Words on the Page: Kickstarting Your Non-Fiction Book, Creating a Project Roadmap with Geraldine Walsh

Course Summary

Thinking about writing a nonfiction book but found yourself caught in the overwhelming enormity of it all? Or are you ready and poised but stuck in those initial stages of developing your book concept and outlining its structure? Maybe you have no clue where to start at all, but you cannot stop thinking about an idea. You may have translatable expertise in your field, want to tell a personal story, or explore a topic of special interest, but don’t know how to get your ideas from your head to the paper. This course will guide you out of the overwhelm so you can pinpoint your ideas and get stuck into writing

Course Outline

Day 1 – Creating Story in Non-Fiction

We will look at the importance of our stories and expertise, why stories need to be shared, the motivation behind writing our stories, exploring our expertise, and finding the value in memoir and nonfiction, including what makes a personal story stand out and how to capture an audience.

Day 2 – Creating Character in Non-Fiction

Characters drive stories, which is also true of non-fiction. We will look at who a character is in non-fiction, what do they need versus what do they want, and how to build a characters story arc in non-fiction with compelling character development.

Day 3 – Laying the Foundations

While thinking about writing real people or events, finding the substance of your story, its hook, and finding your voice, we will also look at the boundaries and ethics of memoir/nonfiction writing, and how organising your book will help avoid writer’s block.

Day 4 – Drawing a Roadmap

We will delve into the concept of creating a roadmap for your book, which will consist of ideas and perhaps multiple identities for your project. Here we look at the roots of creating a project and learn to focus and align conflicting ideas in order to find cohesion and consistency in a project.

Day 5 – Where To Go From Here?

In the final day of this course, we will look at developing a writing space, a writing practice, balancing your writing and home life, facing imposter syndrome, and beating writer’s block, along with any queries from participants.

Course Outcomes

Throughout the week, participants will actively work on gaining more clarity on their project and have the first draft of a project roadmap which will help guide them in writing those first chapters. The course aims to guide the writer to prioritise their writing, focus their concept, and become clear on their project.

They should come to this course with an idea for a non-fiction project and the motivation to explore the varying degrees and depths of that idea through in-class exercises and take-home guides.

At the end of the week, participants are invited to sign up to read their work at a showcase on Friday 10th July from 5-7pm.

GERALDINE WALSH is an award-winning writer, journalist, author, and editor. She is a frequent contributor to The Irish Times on a range of topics in the women’s health, mental health, family and education spaces. Her non-fiction, Unraveling Motherhood (Hatherleigh Press, 2023), is part memoir and considers motherhood a tightly woven knot of physical, mental, emotional, and social changes, which then seeks to unravel that knot. Geraldine was a 2025 fellow of the International Lamplight Fellowship with the Irish Writers Centre and Varuna, and a 2026 Island of Many Voices participant awarded by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature. Her work has been shortlisted and longlisted in various competitions including the Bridport Short Story Prize, and the Four Faced Liar Short Story Prize. She is currently writing a novel and a short story collection.

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