On this collaborative, project-based module, students will collectively plan, curate, promote, and hold a modest literary festival at the end of semester two, open to the public and the Loughborough University community. This will involve developing and utilising practical skills in terms of event planning and organisation, logistics and scheduling, and marketing and promotion. Intellectual and literary discussions will inform decisions over invitee authors, the design, tone, and theme of the festival, considerations of representation and equality, and the drafting of interview questions and introductory speeches. With training and preparation from lecturers, all students will undertake a piece of public-facing presentation such as an interview or blog. Creative writing students take part in a showcase of their work from the MA.

The aim of this module is to introduce three formative intersecting elements of contemporary literature and culture: the market for books, the world of literary prizes, and the evolving `canon' of contemporary literary works being subjected to sustained study within the academy. Attention will be given to: (1) the particular features of book marketing and the market for contemporary literature in Britain; (2) the operation and significance of literary prizes; and (3) the correlation/disrelation between what is popular in the marketplace, what has been deemed prize-worthy, and the works which have become part of the literary canon by attracting the interests of multiple and intergenerational academic readerships and bearing (or appearing to bear) what Ezra Pound once called the `stamp of permanence'.

The aim of this module is to explore forms of literary, cinematic and other cultural production that have emerged in the United States during the particularly fraught era of the twenty-first century. Creative writing students will be challenged to produce their own work responding to the style, subject or issues of the texts studied.

The module will give students the opportunity to develop a significant, sustained body of writing informed by advanced research skills. Students will use research methods learned in Resources for Advanced Research (semester 1) to conduct research into an aspect of their literary-critical or creative work, and deploy their findings in the subsequent writing. Students will have the opportunity to work one-to-one with a specialist in their field over six tutorials.