Summer has a smell, feel, and taste which are all too delicious for an eight-year-old to savor in silence. Ms. Buttiglieri and Ms. Wenning’s third-grade class at Bradford Elementary in Montclair, NJ was bursting at the seams, half-crazed—they needed an outlet that didn’t involve screaming. Paige Kennedy-Piehl stepped in a la Mary Poppins style and worked with the children in small groups to get them to think critically about writing a Six-Word Memoir. We reaped the (adorable) rewards and the teachers got to keep their sanity on the home stretch into sweet, sweet summertime. These six-worders from eight- and nine-year-olds are the perfect start to July. Here are some of our favorites:

“Running for the ice-cream truck outside.” - Charlie Miller, 9

“My life is a good life.” - Jacob Rich, 9

“I am a dreamer of adventures.” - Woody Montilus, 8 (more…)

This week’s Member of the Week is something of a famous one in a storytelling world that plays with the line between the professional and amateur, the celebrity and unknown. Robin Templeton is the author of the first six-word memoir that appears in the first book: “After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.” Her short, short life story is everything that a six-word memoir hopes to be: honest, specific, authentic, personal, true.

At our book launch party in February 2008 at Housing Works, contributors came from all over the country. They would introduce themselves by memoir (”I’m Jace, page 123, ‘To make a long story short…’”). When the other contributors realized who Robin was, they all sort of came up to her to kiss the ring. They thanked her for her honesty and bravery, and they encouraged her to write more. Now Robin’s working on a full-length memoir about her life, one we hope to see between the pages of pulpy paper soon.

None of the above, however, is why Robin is SMITH’s Member of the Week. We’ve selected her because she’s just contributed a new story to SMITH in our My Life So Far story project—and this story a few more thousand words than her last one. It’s called “Breaking Up With My Mother,” and is a version of an essay she wrote for an anthology from Soft Skull Press, Who’s Your Mama: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers. Robin’s newest words remind me of her first six words in this space: honest, specific, authentic, personal, true.

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It’s been said by many, including the editors of SMITH, that a six-word memoir can be a lot like an epitaph, the ultimate summation of one’s life. We’ve always been fascinated by obits of the famous and obscure alike. Now, by popular demand, we’re starting a new reader challenge category: Six-Word Obits. There’s only way way to kick this reader challenge off, and that’s by respectively asking you for your Jackson 6: a six-word obituary for the King of Pop. Leave your entry in the comments section below. Since we set this one loose on Twitter—with six-word maven Mary Elizabeth Williams immediately replying wit “From ABC to PYT to RIP.”—yesterday, we’ve had some great responses.

“King silenced by insulation and prescriptions.”
- Eva

“Force did stop. He got enough.”
- Erin Fitzpatrick

“Survived by family, friends, widespread ambivalence.”
- Christiann

Keep ‘em coming. Our three favorite entries win the six-word memoir book of their choice. The contest ends on Monday, June 29 at 5pm EST. Update! Contest extended to June 30, 5pm EST.

Creative Commons image from Flickr user bernissimo.

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While we usually aim to post calls for submissions for non-fiction stories from the everyday lives of our readers (…it’s kind of our thing), we sometimes have to show some love to the fiction writers out there reading SMITH. National Public Radio is currently accepting stories for their annual Three-Minute Fiction Contest. Up until 11:59pm in July 18th, NPR will be accepting original fictional stories of up to 600 words.

One winner will have their story read on-air during Weekend All Things Considered where they will also be interviewed. And as an added bonus they’ll get an autographed copy of “How Fiction Works” -a must have for any aspiring fiction writer. The complete detailed contest rules are available on npr.org. (more…)

“Food is a beautiful thing because it connects us to the natural world and shows us our place in it. When you really geek out on one thing that you love, you feel more connected to the whole process.”

