Overview
- Develop the critical contexts and practical skills to engage with global publishing models across print and digital environments and familiarise yourself with the processes of commissioning, production, marketing, and distribution.
- Equips you to build your career in the fast-changing publishing industry to set up your own innovative publishing initiative with entrepreneurial support from SETSquared Exeter, or to undertake further research in this growing field of study.
- Draws on the teaching expertise of industry professionals and researchers, as well as providing the opportunity for you to undertake a work placement module and pursue either a practical publishing project or research-based dissertation.
- Join and network with a growing hub for the publishing industry and literary community in the South West, as Exeter develops as an UNESCO City of Literature.
- You will develop analytical and creative tools for innovation within and beyond existing publishing structures, with several optional, interdisciplinary modules from English, Creative Industries and Modern Languages departments.
Develop transferable skills, specialist knowledge and professional experience through interdisciplinary teaching
Focus on commercial and business management aspects of Creative Arts and Humanities
Industry placement options
Opportunities for study in the field
Entry requirements
Normally a 2:1 Honours degree, or international equivalent. We consider applications from a wide range of backgrounds, where applicants can provide evidence of a passion for developing a career in the publishing industry.
Applications from industry professionals, or applicants with relevant work experience or aptitude in publishing, bookselling or the literary and cultural industries, seeking an academic qualification or the opportunity to enhance your skills or knowledge in this field are also welcomed.
Entry requirements for international students
English language requirements
Please visit our entry requirements section for equivalencies from your country and further information on English language requirements.
We have designed this programme to address the full spectrum of diverse skills required for working in the publishing industry today.
From developmental editing and working with writers to the layout, production, and marketing that are part of a book’s path to its readers, we teach skills that will make you a qualified candidate for many jobs—or refine the skills you might already have.
The publishing industry is increasingly acknowledging that hiring people with a diversity of experience leads to a more representative, just, and robust industry. This programme operates with a similar ethos and is committed to helping the industry reconceptualize how it operates by training its next generation of employees and leaders.
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Dr Kate Wallis
Director of MA Publishing
Course content
The programme is divided into units of study called modules which are assigned 'credits'. The credit rating of a module is proportional to the total workload, with 1 credit being nominally equivalent to 10 hours of work.
The modules we outline here provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand.
Teaching and research
Learning and teaching
Drawing on the teaching expertise of industry professionals and researchers, as well as providing the opportunity to undertake a work placement module and pursue either a practical publishing project or research-based dissertation, this MA Publishing cultivates excellence through industry connections, research, and the acquisition of professional skills.
This programme looks to combine academic theory, with regular industry input and relevant placements and practical projects to provide a holistic learning experience, which builds industry relevant academic knowledge as well as a strong set of soft skills to support employability.
You can undertake a publishing work placement and will have opportunities to network with industry professionals. You can also choose to tailor the programme by choosing a research-based dissertation which could also support a route into further research.
Research
Established by the University of Exeter’s Department of English and Film, currently fourth in the UK for research power, this programme of study benefits from the following strengths:
• Research expertise and Special Collections in publishing practices and histories across the Victorian, Modernist and contemporary periods
• A vibrant Creative Writing department working across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s writing and well-networked with publishers across the UK
• Cutting-edge research aligned with the agenda of decolonizing the curriculum and concerned with Publishing Studies as a methodology that makes visible the structures of power out of which literature is produced
• A growing World and Postcolonial Cultures research group with expertise in global publishing practices that moves beyond dominant Euro-American models to study innovative publishing initiatives from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Dr Kate Wallis
Director, Lecturer in Global and World Literatures, English department
Dr Katie Brown
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies within department of Modern Languages and Cultures
Dr Helen Vassallo
Senior Lecturer (French)
Professor Sam North
Associate Professor (E&S)
Anna Kiernan
Senior Lecturer in Creativity and Innovation (E&S) and Co-Director of MA Creativity
Dr Kate Wallis
Director, Lecturer in Global and World Literatures, English department
Kate is an editor and literary producer with twenty years’ experience of working in the publishing industry. She was previously Head of Humanities at Palgrave Macmillan, responsible for paperback publishing across history, literature, theatre and language. She worked for four years as an Editor and Producer at Kenya’s leading literary publisher Kwani Trust. She is currently a Director for Kigali-based publishing company Huza Press and an Editor (and co-founder) of www.africainwords.com. She also regularly curates workshops and festivals, and is the co-founder and co-producer of Africa Writes–Bristol and Africa Writes–Exeter. She part of the Steering Group for Exeter’s UNESCO City of Literature programme and is a member of Bristol’s Literature Development Board. Kate’s research focuses on Africa-based publishers and festivals, and global literary networks.
