Rare Finds | Article
Saying it All in Six Words
It’s an exercise put forth by Larry Smith, Brooklyn-based editor-in-chief of SMITH, an online magazine that is home to participatory storytelling, both short and long form, and a cottage industry known as the Six-Word Memoir.
More exactly, Smith is asking readers and followers, and anyone else for that matter, to describe the essence of their Jewish story in six words - no more and no less.
In the age of texting and tweeting and the like, this might not seem a stretch. But this one demands equal doses of inner reflection, creativity, and brevity.
Submissions from just about everywhere are already streaming on a dedicated page on SMITH. And by the deadline of Dec. 25, the sixth night of Chanukah, the hope is for a few thousand entries.
The best of these will be published in the spring in a book tentatively titled Oy! Only Six Words? Why Not More?
The project is a joint affair of SMITH Magazine and Reboot, an organization seeking to reinvigorate Jewish life, culture and traditions in younger generations.
So why the six-word limit? True to SMITH Magazine’s mission giving people a platform to share narratives, it’s a play on a literary legend that has Ernest Hemingway challenged in a bar to write a six-word novel.
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” the 20th century novelist and journalist wrote.
“The short form gets us talking,” said Smith, speaking in six-word sentences himself. “It is a catalyst for discussion. It is absolutely never the end.”
Share your “Six Words on the Jewish Life” at SMITH Magazine.
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