Online storytelling is great, but sometimes we all get the urge to take it live. If you can’t wait til our May 18th Six-Word Story Slam, at least you can scratch the itch for now. Head to Philadelphia for Tuesday night’s Slam Nation at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. You’ll see all kinds [...]

Five years ago, on January 6, 2006, I launched SMITH Magazine with Tim Barkow, a guy I met on the first day of college. We got along well because we both liked New Wave rock and making media. We had tons of ideas; he was better at the behind-the-scenes, backend building of stuff. I was [...]

Forget your ill will against city pigeons and squawky parrots for a second and check out the incredible, endearing, and often amusing birds at Ornithoblogical. Every day in 2010, Anna Raff, award-winning illustrator and Six-Word Memoirist, has been featuring a new bird-themed watercolor illustration along with a witty title (such as “Ornitholopis,” above, and “Nightingale,” [...]

We’re sharing our six fix with 10Q, a user-generated project we love—one inspired by the traditional 10 days of reflection between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It works like this: Login to the 10Q site and answer one question a day in your own secret 10Q space. One year later, your [...]

In our loftiest literary dreams, all poetry would be written in the great outdoors with an antique typewriter resting atop a small wooden desk. Following composition, the author would read the work aloud with passion and conviction to an eager and captivated audience.
In South Florida, this utopian vision is a reality—but not without a fee! [...]

If you’re a collector of vintage clothing, you know that more often than not, an old item can give you a glimpse into the life of the previous owner. A lingering smell of perfume, a sewn on patch or a cigarette burn, these relics have the power to change a common place garment into [...]

We fancy ourselves the brainchild of both old and new media, conceived from old-fashioned storytelling and powered by the instantaneous world of tweets, and blog-a-zines. Stemming from similar origins, Longshot Magazine, formerly known as 48HR Mag (CBS, please don’t sue us!), takes a traditional journalistic medium–the magazine–and uses the newest tools, mixed with raw ambition, [...]

With Harvey Pekar’s 70th birthday fast approaching this past fall, SMITH comcs editor Jeff Newelt had a great notion: Let’s see if we can arrange for 70 artists who heart Harvey to each render a “Harvey Head”, and then surprise him on his big day. I thought Newelt was nuts to think he could coordinate [...]

Above: a very moving video of Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson, the retired social worker who, at the age of 105, confined to a wheelchair, traveled from Cleveland to Washington, DC to witness Barack Obama take the oath of office on January 20, 2009. She died last week, March 24, at the age of 106.
Today is [...]

In what is now a SXSWi tradition, SMITH’s Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser took to the streets (oh fine, to the open bar) to document the oldest form of personal expression since cave painting, the witty T-shirt.
Know these nerds? Recognize your chest? Name ‘em, claim ‘em, tag them on Facebook, fave them on [...]