Creative Writing Classes
Memoir and Poetry
Improve Your Writing
A Process-based Approach
My teaching and mentoring style is warm and non judgemental, and I meet my students where they are. I do my best to make my classes and workshops engaging, collaborative spaces. My online classes are delivered in such a way that a previous student exclaimed, “you transcend Zoom!” The extracts we read are varied, to promote social equity and understanding, and I empower my students’ learning by maintaining a safe and democratic space. Students being workshopped in my classes guide the class in reading their work, unlike traditional MFA programmes, where “workshoppees” are required to keep silent. I promote a process-based approach where “the only way to fail at writing is not to write.” (Gail Sher) I excel at helping students of poetry find the “objective correlative” or deep image for their inner experiences, and in memoir in assisting students in Developmental editing, and finding the through line, the story within the story that they are writing towards. My classes are empowering, fun and practical experiences and create and maintain a sense of writing community.
My Teaching Experience
I have over a decade’s experience as a facilitator of poetry and memoir on two continents, working in community and university settings. I’ve taught in a New York City public hospital, in libraries, schools, was Writer in Residence with Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx and have taught creative writing in a school in Knocknaheeny, Cork. I’ve worked with students with additional needs, students from the Traveller community, refugees and migrants, and students with English as a second language. I’ve also taught at New York University, University College, Dublin and The American College, Dublin.
Recently I have taught at The Center for Fiction, Hudson Valley Writers Centre and The Irish Writers Centre, mentored via The Munster Literature Centre, led workshops at The Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School, Co. Tipperary and taught in Cork schools via The Unfinished Book of Poetry (mentor in 2023/24 and 2024/25). I also teach via Poetry Ireland’s Writers in Schools programme as well as the Heritage Council. I’m a mentor with The National Mentoring Programme, and am on a panel of Arts Facilitators, via Cork County Council Library and Arts Service, delivering arts and creative writing workshops and classes throughout the county. I also offer classes to small groups of adults online.
“This has been the third memoir writing course that I've completed in the last year and it has been this one that has made the writing and ideas all come together for me in a way that I wasn't able to see or achieve before. It has been the missing piece and you have been the teacher that I have needed.”
Tara Doonan, student at The Irish Writers Centre
Adult Classes, Autumn 2026
POETRY WORKSHOPS
(1) Independent Poetry Workshop (via Zoom), eight students maximum per class.
Weekly on Thursdays, 7:30 - 9 pm (GMT)
This class has been running for three years and is ideal for poets who are starting to write, or have been writing for some time but need feedback and guidance, to build confidence and to learn how to edit their own work. It will also be of benefit to poets who are working towards their first pamphlet (chapbook) or first collection.
How does it work?
Everyone sends a poem or two in advance, and will have the opportunity to workshop a minimum of one poem per class. You will receive supportive critique and suggestions for edits in the class and will also receive written edits from the participants, including myself. We also look at an exemplary poem for things we might “steal” for our own writing. This is not so much literary analysis as opening the engine of the poem to help us to learn to think as writers. From this we design our own creative triggers or prompts based on form or theme and if there is time, we do some in-class writing, or finish with a sense of something we might work on before the next class. Apart from workshop, the class will focus on craft issues such as the "objective correlative” (finding images in the “outer” world to reflect inner experiences), how to successfully finish a poem by finding resonant poetic closure (and not a cheesy “pat” ending); metaphor / simile / deep imagery; assonance / alliteration; how to lineate or enjamb a poem properly; how to balance thought and emotion, as well as inner and outer worlds.
How Much Does It Cost?
The class is €80 per four weeks, paid in advance, via IBAN, Revolut or Zelle. (Stripe payment link coming soon.)
How do I sign up?
Any questions, email: david[at]davidmcloghlin.com
Memoir Boot Camp: Write Your Memoir
or Personal Essay Collection in Community in 10 Weeks
Starting Thursday 20th August, 2026
5:30 to 7:30 pm Irish Standard Time (IST) / 12:30 to 2:30 pm ET).
“This has been the third memoir writing course that I've completed in the last year and it has been this one that has made the writing and ideas all come together for me in a way that I wasn't able to see or achieve before. It has been the missing piece and you have been the teacher that I have needed.”
