Has anyone here done a research degree (MPhil/Phd) in Creative Writing? I'm looking into it for a poetry project but I'm confused by league tables and rankings. I was going to go to my local uni but now I find that is has a very poor ranking in the Times (But a high one in the Guardian!). I would like to teach eventually so I wondered how much the ranking matters. Any advice would be splendid.

I've done a PhD, and quite a few other WWers are in the middle of one.

I don't think the overall ranking of the university matters much, as a) it's not a taught degree and b) like so many practice-led disciplines, excellent CW goes on in places which may in other ways not be that wonderful or high in the league tables. I really don't think that anyone wanting you to teach CW is going to be that bothered by where you did it in purely abstract terms, because they know that.

I'd suggest that the most important thing is for you to find the right supervisor and the regs which mean you can do the kind of project you want to do.

And there's a lot to be said for local - I live in London but did my MPhil at Glamorgan, which at the time couldn't be developed into a PhD (these days it can) so I did my PhD at Goldsmiths, which is up the road...

I don't know if you've seen this, but it might help you think through the issues:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/creative-writing-phds-the-paradoxical-beast.html

Yes, I think the supervisor and the regs are loads more important than the ranking of the place - there are some places (like UEA) which are famous for CW - but that's useless to you if you don't get a supervisor who understands what you want to do and knows how to guide you to do it well - or if the shape of that particular PhD won't let you hand in work in the critical / creative proportion that you want to.

Who do you want to work with? That would be how I'd go about narrowing down an institution.

Thanks Emma and Jenn. That makes perfect sense to me for a creative project.

I am a little concerned that teaching in the future may become very competitive with so many routes to a CW postgrad qualification that having qualified at a "better" university might increase the chances of employment. I wonder if there's anyone here who teaches CW and knows the inside information . . .

I really don't think the overall high or otherwise rating of the university comes into it; your publication record, what your PhD was about, and who your supervisor was, and what else you've done and taught, and what you're like at interview and if you get to the presentation stage, is always going to weigh much more heavily.

This is specially true, I get the feeling, now that 'impact' is so important in recruiting and so on. For example, my critical commentary was all about historical fiction, which has put me in a good position to teach courses and workshops in hist fic beyond the walls of the academy.

Hopefully if I did then want to try for a proper post in a university, my having done those would these days be regarded as a Good Thing in terms of impact and outreach and all the rest of it. If I had the time and the desire and could afford to do stuff for free or even pay to be there, I'd also be pushing proposals at conferences, and putting those on the CV.

I'd suggest that the way to increase your chances of employment is to make the absolute most of the PhD in academic and creative senses, so that it can feed your writing and your academic interests most fruitfully... which comes back to finding the best fit of you and supervisor. If you pick up a twinge of snobbery about where you did it, you can always explain just why it was so fantastically fruitful and perfect. And if you and your supervisor are canny about your examiners, you'll have two more senior people, one from outside your institution, in your network and hopefully willing to join you in to theirs.

That makes a lot of sense. I must admit I'm not even sure I want to teach (Do writers make good teachers?) but I'd like to have that path open at a later date. I have encountered some snobbery when mentioning the Uni I've started the application with (Gloucestershire) and I wondered why. But this makes me feel like I was already on the right path.

Thank you Emma.

I'm doing a PhD at a really crap university that is trying to increase its research reputation. As a result, they gave me loads of funding. Crap universities have their good points...

I teach CW at a good Uni and I don't (yet) have a PhD. It's not that the qualification doesn't matter because it does - getting one is a condition of my keeping the job - but it seems in most places that publications are more important. Which sort of makes sense - it is a practice-based subject, after all.

Yes, funding's another reason.

getting one is a condition of my keeping the job

interesting - can I ask if that's a result of uni-wide policy, say, or a specific policy in CW to beef up its academic respectability? Publication record comes first (and it's one reason universities like CW, because we have this funny habit of publishing books, and not just monographs but things wot get reviews in newspapers - we have IMPACT). But I'm aware that all practice-led subjects have trouble sometimes defending their presence to the physicists, because they don't understand how we can be measured and examined and judged objectively...

Do writers make good teachers?

Good teachers make good teachers - some writers are good teachers, some aren't. And we are in the business of communication in words, after all. But I blogged recently about the question, which might be relevant:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/10/how-dont-you-do-it.html

interesting - can I ask if that's a result of uni-wide policy

Yes - not just in CW but all permanent staff. I also think it is something to do with the regulations - you have to have a PhD to confer one...