Taking the MA course in Creative Writing at UEA turned me into a novelist.  I'd love to help other writers have access to that opportunity. A quarter of the writers who are offered places on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia are obliged to turn down their places due to lack of funds.

The purpose of this scholarship is to offer funds to talented students
from a Black and Minority Ethnic background who are in financial need and may not otherwise be able to take up their places on the course.

In August 2017, we started this page to raise £45,000 to create three scholarships for writers wishing to study the MA in Prose Fiction at UEA (£7,500 for the fees and and equal amount towards living expenses). I am delighted to confirm that we raised over £60,000 and to date have funded two scholarships with our third Scholar currently studying on the MA Creative Writing (Prose) programme. Melissa, our first Scholar said this of our Scholarship opportunity: “Thank you all for establishing this brilliant initiative. I can’t emphasise enough what an honour it feels to be the first recipient of your scholarship. Knowing it was Crowdfunded, and that I have the goodwill of so many other people—many of them writers, some graduates of UEA—is an incomparable feeling. The scholarship has provided a life-changing opportunity at a pivotal stage in my writing life. It has meant that I was able to write with a concentration and focus I would not have had otherwise, and I can’t express enough how grateful I am.”

The fourth Scholarship is now open to applications for the 2021/22 academic year and details of how to apply can be found here: https://www.uea.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/scholarships-finder/scholarships-a-z/the-uea-crowdfunded-writers-scholarship - and we've raised our total target to £75,000 in order to fund a fifth.