Hi everyone, I wonder if anyone can offer any advice. I have a MA in Creative Writing which I completed in 2013, and I want to do a PhD in Creative Writing. I work as a Creative Writing teacher so have not been studying for some years, and my Creative Writing superviser from my MA has now retired and can't provide a reference any more. How do I get an academic reference for my application? I've completed several postgraduate courses as part of my job since then so I have thought about asking a tutor from one of those, but these courses were in education and not Creative Writing. Any advice?

Are you sure you can't locate your MA supervisor somehow? If not, I think it's fine to get a reference from your education tutor, or from a manager, if you have one. Often there is quite a lot of leniency with references. For my PhD, I really doubt they contacted my referees at all.

Can the university where you did your MA issue an academic reference, rather than a specific person? This is what happens with the Open University, because students rarely have actual face-to-face contact with real people.