It will come as no surprise that among English Faculty graduates are many brilliant and award-winning authors. The study of English immerses students in centuries of literature and weekly essays hone the ability to write. Zadie Smith, an alumna of the Faculty (featured below), has said that the degree gave her 'a very keen sense of what had come before' and she always warns her students, 'how can you hope to be new if you don’t know what has already happened?' Other alumni include Sebastian Faulks (featured below), Anjali Joseph, Ali Smith, A.S. Byatt, Jennifer Egan, Margaret Drabble and Maggie O'Farrell, whose Hamnet (2020) was made into the eight-times Oscar-nominated film of the same name, and Gwyneth Lewis, former national poet of Wales. 

The degree also demands that students develop their critical and analytical abilities, which can be readily seen in the work of the inspiring and influential activists among the Faculty's alumni. These include: Laura Bates an activist, writer, speaker and journalist who launched the Everyday Sexism project and has written six books including The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny (2025); and Natasha Walter, author of Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (2010) and The New Feminism (1998), who also wrote and produced Motherland in 2008 based on the experiences of women and children in immigration detention.