Amid all the hoo-ha over one of the writers shortlisted for this year's Costa book awards being a nurse lies a more interesting nugget. Christie Watson , is a graduate of the creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. Watson, whose book Tiny Sunbirds Far Away is nominated in the first-novel category, chose her course wisely. The MA was founded in 1971 by Angus Wilson and Malcolm Bradbury for writers "of originality and potential". Among its alumni are Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright and Trezza Azzopardi.

So how come the UEA course packs such a punch? Novelist Giles Foden, who teaches on the course, thinks: "It works because we admit very good students; because of the long culture of helping writers to find the right form for their ideas; and because of the emphasis placed on reading other writers' work."

Don't other courses do that? Yes, says Juliet Brooke, an editor at Chatto & Windus, who agrees that UEA has a high status in publishing – but says similar courses at Bath and London's City University do too. "Ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether the writer has done a course or not – if a book's brilliant, it will stand alone."

Recent UEA graduates

• Susan Fletcher: graduated in (2002): won Whitbread First Novel Award 2005

• Naomi Alderman: graduated in (2003): Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2007

• Diana Evans: graduated in (2003): won Orange Award for New Writers 2005 with her novel with 26a.

• Emma Crowe: graduated in (2005): plays include Charged and Kin

• Adam Foulds (2007): won three prizes for his novel The Truth About Strange Times.