Be Brief

If you had only six words to write your memoir, which would you chose? “He’d eat only at taco trucks”? “Moved to the city, lost mind”? “We broke up over organic furniture”? Ours might be “Read more at www.sfweekly.com,” which is only four words, the rest being at you-know-where. The short-attention-span editors at Smith magazine, who solicit six-word memoirs for a living and their Web site, managed to garner enough about mushy stuff to fill Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak, a trendy book whose own six words might be “Better than Stuff White People Like.” Like their last effort (Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure), the new book has contributions from those famous (Armistead Maupin, Robert Hass, Dan Savage) and not. They’re also releasing Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous and Obscure at the same time, and everything about publishing tells us they’ll have another book coming along shortly thereafter. This time, get your own life story in print: Just think up your best six words and plug them into www.smithmag.net — or lob them to the editors at today’s appearance of Smith founder Larry Smith and senior editor Rachel Fershleiser.
Fri., Jan. 30, 7 p.m., 2009