Since we launched the six-word memoir challenge on SMITH in late 2006, amazing things have happened that, literally, were not quite what we were planning, from a reverend in North Carolina who preached six-word prayers to a midwestern book blogger who created a six-word memoir “meme” that still races across hundreds of thousands of personal [...]

Our first book of six-word memoirs, Not Quite What I Was Planning, featured life stories from “I’m ten and have an attitude” to “Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.” Clearly it’s a concept that spans generations. But some of our very favorite responses came from teenagers, those smart, sassy, angst-filled truth-tellers whose lives are changing [...]

“Wrote a great novel. No sale.” “Quiet, Baby; Mama’s trying to think.” “Greatness costs many things, including privacy.” “Now be honest, and just lie.”
The above are just a few of the nearly 500 submissions to SMITH and Urbis’ “Six Words on the Creative Life,” a reader project launched just a few days ago. Submit your [...]

Urbis is one of our favorite creative communities. Like SMITH, Urbis is powered by writers, and gets bigger and better with each submission. While our thing is nonfiction personal narrative, Urbis’ community of creatives tend to focus on fiction, poetry, and screenplays-in-progress, with lots of peer reviews and ranking to spur on competition. Now we’ve [...]

Within the course of a few short weeks, we went from holding the soggiest six-word reading/slam to the sweatiest. Yet in many ways, Monday, June 9 at the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn this was the sweetest. At each reading, we always tell some “stories behind the stories,” mixing up tales from the [...]

At the Six-Word Memoir event May 14 in Mankato, Minnesota, four of us contributors sat at a table telling our stories to the audience, all the while a guy with a fancy professional camera snapped pictures from every angle.

I didn’t know this man. I’ve lived in this town for 14 years, and having worked at [...]

We often tell the story of Summer Grimes, whose sixer was selected as the most all encompassing and slapped on the front cover of our little literary effort. For almost a year she ignored my congratulatory emails. In this email, she explains why, then hops right aboard the good ship Six:
“Dear Rachel,
I am completely [...]

I was waiting for someone to do six words on W.

Six Words for Bush (a writing contest)
Wherein we describe W’s tenure as president, now that it’s (almost) finally over.

I just sent in my official entry: “Born on third base. Stole home.” Send yours here.

It seems like lately everything we post is “Whoa, we never thought of this—but YOU did.” From paintings to cartoons to videos to spinning classes to prayers, the six-word concept is spreading every which way through the freeflowing beauty of the user-generated age. Nowhere is this more miraculously apparent than in BookBabie’s “Six-Word Memoir Meme,” [...]

Stephen J. Dubner, a Not Quite What I Was Planning six-word memoirist (”On the seventh word, he rested”) who’s, um, slightly better known for co-authoring Freakonomics was just on Good Morning America talking about his “Six-Word Motto for the USA” contest. Inspired by SMITH Mag’s six-word memoir project and Britain’s search for a new motto, [...]