Master Class: The Art of Time: How to Use Different Timelines in Our Memoirs and Personal Essays to Improve Our Narrative Voice with David McLoghlin
Master Class: The Art of Time: How to Use Different Timelines in Our Memoirs and Personal Essays to Improve Our Narrative Voice with David McLoghlin
2 Sessions: Saturday, July 12 + 19
11:00am-1:00pm ET
David McLoghlin
David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet, and a writer of memoir and personal essay. His third book, Crash Centre (2024) was recently shortlisted for Ireland's Pigott Prize, and has been hailed by senior Irish poet Thomas McCarthy as “a work unquestionably triumphant with poetic victories.” He was awarded a Literature Bursary (grant) for memoir by Ireland’s Arts Council, has an immersive essay forthcoming in Golfer’s Journal, and a personal essay has recently been published on Poetry Foundation’s website. His poems have been broadcast on WNYC’s Radioloab and anthologized on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing (Beacon Press, 2020).
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 Thursday, July 3.
David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet and an exciting creative writing facilitator in memoir and poetry whose writing has been broadcast on WYNC’s Radiolab, appeared in film and published in journals of note on both sides of the Atlantic. His three books are Crash Centre (May 2024), Waiting for Saint Brendan and Other Poems (2012) and Santiago Sketches (2017), all with Salmon Poetry. In 2023 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship and was one of two poets to represent Ireland on the Versopolis European poetry platform. He won the Open category of the Voices of War International Poetry Competition in 2018 and was a finalist in the 2015 Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize (now The Moth International Poetry Prize). His translation of Sign Tongue by Chilean poet Enrique Winter won the inaugural Good Morning Menagerie Chapbook-in-Translation Prize in 2014. In 2008, he received second prize in The Patrick Kavanagh Awards, and received a major Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Literature Bursary in 2006.
McLoghlin has taught creative writing and literature at University College, Dublin, New York University, The American College, Dublin, Coler Specialty Hospital, and Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx, where he was Resident Writer. Most recently, he has facilitated creative writing with Munster Literature Centre, Poetry as Commemoration, The Center for Fiction, The Irish Writers Centre and Hudson Valley Writers Center, as well as many other organisations. He holds an MLitt in Spanish literature (first-class honours) from University College, Dublin, and an MFA from New York University’s Creative Writing Program and lives in Cork with his family.