Tara Doonan, alum of MA in Creative Writing student at Maynooth University
What makes this course different? Accountability, support, craft.
A rough draft of 60,000 words in 10 weeks? (Note that published memoirs are typically 80,000 words.) How is that possible? Break it down. We typically average anything between 500 and 1,000 words per hour, so you can easily free write 6,000 words per week across four to seven writing sessions. Do it for 10 weeks, and you’ll have a 60,000-word draft. (If your goal is another number, you can break it down accordingly.)
How will we do it? By working together to set our daily and weekly writing goals, via mutual support and—most importantly—accountability. Please note: you are encouraged to set your own goal.
My goal for you as a teacher and facilitator is for you to generate new work, or edit existing pages, while at the same time learning important elements of the craft of memoir and personal essay, all in a space where you feel supported to do this important work in community.
This 10-week course is the perfect way to begin, re-engage with a stalled project, or keep going with a memoir or personal essay project in the context of highly supportive accountability.
Course Components
Each two-hour session comprises
Craft and discussion of assigned readings from exemplary texts
Generative writing exercises based on craft learnings
Time for students to share work and discuss specific craft challenges (several slots per student throughout the course).
Accountability:
We will discuss a manageable daily and weekly word count target at the beginning of the course—it will be different for everyone;
We will make our goals clear to ourselves and each other. By making a goal public via accountability partnership, we have a much better chance of success;
We will check in daily via a supportive What’s App group to help keep on track with our writing goals outside of class;
In class, we will write for thirty to forty minutes via generative prompts designed as part of craft learnings discussed during the first hour.
Outside Class Time
Office Hours: one-on-one time with me to discuss both the bigger picture aspects of your project as well as highly specific elements that you need help with.
Google Drive to house course materials, complete with relevant slides to support course work, as well as chapters from exemplary memoirs and personal essays in PDF form. (There is no need to buy books.) We will learn to read as writers, thus feeding into the deliberate practice of the craft of memoir.
What’s App Group to keep you on track and accountable.
Optional co-writing via Zoom (one hour per week, time and day to TBD).
Schedule: From 20th August, this course takes place every Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 pm IST (12:30 to 2:30 pm ET) for 10 weeks via Zoom. Each two-hour class will be divided between craft and co-writing time (via generative writing prompts), one hour for each. Course dates are 20th and 27th of August; 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th of September; 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd of October. Student numbers are capped at 12.
Each class will be divided between Craft and Co-writing. We will discuss, and practice, how to
outline your project by identifying “pillar scenes” that play a crucial place in your story. With a road map to follow, when you begin each writing session, you will know where you’re going.
sink into a supportive, nonjudgemental slow writing space where you will write from a place of safety.
use free writing to write your story as well as reflect on it, progressively homing in on the deeper story you want to tell.
identify the “story within the story,” through-line / central narrative thread.
Deepen into both scenes and exposition (exposition is the connective, informative prose that links scenes together and moves the story forward).
find a structure that works for you and develop your narrative voice.
work with leitmotifs, by implementing recurring images, or thematic elements.
use time in a convincing way, echoing how memory works.
Outcomes
You can generate a 60 to 70,000 word draft of your project, if you commit to the process.
You can establish a healthy writing routine for both self care and your writing career to carry you far beyond this course.
You will have a greater understanding of important craft elements in creative nonfiction and will be provided with practical, actionable takeaways that you can use during and after the course.
Join a literary community you can maintain after the course is over.
Sign up below. Few live courses offer this kind of individualised support at a comparable price point (20€ per hour). Ex students, contact me directly for a 20% discount (at 320€), available until 16th July. I cannot offer refunds but am happy to answer any questions. Contact me below.
Testimonials
“I am very grateful for David’s encouragement to explore aspects of the specific through line of my memoir project. It’s opened up a lot for me and helped in many ways!”
Heather Harrigan, student from The Center for Fiction
“This has been the third memoir writing course that I've completed in the last year and it has been this one that has made the writing and ideas all come together for me in a way that I wasn't able to see or achieve before. It has been the missing piece and you have been the teacher that I have needed.”
Tara Doonan, student at The Irish Writers Centre.
