PGCert in Creative Writing at Humber College in Toronto, Canada is a postgraduate certificate in Creative Writing programme. The programme runs for 2 semesters, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 8,891 per semester (CAD 1,333 per semester for local students).
At a glance
Degree:Postgraduate Certificate
Field:Creative Writing
Duration: 2 semesters
Delivery: On Campus
Language: English
Local tuition: CAD 1,333 / semester
International tuition: CAD 8,891 / semester
Information for the 2027/28 academic year · Last reviewed September 2026 ·
Program details
Overview
This two-semester graduate certificate at Humber Polytechnic's Faculty of Media, Creative Arts, and Design is delivered online and centres on one-on-one mentorship with a professional writer. Students work through their own book-length manuscript project — which may be a novel, memoir, screenplay, play, poetry collection, short fiction, creative nonfiction, or a portfolio of children's writing — receiving direct feedback on plot, character, dialogue, imagery and style from an assigned mentor. Weekly online classes, offered synchronously or asynchronously, cover craft and the writing process alongside the mentorship component. The program is open to domestic and international students studying in Canada or abroad, though Humber notes it does not lead to a post-graduation work permit. It suits writers at any stage who already have a project they want to develop to completion under sustained, individualized guidance rather than a conventional classroom-based writing curriculum.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Academic eligibility for this graduate certificate requires a bachelor's degree, diploma, advanced diploma or equivalent, as the programme's own admission requirements page states. Applicants whose first language is not English must meet Humber's institution-wide English Language Proficiency Policy; for this graduate-certificate credential level the policy sets IELTS Academic at an overall 6.5 with no band below 6.0, and TOEFL iBT on Humber's post-January-2026 scale at 4.5 overall with no skill score below 4. In addition, applicants must submit a cover letter of up to two pages describing the single book-length project they intend to work on, their writing experience and any relevant life experience, and a writing sample of up to 15 pages, ideally drawn from that same project; both are submitted through the Applicant Portal. Canadian citizens or permanent residents educated internationally must have their credentials assessed course-by-course through ICAS for secondary-school transcripts and through WES for post-secondary study, with a course-by-course WES evaluation recommended wherever transfer credit will be sought. Meeting these minimum eligibility requirements does not guarantee admission.
Application Details
Start Date:September and January
Application Deadline:Domestic applicants (Canadian citizens, permanent residents, protected persons) apply via ontariocolleges.ca. For Fall 2027 entry, applications open early October 2026, with Humber offers beginning as early as November 2026. Highly competitive programs use an equal-consideration deadline of 1 February 2027: applications received by then are assessed together with no earlier offers; later applications are reviewed first-come, first-served while space remains. Fall 2027 offer acceptance is due 1 May 2027. International applicants apply directly through the Humber Web Application and are reviewed on a rolling basis, up to one year before their intended start term; no fixed international deadline is published, and applying for a study permit 3-5 months before the start date is recommended. No separate Winter/Spring institution-wide dates are published. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
