MLC Workshops

The Shape of Story

This four-session workshop offers a deep dive into the geometry of short fiction. We will look the use of time in narrative prose, for what is the structure of a story, its form, but a way of arranging and rearranging time – of deciding what to divulge and when? You will learn how to give your stories* a strong sense of movement and momentum and explore a wide variety of story structures through diagrams and readings that will demonstrate the delightful and seemingly endless possibilities of short fiction, possibly literature’s most protean form. We will also do a few writing exercises, including one that illuminates the myriad ways a single story can begin.
“Begin at the beginning,” said the King to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” But it’s never that simple, is it?

Workshop One:

The Geometry of Story: The Classic Short Story & its Variations, and Beginnings

Workshop Two:

The Boomerang: Stories in which there are a series of seemingly unrelated digressions flung out from a linear/straightforward main narrative before returning to it, as a way of creating tension, varying pacing, reader interest, and adding a layer of metaphorical meaning to enrich the story.

The Hermit Crab: Stories adopting existing written forms as their structure (“shell”) that you fill with your own content. For example: an on-line questionnaire, how-to-assemble instructions, obituaries… the possibilities are endless. A break-up related via a recipe card, a story of grieving told through a Tinder profile, etc. (The hermit crab is born without a shell and inhabits empty shells as protection and home.)

Workshop Three:

Epistolary stories in the 21^st Century: From the conventional letter and beyond (for example: stories using email and text exchanges, CB radios, blogs, substacks etc). We will look at the tricky nature of the “direct address” POV (which can often take the form of a monologue) and how to avoid its pitfalls to creative believable narratives.

From Z to A: stories told backwards in time, in reverse order – not as a gimmick, but to increase emotional impact.

Workshop Four:

Relay Baton: Stories in which the narrative (whether in first person or third person POV) is passed on to a series of subsequent narrators who carry the story forward. An excellent technique for creating momentum and moving a story through time.         

This final workshop will also include the opportunity, for those who wish, to share writing created using some of the forms learned in the workshop through short readings, as well as an open Q & A about all things short story.

Readings:

Readings and links to readings will be sent to participants in advance of the first workshop.

*Although the focus is on short fiction, many of the structures and techniques are applicable to creative non-fiction and the novel

Zsuzsi Gartner is the author of the story collection Better Living through Plastic Explosives, shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize, and of the widely acclaimed collection All the Anxious Girls on Earth. The Beguiling, a novel with embedded stories, was a finalist for the Writers Trust Award. She edited the anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow and was the guest editor of Best Canadian Stories 2026. Zsuzsi was the inaugural Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow in 2016 and is thrilled to return to Cork as the 2026 O’Connor Fellow. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, and has just completed her third short story collection.

How to Improve Your Memoir or Personal Essays by Learning and Practicing the Core Elements of Creative Non Fiction: a Craft Workshop with David McLoghlin

• 8-week course (16 hours)
• €225 waged / €200 unwaged
• Thursday evenings 5:30 to 7:30 pm
• Class # 1 starts on 29^th October 2026
• Classes run weekly until 17^th December
• All levels are welcome
• Email info@munsterlit.ie to book

This is a course for those writers who are beginning or revising a project, whether memoir or personal essays. Each two-hour class will be equally divided between creative writing workshop (twice per student) and the craft of memoir. We will discuss exemplary texts, as we learn about, and then practice, how to

• “show” and when to “tell”, learning the importance of scene to bring your story alive with dialogue and descriptive, immersive language.
• use free-writing as a process to progressively hone in on the story you want to tell, and / or assist you in freeing you from blocks.
• work with time by moving between present and past convincingly without confusing the reader, possibly employing more than one timeline, or at least establishing greater awareness of your “narrative present.” (By narrative present I mean the life of the adult narrator that is telling the story.)
• identify the “story within the story” or central narrative thread, and work with leitmotifs by implementing recurring imagery or thematic elements.
• create a balance of authentic scenes and exposition by weaving interjections by the adult narrator into the narrative, thus adding richness and texture. Scenes happen in an approximation of real-time while exposition is the informative linking material between scenes that helps us compress time, and deliver vital information.

Apart from workshopping your work, we will focus on in-class exercises and you’ll be encouraged to develop and sustain a writing practice to help you to generate new work, or revise a work in progress. This class stresses community, and will help you to build connections with other writers: hopefully “writing buddies” with whom you can share work long after our time together has come to an end.

David McLoghlin has taught many memoir courses with The Irish Writers Centre, The Center for Fiction, Hudson Valley Writers Center and The Shipman Agency. He has also taught in the creative writing departments of New York University and The American College, Dublin. His third book of poetry, Crash Centre, was shortlisted for the 2025 Pigott Prize in association with Listowel Writers Week. While living in New York City between 2010 and 2020 he was Resident Writer at Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx, and an NYU Teaching Fellow at Coler Specialty Hospital. An essay was recently published on Poetry Foundation’s website, and an essay about his grandfather, the golf architect, Eddie Hackett, “the Father of Irish Golf Design,” is forthcoming in Golfer’s Journal. He is at work on a memoir and a fourth collection of poetry.

Cork Events

Poetry Event in Cork City. Continuing in the footsteps of Ó Bhéal. Events are held in the Hayloft Bar, upstairs at the Long Valley, Winthrop street.

7.30 p.m. Selection of Cork and Irish Poetry Films
8.30 p.m. Five Word Challenge
9.20 p.m. Guest poet & later Open-Mic

Founded in 2021, Lime Square Poets is a platform for poets worldwide to share and celebrate each other’s work. Our weekly online poetry events series is hosted from Limerick & Cork, Ireland, and consists of a reading from a featured poet followed by an open mic.

De Barra’s Spoken Word, Clonakilty is an open forum for writers of all genres. The evening features guest speakers, workshops and an open mic.

The Frank O’Connor Writers’ Group meet in Mayfield Library. Refreshments served. New members always welcome. Phone Mayfield Library on 021-4924935 for further details.