The Art of Time: Memoir and Personal Essays with David McLoghlin

Course Summary

We live in time, and our thoughts constantly move between the past and the present. Using different timelines, or at least referencing them, is one of the best ways to add authenticity and believability to our stories. This course is equally divided between craft and workshop. We will read and discuss short memoir extracts and use in-class prompts and writing exercises to practice and reflect on what we’re learning. Students can expect to come away with a greater understanding of important craft elements in memoir and creative nonfiction, as well as practical takeaways for their writing.

Course Outline

50% of each class will be dedicated to creative writing workshop, while the other 50% will be spend discussing the craft of memoir, including:

• Working with time by moving between present and past convincingly without confusing the reader, possibly employing more than one timeline.
• How to use tenses (past, present, and conditional) to suit a variety of narrative moments.
• How to explore implementing different timelines, whether chronological with flashbacks, braided or semi-braided narratives.
• How to use free-writing as a process to progressively hone in on the story you want to tell and/or assist you in freeing you from blocks.
• Identifying the “story within the story” or throughline/central narrative thread, and working with leitmotifs by implementing recurring images or thematic elements.
• Creating a balance of authentic scenes and thoughtful exposition by weaving in interjections by the “present day” narrator, thus adding reflection, and texture.
• Identifying and developing your narrative voice—a constructed version of you “pulled from the raw material of a life” (Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story)
• Finding a structure that works for you by mapping plot points, carving out obligatory scenes, and polishing the narrative arc.

Participants will workshop a minimum of twice throughout the course, a total of 20 double-spaced pages. 

Course Outcomes

You’ll learn

• to work with time by moving between present and past convincingly.
• how to use tenses (past, present, and conditional) to suit a variety of narrative moments.
• how to explore implementing different timelines, whether chronological with flashbacks, braided or semi-braided narratives.

David McLoghlin is a dual genre writer. His third book, Crash Centre, was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize. He was awarded a 2025 Literature Bursary for memoir by The Arts Council to support the writing of an immersion book of creative nonfiction about his grandfather, Eddie Hackett, “the father of Irish golf course design”, an extract from which is forthcoming in Golfer’s Journal in the USA in 2026. His work has been broadcast on WNYC’s Radioloab and published widely.

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email:  bookings@irishwriterscentre.ie