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Dr Katie Brown
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies within department of Modern Languages and Cultures
I specialize in contemporary Latin American culture, with a particular focus on Venezuela. My main research interests are the circulation of people (travel, migration and exile) and of texts (publishing, cultural policy and translation), especially how the two relate to each other and to questions of identity.
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Dr Helen Vassallo
Senior Lecturer (French)
Dr Helen Vassallo graduated from the University of Liverpool in 1999, with a first-class Joint Honours degree in French and Hispanic Studies. She completed an MA in Literary Translation and a PhD in French, before joining the Department of Modern Languages at Exeter in 2004. She teaches a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and supervises PhD research in each of her areas of expertise (women's writing, translation, and contemporary French/Francophone literature).
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Professor Sam North
Associate Professor (E&S)
Sam has extensive experience in both publishing and the written word. From 1997-2000, he was a Director of the literary agency AP Watt (subsequently bought by United Agents), and from 2000 to 2005 he helped to found the literary agency Conville and Walsh. Sam has also written eight novels, two books on the craft of writing, and two films. In 2010 he won an Eric Gregory Award; his novel The Unnumbered was long-listed for the 2004 Man-Booker prize and his first novel won the Somerset Maugham Award.
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Anna Kiernan
Senior Lecturer in Creativity and Innovation (E&S) and Co-Director of MA Creativity
Anna is a creative strategist, writer and publisher with over twenty years’ experience of working in the creative and cultural industries. Previously, Anna was the creative and editorial director at Stranger Collective, a creative content studio, a national advisor for Arts Council Wales and a Trustee for the Cornwall Film Festival. She recently acquired The Literary Platform, which the Guardian Professional/h.Club 100 listed as “one of the most innovative and influential” businesses in the creative industries. Anna delivers training and consultancy for clients including Lush cosmetics, The Guardian, Arsenal FC, the NSPCC, The National Trust and the Department for Transport. With a background as a fiction editor at Simon & Schuster publishing, Anna co-founded the MA in Publishing at Kingston. She thrives on curating collaborations and is experienced in partnership brokering, event programming, organisational change and business development. Anna’s research primarily focuses on writing culture and cultural value.
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Careers
Exeter has a strong track record in supporting its graduates into work. In addition, the HESA destination of leaver’s data from master’s degrees in publishing shows an exceptionally high number of graduates securing full-time employment following this qualification. This is reflective of the MA Publishing as a qualification that the industry recognizes and values.
This programme prepares graduates to build careers with major publishing houses and small presses. It is designed to enable students to secure entry level roles, but also to progress faster through the industry and become innovators and leaders. Graduates will be equipped to take on roles in the industry from editorial to marketing to sales to production, and to work across print and digital, literary and popular, trade and academic, book and journal, fiction and non-fiction, children and adult publishing. Throughout the programme, they will be offered opportunities to build professional networks with industry and our alumni community.
The programme explores entrepreneurial skills in the context of the publishing industry and therefore equips graduates with the skills to set up their own publishing companies or literary initiatives or to take on publishing roles within charities, government bodies or other cultural organisations. It also provides skills that are highly transferable (from project management to digital literacy to team-working) and relevant to securing and building roles in the literary, digital and creative industries more broadly. All of these skills will ensure that graduates are able to succeed well beyond graduation and their first role in industry.
As part of this programme, graduates will have benefitted from a complementary set of employability workshops designed to help graduates to successfully compete in the labour market after graduating.
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