More About Me: My teaching style is warm, supportive and democratic. In this I am inspired by teachers like Felicia Rose Chavez (The Anti-Racist Creative Writing Workshop). In supporting students in their writing process and establishing a writing practice, I draw from Joan Bolker (Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day) and Gail Sher (One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers). My classes are discussion-based, and a blend of teaching and facilitation. I am an award-winning poet, and writer of memoir, and have taught extensively in several genres, including memoir with The Irish Writers Center, The Center for Fiction and Hudson Valley Writers Center.
Any questions, email: david[at]davidmcloghlin.com
In the Woods: Fruitfully Lost
Lani O’Hanlon & David McLoghlin
Lead a Restorative In-Person Life Writing Retreat
At Greywood Arts Centre, Killeagh, Co. Cork
Saturday 22nd – Monday 24th August, 10 am to 4 pm
soothed by the full base layers of the river,
the percussive pops and splashes of fish…
—Lani O’Hanlon
She’s dead now, the mother tree.
We live in each other’s shadow, but don’t know it.—
A root system.
—From ‘Forest Bathing’, David McLoghlin
About
Join us at Greywood Arts Centre for a generative, restorative life writing course where, over three days, among the trees of Glenbower Wood, we will become fruitfully lost, and reorientated to our deeper selves.
Brief Summary
Throughout this summer writing retreat, we will have time to deepen our writing practice and process, and our sensual and embodied relationship with the land. Over the three days, there will be time to write indoors and in the woods, time to walk and rest, to connect with ourselves and others, and with the landscape.
Course Structure
Each day will include several sessions, incorporating reading and gentle creative writing in the loft in Greywood and in Glenbower Wood. Too often the culture writes from the head, whereas there is an ample poetic and autobiographical tradition of writing from the instinctual, sensual body. We will explore this tradition with simple grounding somatic exercises and what might be called “slow writing”. There will be some time to share both our process and our writing in a supportive atmosphere.
What We Will Be Writing
In conscious contact with the woods at Glenbower, we will remember our first experiences in nature and our ongoing relationship with the natural world, whether we garden, work with herbs and plants or simply enjoy being close to water, plants and trees. We will explore the creatures and people we have lived with and the landscapes we have dwelt in, or were drawn to at different stages in our lives, as well as the stories and myths associated with these places as well as our personal associations and memories. Throughout the retreat, we will read carefully-selected, exemplary poems and memoir extracts by writers from a variety of literary traditions.
Who Is This Course Suitable For?
Whether you are a writer of autobiography, memoir or poetry, this writing retreat is suitable for those of you who have set out on a writing journey and more experienced writers, as the focus is on a process-based, restorative, and generative writing retreat and learning new ways to nurture and refresh your writing practice and yourself.
Where
Greywood Arts Centre is located in the village of Killeagh in east Cork, 75 minutes by car from Waterford City, 45 minutes from Cork City, and three hours from Dublin. For further information, consult “Getting Here” on Greywood’s website. The Centre has five guest rooms. Please contact Greywood directly to inquire as to availability. Email: (hello@greywoodarts.org/ Phone: +353 85 269 5731)
Accessibility: The Loft studio is located on the first floor and is accessed by stairs. The surrounding outdoor area is level, with a mix of paths, grass, and gravel surfaces. Wheelchair-accessible bathrooms are available on the ground floor. There is no parking on-site, but drop off inside the gates can be arranged if needed. Please enter on foot through the driveway gate. If you have specific access needs or questions, please get in touch in advance—we will do our best to support you.
Your Teachers
Lani and David greatly enjoy teaching and facilitating and look forward to welcoming you to Greywood and sharing the essence of what they have learnt over many years.
Bios
From a theatrical family, Lani O’Hanlon has been practising and teaching creative writing, meditation, dance/voice and somatic movement for over 25 years. This practice informs all that she does, including her work as a poet in mental health settings and palliative care with Réalta, the national resource organisation for arts + health in Ireland. Lani is the recipient of bursaries, mentorships and awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Waterford City and County Council and the Munster Literature Centre. She is the author of Dancing the Rainbow, Holistic Well-Being through Movement (Mercier Press) and has received awards for her poetry and short stories, including the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (2025), and was nominated for the Forward Prize by Southword (2026). Lani’s poetry collection Landscape of the Body (Dedalus Press, 2023) has been widely praised, and a co-created collection, About Grief, Songs of Love will be launched in 2026. Her work appears in journals and anthologies, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, Poetry (Chicago), and Staying Human (Bloodaxe Books). She is a regular contributor to Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1.
