Six-Words on Love & Heartbreak
By Maya Pope-Chappell
Co-Editor Larry Smith reads excerpts from Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak
Thought 140 words on Twitter was limiting? Try writing your story of love and heartbreak in six-words. Smith Magazine–an online magazine that focuses on personal narratives-presented the newest of the “Six-Word Memoirs” series, “Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak.”
Though some of the books pages are graced by famous names like Mark Ecko, Janice Dickerson, and Dr. Drew Pinsky, the bulk of contributors are “obscures” which refer to readers of the magazine who post their own memoirs on the site. In fact, the book has 800 total contributors, the most of any book.
A crowd gathered in a small area on the upper level of the McNally Lackson book store to hear excerpts from the book, back stories to some of the books most exciting stories, and to share their own six-word stories on love and heartbreak with others in attendance.
What’s your six-word love story?
7:11 p.m.
After a late start, the event got underway. After editors Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith were introduced, a short video intro of the book played. Prior to displaying it on the projector, Larry said “This year’s video is 90 seconds.” Apparently there were complaints last year of the video being too long.
7:18 p.m.
Larry and Rachel read the intro to the book, which included a story Larry told about a nine-year-old girl in 2nd grade that had the assignment of writing a six-word memoir. The girl responded. “Nine years stacked within my soul.” The crowd laughed.
7:22pm
Rachel asked people to call out page numbers between 1 and 130. Once numbers were called, they read a couple memoirs from that page. One woman called out “19.” Larry, wearing his six-word memoir on his shirt–”Our prison visitations were surprisingly romantic”–said, “I gotta tell this story about page 19.” He said he gave the books as gifts over the holiday and his nephew read page 19 and it said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make myself cum.”
Co-Editor Rachel Fershleiser tells love story of 76 year-old lady’s romp with two men.
7:30 p.m.
Larry invited authors to come up to read their memoir. “I forgot what I wrote” said Ben Carlen. “Oh yea,” he said looking at his page recalling his story. Throughout high school, Carlen didn’t have a girlfriend and had never been in love. That was until he was 17 when he took a trip to England. “I said this is it. I met the love of my life,” he said of a young woman he met while there. Though the romance ended quickly once he returned to the states, he immediately wrote her letters. He never heard from her again. His memoir, which didn’t make the book said: “Canadian girlfriend actually existed dumped me.”
7:37 p.m.
Lara, page 91 shared her six-word memoir was “My sluggish laptop. His archived porn.”
7:47 p.m.
“Talk about how you get from thousands of six-word memoirs to your book,” asked an older man with a grey beard in the front row. He ended up being Rachel’s father. (Was that a set up question?- notice the six-words…yes its addicting!) Rachel explained the process. They would read them and circle their favorites. Larry says the average teen submits eight.
7:52 p.m.
18 people sat in the café area, two weren’t listening. Their heads were down and their attention focused on the papers in front of them. About 10 people stood behind the near 25 that were seated.
7:54 p.m.
Rachel talks of confessional society in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and other ‘post your life’ type sites. This was her response to a woman’s question about amenity and six-word memoirs.
7:59 p.m.
Rachel became “Oprah” and began passing around the mic to people in the café. Some opened up and told their stories behind their six-word memoirs while others just read.
Attendee’s offer their six-word memoirs
8:08 p.m.
Six-word memoirs comes to an end. Larry and Rachel say thank you’s and closes out the night.
Co-Editor Larry Smith talks about the difference between the six-word memoirs in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York