August rolls along, the summer heat intensifies, and the debates surrounding the upcoming election heat up. SMITH writers use heat to describe body heat, the outdoor climate, and ways to cook without too much effort. Heat is a powerful force, evoking memories and setting things “on fire.” Yet the Heat (both the weather and the [...]

Among the many true clichés about parenting is that you fall madly in love with your child. True, true. For me, I both near-instantly fell in love with my boy but something else happened that I hadn’t quite planned for: I fell in love all over again with my first baby, SMITH Magazine.
How so? [...]

Picture this: It’s the big luncheon to honor the Tony Award nominees at the InterContinental Times Square hotel. The place is wall to wall with some of the finest actors, directors, composers, and set designers of our time. The event is closed to the media, but we’ve got the inside track on how some [...]

Self-proclaimed “Six-Word Memoir enthusiast” Ananda Leeke has been bringing her community together through Six-Word Memoirs since 2008. This March, Ananda hosted a local DC She Writes Six-Word Meet-Up featuring DC poet Yael Flusberg. Last summer, Ananda gave an Ignite DC talk about the impact Six-Word Memoirs have had on her creative process. One of her [...]

It’s fitting that as I tap out this note of deep gratitude that I’m at South by Southwest Interactive right now, preparing to give a talk called “How to Create an Internet Phenom for Peanuts.” I’ll talk about how you should try to make something for love over gold (though passion can ideally lead to [...]

The legacy of our quiet heroes is their good deeds. It’s sometimes hard to understand exactly what they have done because the record of their actions is so subtle, sometimes almost too close to our own lives to see clearly as they’re happening. As SMITH community member Mary Ellen Marks and her family found, one [...]

J.C. Duffy, a cartoonist whose work can be found in The New Yorker, MAD, and the syndicated newspaper comic strip, “The Fusco Brothers,” sent in this illustrated Six-Word Memoir for our Gallery of Sixes (found on the right column of the Six-Word Memoir page). He writes in many more than six words in numerous [...]

Where in the world are Six-Word Memoirs? Everywhere. Here’s a round-up of recent Six-Word Memoir projects across the globe.
Six With Sangria. “My life motto fail forward fast.” “Creatively avoided getting a real job.” “Still looking, rather just be found.” Kathryn and her friends enjoy their sangria parties by playing Six-Word Memoirs as a game. Not [...]

You’ve been working hard. I know. I see it every night when I check my Google Alerts for the latest results in a search for “six+word+memoirs.” Six-Word Memoirs in classroom projects and in To Write Love on Her Arm events and on personal blogs. Here are some of my favorite six picks from the past [...]

When asked about SMITH’s Six-Word Memoirs, I often tell people that sharing those six little words is easily done here: simply type, publish, and share. But those short, short life stories can be explored through different mediums—such as a “river” (of sorts).
Launched by three RIT faculty members—Xanthe Matychak, a visiting lecturer in the [...]