Lots of great books have been written about living off the land, but they all seem to me too much of a pastoral pipe dream. “Sure,” I always think, “if I had all the time and space and money in the world, and was a totally perfect person.” Or, apparently, if I were Novella Carpenter. She started her farm, complete with gardens and livestock, in an abandoned lot in Oakland, California. Green acres, it is not. She raises her piglets among prostitutes, her shallots amidst shootouts. She makes mistakes. She gets tired, angry, even murderous. This is a chick I could hang out with.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer is her chronicle of Ghost Town Farm from inception to success—and pig to prosciutto. With a sense of humor and a marked lack of sanctimony, she shares her adventures as a locavore, dumpster diver, farmer, butcher, and neighbor to some of the quirkiest real-life characters imaginable. And it’s all smartly contextualized with a light touch of agricultural history and a debt of gratitude to her hippie upbringing. Read the first chapter here, and see why The New York Times liked it almost as much as I did. Then hear it straight from the farmer’s mouth: (more…)

The idea that you can learn a lot from listening to others tell stories and share their experiences may be far from a new idea (and one that we at SMITH can definitely get behind), but the fact remains that, in a world of full of unique people, we can be each other’s best teachers if we are willing to share with and listen to one another. This idea is the basis for Now You Know What It’s Like, an online project that aims to give readers a place to share how their job or other current situation has influenced them and what they learned from it. Described on their website as, “a project which explores how our occupations, passions and life experiences make us think differently,” NYKWIL is a great place to go if you’re looking to pick up or dish out some fresh perspective on life.

Submissions can come in the form of text, audio, picture, or video as long as they provide insight into how your job or other experience has influenced your view of the world. And if you’re interested but aren’t quite sure what to what about, check out their suggested examples of previous entries from contributors Cool Papa Bell and Fiasco da Gama. (more…)

The book Dave Eggers hails as “one of the best-ever examples of comics reportage, and one of the clearest portraits of post-Katrina New Orleans yet published,” and Cornel West calls “intimate and yet seismic in its scope” is going on tour. Tell your friends and come on out. (Times and dates subject to change.)

Wednesday, August 19: Josh commemorates A.D.’s release with a presentation and signing in Austin, Texas, @ Book People. 603 N. Lamar, Austin, 7pm.

Thursday, August 20: A.D. presentation & signing with Josh @ Domy Books in Houston, Texas. 1709 Westheimer, Houston, 6:00 pm.

Friday, August 21: A.D. hits New Orleans. Release party with Josh and some of the book’s subjects, live and in person! Plus an art show, music, and refreshments. The Canary Collective, 329 Julia Street, New Orleans, 7pm.

Saturday, August 22: Josh signs books @ Maple Street Book Shop, 7523 Maple Street, New Orleans. 1pm.

Tuesday, August 25: A.D.’s New York release party @ Idlewild Books, co-sponsored by SMITH and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Live music by Mary McBride and her band, refreshments, and an art auction to benefit New Orleans relief organizations. 12 West 19th St., New York City, 7pm
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“I didn’t start out to do this intentionally, but as I wrote, the structure of the narrative took the shape of a trip, moving from one place to the next, sometimes by plan, sometimes by whim, just as we move around in actual travel…in that sense, the shape of the book reflects its subject. “

Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s new memoir, Not Now, Voyager, weighs the pros and cons of travel as she relates her own misadventures around the globe. Schwartz’s mixed feelings about leaving home change in the telling of her personal history, and her memoir in itself comes to represent a journey. The author recently sat down and answered a few of my questions on her writing.

Not Now, Voyager could be called an anti-travel polemic. Is that too extreme? How would you describe it?
When I first began writing it, it did feel like an anti-travel polemic. I’d just returned from a trip I really didn’t feel like making, and was feeling rather grumpy about traveling in general. But as I continued writing, I realized that was much too narrow a view. I’d had some trips that were quite wonderful, and probably I’d have some good trips in my future. And the pleasures of travel are undeniable. So the book shifted into an exploration of travel—why people keep running around, what they’re seeking and what they’re fleeing, what they discover, and above all, why I find it so difficult and anxiety producing. It became a kind of memoir seen through the lens of travel. (more…)