Lani has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and has edited the poetry collections; As they Blossomed and A Flake of My Soul with Réalta. She lives in an ecologically restored 100 year old stone and hemp cottage with John and two feral cats in the Gaeltacht of Sean Phobal, in West Waterford.
And here’s the word book, from beech,
beechwood tablets scored with runes;
or livre, from librum, once the word
for an oak’s inner linings.
We are never out of the woods.
—Mark Roper
Based in Cork City, David McLoghlin is an experienced and intuitive craft-based facilitator of memoir and poetry, and excels at guiding students as to how to deepen their drafts. The author of three poetry collections, his third collection, Crash Centre (Salmon Poetry, 2024) was shortlisted for the 2025 Pigott Poetry Prize (“a work unquestionably triumphant with poetic victories”, Thomas McCarthy). He has received two Arts Council Literature Bursaries for memoir, most recently in 2025, and won the 2025 Waterford Poetry Prize. David teaches in Cork libraries, the Irish Writers Centre, The Munster Literature Centre, and at festivals in Ireland, the USA, Bulgaria and Austria, including The Dublin Literature Festival and West Cork Literature Festival. Clients include a National Poetry Series winner and students have gone on to study at Maynooth’s and UL’s Creative Writing MAs.
Payment Information and Student Numbers
We have capacity for a maximum of 20 students. Sign up below.
Any questions, contact us at laniohanlon4[at]gmail.com or david[at]davidmcloghlin.com
Classes in Schools
If you are a teacher in a primary or secondary school in Ireland, I’d be happy to work with you directly (contact me for rates), or apply for a grant via Poetry Ireland’s Writers in Schools programme. The programme pays for 1/2 of the visit. For Writers in Schools, follow these steps:
Consult my profile on the Writers in Schools directory.
Contact me to decide on a date.
Once that’s decided, apply for a visit via this form.
Please note, there is high demand, so apply two months in advance.
“Thanks so much for a wonderful class! You really established a comfortable environment for sharing, and did a great job introducing the important craft aspects of memoir.”
Lillian Duggan, The Ideal World
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Since 2023
Visiting teacher with Writers in Schools.
Poetry as Commemoration, via UCD library (50 hours of teaching in libraries and secondary schools across Munster)
Cruinniú na nÓg (via Cork County Council and My Creative Wish).
Previously: Resident Writer at Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx.
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Since 2023
Memoir: more than 100 hours with The Center for Fiction, Hudson Valley Writers Centre and The Irish Writers Centre.
Two-day poetry workshop at The Thomas McDonagh Hedge School, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary.
The Unfinished Book of Poetry (mentor in 2023/24 and 2024/25).
Cork County Council (pilot scheme to support employees’ wellbeing through creativity).
West Cork Literary Festival (summer 2023).
Culture Night, Fermoy Library (September 2023).
The American College, Dublin: September-December 2023.
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New York University Writing Fellow and Creative Writing Teacher at Coler-Specialty Hospital (New York): September 2011 to May 2012. Weekly class with long-term-care patients and individual mentorship of a patient with Multiple Sclerosis.
Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx (Writer in Residence, 2013)
Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Master Class, Hill-Stead Museum, on the poetry of place, May 2018.
Resident Writer, Hunts Point Alliance for Children (Bronx, New York) October 2013 to December 2014: Taught craft to teenaged, multilingual students (some with learning challenges) via the workshop method, creating syllabi and curricula involving the work of renowned writers, utilising bilingual Spanish-English texts where appropriate. Developed and used age-appropriate activities to encourage collaboration and constructive critique.
Creative Writing Instructor at New York University, September 2011 to December 2011, where I taught the undergraduate syllabus “An Introduction to Poetry and Fiction”.
Creative Writing and Editorial Mentor to the Young Emerging Writers’ Forum (Dingle, Co. Kerry) October 2008: an Arts Council sponsored project, where teenaged editors put together and published a literary magazine for young people, Dingle, County Kerry.
Graduate Instructor of Hispanic Literature (Spanish poetry and Latin American short story) at University College, Dublin, 2005.