UNB's celebrated English graduate programs offer both creative writing and academic streams of study, helping students reach both their creative and critical potential. Students feel particularly welcome because of our small class sizes. They gain personal support and invaluable feedback from nationally-acclaimed professors and have opportunities to work with them on research and creative projects and on departmental publications, including Canada's longest continuously published literary journal, The Fiddlehead, and on the student-run, national literary journal, QWERTY.

Our cozy, quiet campus is the perfect work shopping environment for creative writers wanting to develop a book-length manuscript. Our PhD in Creative Writing is one of very few offered in Canada. In the academic streams, students examine important works of literature, undertake original research, and build their critical vocabularies. Their research is supported by excellent library resources. Graduate students in English acquire strong research, writing, editing and communication skills and develop connections with other academics, writers and publications across Canada. Doctoral students also gain exceptional applied teaching experience through the Teaching Apprenticeship Program.

Our graduates go on to become professional writers, editors, journalists, marketers, teachers, professors and researchers, amongst other things.

Research areas

Canadian Literature, including Atlantic Canadian

American Literature

Medieval, Early Modern, Romantic, Victorian & Twentieth-Century British Literature

Postcolonial & First Nations Literature

Women's Literature, Gender & Transgender studies

Cultural Studies, Film Theory & Popular Culture