Sold! We recently teamed up with Rob Walker and Josh Glenn’s Significant Objects project to see how well Six Words works with their contention that objects with stories attached to them increase in value. The pair have recruited writers like William Gibson, Nicholson Baker, and Curtis Sittenfeld to craft significance for flotsam purchased on [...]

See the show, be the show. A few dozen Six-Word Memoirists are part of an amazing show this Tuesday, November 17 at the Highline Ballroom in New York City. We’re joining the one and only Rick Moody, master storyteller and now HBO sensation Jonathan Ames (illustrated here by Nick Bertozzi), This American Life’s Starlee Kine, [...]

If you’re a teen, have a teen, know a teen, or are suspected of once being a teen, we cordially invite you to a very special Six-Word Memoir Reading & Open Slam at the NY Public Library, this Tuesday, November 10, 5pm.
Thousands of teens have flocked to SMITH Teens to share their life stories [...]

Who can stop this obsession to chronicle the Beautiful Pregnant Women in my life? Who would want to?
No one.
Last night, I ended a yoga class with a lucky break: my instructor and pal, Kari Harendorf, was just one week away from giving birth. I only had my iphone to get the photo, but [...]

We’re not sure why, but teens seem to have a natural talent when it comes to writing six-word memoirs. And as we’ve seen before, six-word memoirs as an exercise in the classroom always turns out some really fantastic work. Continuing with this tradition are the students of Brooklyn’s own Urban Assembly New York Harbor School with [...]

When you’re a kid, playing with toys is just one of those things that you inherently understand. Regardless of the era you grew up in or your economic status, it goes without saying that before you even knew how to talk, you had a collection of objects that you regularly used to create imaginary worlds. [...]

What is democracy? This is the relatively simple question asked by the Democracy Video Challenge. Now while you might expect the resulting answers to that question to be about as interesting as a fourth grade essay on “What America Means to Me,” keep in mind that the contest is open to filmmakers worldwide, each of [...]

It’s publishing day for our new book of six-word memoirs! This one is by teens, and It. Is. Amazing.
Just over a year since we launched SMITHTeens, and more than 70,000 six-word memoirs later from a very passionate community of writers aged 13-19, we’re thrilled to announce today’s official release of I Can’t Keep My [...]

A year ago we launched SMITHTeens, as Rachel blogged about last August. We launched the site as a simple way to collect six-word memoirs for a book of six-worders by teens. Then we got out of the way. What happened next? The teens blew us away. From the heart (”I am in a love pentagon”) [...]

Attention fiction writers, memoirists, memoirists-in-progress, and memoirists-to-be: Stephen Elliott is teaching the class you want to take, “Writing From Experience.” The three-hour class takes place in NYC on Monday, August 3, 6pm. For more details and to RSVP, check out the Facebook page. Not on Facebook? Reserve your spot here.
Elliott, a longtime friend of SMITH, [...]