suzannah Dunn is a British author and graduate of the MA creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, United Kingdom. She was Director of the MA in Novel Writing at the University of Manchester 1999-2005. Dunn won a Betty Trask Award in 1991 for her novel, Quite Contrary. Dunn's novel The Queen of Subtleties: A Novel of Anne Boleyn details the life of the Tudor Queen and contrasts it with the fictional Lucy Cornwallis, the royal confectioner. A review of The Queen of Subtleties took issue with the character of Lucy but also stated: "Dunn's blend of fiction and real events works and the personal perspective she offers is interesting."
Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is author of two well received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
The Rehearsal is the 2008 debut novel by Eleanor Catton. It was first published by Victoria University Press in New Zealand. The Rehearsal was later bought by Granta Books in the UK and released there in July 2009. In 2016, the film adaptation was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Jenn Ashworth is an English writer born in 1982 in Preston, Lancashire. In June 2018 Ashworth was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.
Susan Elderkin is an English author of two critically acclaimed novels, her first, Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains won a Betty Trask Prize and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, her second, The Voices was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. She was one of Granta Magazine's 20 Best Young British Novelists in 2003 and won the 2007 Society of Authors Travel Award. She is the author, with Ella Berthoud, of The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies and The Story Cure: Books to Keep Kids Happy, Healthy and Wise.
Susanna Jones is a British writer. Her debut novel, The Earthquake Bird won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize a Betty Trask Award and the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger.
Anjali Joseph is an Indian novelist. Her first novel, Saraswati Park (2010), earned her several awards, including the Betty Trask Prize and Desmond Elliott Prize. Her second novel, Another Country, was released in 2012. In 2010, she was listed by The Telegraph as one of the 20 best writers under the age of 40. Her third novel, The Living (2016), was shortlisted for the DSC Prize and is a tender, lyrical and often funny novel which shines a light on everyday life. Her fourth novel, Keeping in Touch, was published in India in 2021 by Context and in the UK in 2022 by Scribe.
Susan Jane Gilman is an American writer and novelist. She is the author of two novels, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street (2014) and Donna Has Left the Building (2019) in addition to three non-fiction books: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven (2009); Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress (2005); and Kiss My Tiara (2001).
Imachibundu Oluwadara Onuzo is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
Irenosen Iseghohi Okojie FRSL is a Nigerian-born short story and novel writer working in London. Her stories incorporate speculative elements and also make use of her West African heritage. Her first novel, Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award in 2016, and her story "Grace Jones" won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
