Online Publisher / "Brevity is the Soul of It": Six-Word Memoirs about the Creative Life

Write a six-word memoir for SMITH Magazine and possibly get published in a New York Times bestseller.

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. Papa came back with, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the form by asking its readers for their six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“After Harvard, had baby with crackhead”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”). More than 900 of the editors’ favorites became Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, published by HarperCollins. The book became a New York Times bestseller, has been featured everywhere from The New Yorker to NPR, and inspired teachers, bloggers, and countless others across the world. Now Urbis and SMITH want you to describe your life as a writer, artist, or raconteur in six well-chosen words. We’ll feature the best ones on Urbis and SMITH—and they could end up in a future book.

Users retain their copyrights to all submitted works. All user submissions to SMITH are governed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This means visitors are free to copy, distribute, display