Writing Between the Lines: Time, Memory, and the Self in Context with Afric McGlinchey

Course Summary

This course is a continuation for writers who have already begun exploring experimental and generative forms and are now ready to delve further into the layered texture of narrative.

Each week we will engage with sample texts that model movement between the present moment and memory, internal monologue and external event, personal reflection and collective experience. Through targeted prompts and structured improvisation, we will develop pieces that inhabit multiple temporal and emotional registers simultaneously. Writers will come away with a greater capacity to shape nuanced, resonant work that both disturbs and delights.

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

– William Faulkner

Course Outline

Week One: The Present is Haunted

We begin with the porousness of now. How does memory intrude on the present moment? How can a scene unfold across temporal planes without losing its emotional anchor? Using texts that slip seamlessly between times, we’ll write into scenes that shimmer with simultaneity.

Week Two: The Mind on the Page

This week, we explore interior monologue—not as stream-of-consciousness, but as the architecture of thought. What does your narrator notice, omit, obsess over? We’ll work on capturing internal weather and translating it into action or mood on the page.

Week Three: The Personal in Public

How do we situate a personal moment within a larger societal or historical frame? We’ll read texts that set the intimate against the seismic—grief in wartime, joy during upheaval—and develop pieces that locate our inner experience in wider currents.

Week Four: Seamless Transitions and Sharp Cuts

We’ll study the mechanics of temporal movement. How does a writer cue a shift in time or tone without disrupting flow? This week is part technique, part intuition—experimenting with cuts, leaps, and overlaps that create depth and motion.

Week Five: The Echo Chamber

This week is about deepening resonance. We’ll trace recurring images, themes, or phrases to create cohesion across fragmentary narratives. What’s echoing between the lines? Where do repetitions turn into refrains?

Week Six: Composting the Drafts

In our final session, we’ll return to our fragments and drafts with a sculptor’s eye. What wants to live? What belongs to another piece entirely? With group feedback and one final generative prompt, we’ll shape and polish at least one layered piece to completion.

Course Outcomes

By the end of the course, participants will have drafted at least two substantial hybrid or layered pieces, along with generative fragments and techniques to support future writing. They’ll gain skills in structural experimentation, writing in and out of time, and placing personal narratives within a more expansive lens.

Afric McGlinchey’s poetry collections, The lucky star of hidden things and Ghost of the Fisher Cat, were published by Salmon Press and in Italian translation by Casa Editrice L’Arcolaio. Her prose poetry memoir, Tied to the Wind, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021 and translated into Macedonian. Two experimental pamphlets: Invisible Insane  (2019) and The Throat Bird (2024) were published by SurVision. Afric has twice been awarded a Literature Bursary by The Arts Council of Ireland. Her most recent publication is À la belle étoile – the odyssey of Jeanne Baré (2025), a narrative sequence in the voice of the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. www.africmcglinchey.com.

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