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 March - June 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 two 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
(1) Memoir Boot Camp: Write Your Memoir
or Personal Essay Collection in 10 Weeks
Starting Thursday 16th April, 2026
“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, current MA in Creative Writing student at Maynooth University
A rough draft of 60,000 words in 10 weeks? (Note that published memoirs are typically 60 to 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 word count 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 will 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.
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 45 minutes to an hour via generative prompts designed as part of important craft learnings discussed during the first hour.
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. These materials will be accessible during and after the course, indefinitely. The reading will help us to learn to read as writers, thus feeding into deliberate practice of the craft of memoir. As such, there will be no need to buy books.
Schedule: This course takes place every Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 pm (GMT) 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.
Student numbers are capped at 10.
Weekly: starting on 16th April, classes will run for 10 weeks on Thursdays, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm (GMT / 1:30 to 3:30 ET). The course dates are 16th, 23rd, 30th of April; 7th, 21st, 28th of May; 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th of June. Note: there is no class on 14th May.
Each class will be divided between Craft and Co-writing. We will discuss, and practice, how to
outline your project to provide yourself a road map which you can use throughout the 10 weeks by identifying “pillar scenes” that play a crucial place in your story. 1,000 words an hour is easy to achieve, once you know what you’re writing about. The outline with key scenes and moments will give you a map to follow so that 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, and as such progressively home in on the deeper story you want to tell.
map plot points, obligatory scenes and characters.
Deepen into your scenes and exposition (exposition is the connective, informative prose that links scenes together and moves the story forward).
identify the “story within the story,” or through-line / central narrative thread.
find a structure that works for you.
develop your narrative voice.
work with leitmotifs, by implementing recurring images, or thematic elements.
use time in a convincing way to echo how memory works.
Outcomes
You can generate a 60 to 70,000 word draft of your project, if you commit to the process.
You will have a greater understanding of important craft elements in creative nonfiction and will be provided with practical, simple and actionable takeaways that you can use during and after the course.
You can join a literary community that you can maintain after the course is over.
Sign up below via Stripe. Cost: 300€ for 10 weeks (20 hours = 15€ per hour). Few live courses offer this kind of support at a comparable price point.
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.
Click here for more testimonials.
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(2) Master Class: The Art of Time: How to Use Different Timelines in Our Memoirs and Personal Essays to Improve Our Narrative Voice, a Master Class via The Shipman Agency
2 Sessions: Sundays, May 17 + 24 2026,
11:00 am -1:00 pm EST (4-6 pm Irish time)
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. In this course, we will learn how to establish a narrative anchor (what Sven Birkerts in The Art of Time in Memoir (Grey Wolf Press, 2007) calls “a vantage point”). In other words, this is a place from which the past in the story can be surveyed. Where this vantage point belongs in the timeline can be specified via scenes from the narrator’s “present life” or more organically as a wistful, wise, or angry tone within the narrative voice—one that is defined by the wise perspective gained by reflecting on past events.
This practical masterclass is structured around reading short extracts from memoir and personal essay; it includes practical tips for how to navigate time in our writing; and 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 creative nonfiction. This class is for all levels. While attendees may be at the beginning or end of a project, all that is required is an interest in writing memoir or personal essay.
You’ll learn:
To work with time by moving between present and past convincingly without confusing the reader, possibly employing more than one timeline, or at least establishing a greater awareness of your “narrative present.” (By narrative present I mean the life of the adult self who is telling the story.)
How to use tenses (past, present, and conditional) to suit a variety of narrative moments. Do we tell our story wholly in the present tense, gaining in immediacy what we lose in reflectiveness? Or do we balance the use of present tense (peak moments of beauty, love, crisis, or trauma) with the use of the past tense to bring in the reflective voice of the adult narrator, the adult “you?”
How to explore implementing different timelines, whether chronological with flashbacks, braided or semi-braided narratives.
This class has 1 full scholarship and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, May 8.
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
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.