Larry Smith

Rachel Fershleiser

Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a thousand glimpses of humanity—six words at a time. One Life. Six Words. What's Yours? When Hemingway famously wrote, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn," he proved that an entire story can be told using a half dozen words. When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving. From small sagas of bittersweet romance ("Found true love, married someone else") to proud achievements and stinging regrets ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead"), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-sized pieces. From authors Jonathan Lethem and Richard Ford to comedians Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.

And Other Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Ob

Not Quite What I Was Planning

Caroline Lewicki

A really fun, quick read. Six-word memoirs are trendy, but powerful and thought provoking. If you're looking for something interesting and fast paced, this is it. 

Also, if you're a writer, these are a great challenge to try. It can be difficult, but so rewarding, to write something meaningful in six words.

Sameer Vasta

How would you describe your life in six words? Writing a six-word story is hard enough; the difficulty of encapsulating a whole life in a few dozen characters feels almost impossible.

Thousands of people have tackled this daunting task, and the folks at online storytelling magazine SMITH decided to collect the best ones and publish them in a multitude of collections. The first two collections, Not Quite What I Was Planning and It All Changed In An Instant, are easy to consume in a short sitting; I devoured the hundreds of six-word memoirs in both collections while lying in the hammock after lunch on a sunny afternoon. The first collection is much more powerful than the second, probably as a function of putting the best submissions in the first book without realizing that there would be enough for many more publications, but both have standout inclusions that either had me laughing, thinking, or almost in tears.

The best part of a collection of six-word memoirs is flipping through them all and seeing just how many could describe your life, as well, if you were as clever or articulate. Then there were those that were painfully close to being relatable, but with just enough distance to seem foreign.

"Civil servant answers phone after five."

"Slightly flabby, slightly fabulous, trying hard."

Some six-word memoirs were more astute observation than memoir, but still elicited smiles.

"A sundress will solve life’s woes."

What was most impressive about the collections was how six short words could elicit such a spectrum of emotions. I could go from laughing on one page to crying on the next.

"I still make coffee for two."

For quick and short reads, Not Quite What I Was Planning and It All Changed In An Instant were excellent at reminding me that language, deftly used, can be immensely impactful.

It also reminded me that we don’t always have to strive for impact — sometimes, life is “nothing profound, I just sat around,” and that’s okay too.

If you’re looking for a good hammock read, I’d recommend flipping through some six-word memoirs, and then maybe trying to write one yourself.

(Originally published on I Tell Stories.)

Kerri Miller

Amy Grieve

Sam Spott

Laura Leila Marta

Andrea Henderson

Sara Faith Alterman

There's something going on in this Great Land of ours––more and more people are famous for being famous. Now, one of the Avon Trade program's brightest young voices examines what happens to an ordinary young woman who ends up in some pretty wild circumstances. When a Hollywood heartthrob moves in next door, Julie finds herself thrust into the spotlight and becomes a bona fide celebrity for no good reason at all! But the man known as "The Sexiest Man in Hollywood" is living in her somewhat shoddy building so he can "learn to live like the little people" while preparing for a new role. When Julie is caught by the paparazzi leaving his apartment, clad only in a bathrobe, the publicity machine takes over. Suddenly, Julie is the "new and normal" girlfriend. So fresh! She works as a waitress... So normal! She's a whopping size 10. Amazing, Julie and, by extension, her friends, even her mom, become famous simply for being, well, famous.

Not Quite What I Was Planning And Other Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Ob

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