Legend has it that Hemingway was challenged to write a story in only six words.
His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
In 2006 SMITH magazine teamed with Twitter for a six-word memoir contest. The response was huge, and led to a book that was released in February 2008.
Here are a few examples of the amazingly vivid and insightful stories that can be told with six words:
“Nobody cared, then they did. Why?”
“Fifteen years since last professional haircut.”
“I still make coffee for two.”
“I’m ten, and have an attitude.”
See more here.
Heather Dunphy
Comments
Connections
Hi Heather,
Thanks for posting about this. I did come across the book recently, flipped through it in the store…and now want to race right back and get it.
Less is more– is so often, hard to achieve.
April is National Poetry Month and a lot of great poems have been coming to me from poetry websites and forwarded from friends who also love poetry.
It’s a great time to stop and acknowledge WORDS!
–Debbie Hemley
http://www.impressionsthroughmedia.com
I always love the Webby Awards acceptance speeches. Winners are confined to five word speeches:
Bank of America Online Banking – People’s Voice: Save the environment, go paperless.
TripAdvisor – People’s Voice: Because some hotels still suck.
Government
FactCheck – People’s Voice: Don’t believe eveything you hear.
All of last year’s speech’s are here:
http://www.webbyawards.com/press/speeches.php
Hi Debbie,
Once you start reading it’s pretty hard not to think about what your 6 words would be. That’s another thing I like about the concept. It’s so simple, yet compelling. You can’t help but participate, even if you never click on the ‘submit’ button. Hope you enjoy the book!
-Heather
Those Webby speeches are great. A few others I liked, for different reasons:
Health
That Guy – Webby: Hey, don’t be that guy.
Blog – Business
DealBook – Webby: Hey Rupert, we’re available. Call.
Not surprisingly, David Bowie just had to break the rules
My mother-in-law won a contest at Green Apple, a local bookstore, for her 6 word autobiography :
“Catholic school, bad marriage, single mom”
Great post, I just linked to it from my own “6 words” post.
Thanks Michael. I’m looking forward to reading your blog.
Thanks Heather, I hope you got a chance to stop by and enjoy my post.