Your life in six words

Think you can tell the story of your life in just six words?

Does this sound like a ridiculous question? It turns out it’s a challenge writers and us common folk have been accepting for years. Earnest Hemingway’s six word memoir? It’s rumored he wrote: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Smith, an online magazine compiled six word memoirs from their readers, authors, artists and everyone in between. From it came a book, featured on NPR, called Not Quite What I Was Planning. Some of our favorites from the book:

Painful nerd kid, happy nerd adult.
        – Linda Williamson
Extremely responsible, secretly longed for spontaneity.
        – Sabra Jennings
Watching quietly from every door frame.
        – Nicole Resseguie

This is an exercise we do with our Digital Storytelling Fellows to introduce the concept of new ways of storytelling; last Spring we had everyone who attended our #IDSP showcase write their own. Check out our instagram (@IDSPmiis) for some of our six word memoirs.

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Katie’s six word memoir. (One of many.)
Sites DOT MIISThe Middlebury Institute site network.