A few months ago, a strange and wonderful thing found its way to my desk: a box of pretzel croissants from NYC’s City Bakery.

I love pretzel croissants, as I detailed in this interview. Raella Rothman (pictured in the middle, on the right), an enterprising senior at LREI high school in NYC, had put together a series of assemblies called “Just Words.” She wanted SMITH Magazine to come talk about Six-Word Memoirs. And clearly she’s been well schooled: bribing us with baked goods was one savvy move.

After talking about SMITH’s style of storytelling—it’s all about the “Chicken’s-Eye View”—and how, why, and the wild ways six-word memoirs have become a global phenom, and that we’re working on a new book of six-word memoirs by and for teens, we finally stopped talking.

Good thing, too. Because that’s when things got really good, as Rachel channeled Oprah, moving through the 200+ teens assembled with her wireless mic.

Everyone got into it, with the mic moving back and forth across the room (and the seniors in the balcony shouting them down to everyone else). Here’s just some of what we heard.
“Too many colors, hair now brittle.”
“Found Waldo in a strip club.”
“Fat camp makes fat kids fatter.”
“Life is best with sturdy trampolines.”
“Only child, home alone. Where’s dinner?”
“Late to school every single day.”
“Slightly tempted to believe in Santa.”
“I thought I was a princess.”
“I’m always the only one laughing.”
“Beautiful vacations until the brother came.”
“Obama ran, so I could fly.”
“Wake up to sunset, morning wood.”
“Still scared about being grown up.”

And what was clearly a crowd pleaser—
“I think your mom is hot.”

To the amazing students a LREI, in six words I say: “You totally brought it to six.” We hope to hear more from you at SMITH Teens.

Tags: LREI High School, Raella Rothman, six-word memoirs