By Lauren Sheffer, News Correspondent
In Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare expresses love in 114 words. Lord Byron used 122 in ‘She Walks in Beauty Like the Night.’
Inspired by author Ernest Hemingway’s brevity in the story, ‘For sale:’ baby shoes, never worn,’ Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser settled on six:’ six words to describe an emotion so enormous, it’s arguably at the crux of almost every pop song, poem, movie and novel.
For their second anthology of these extremely short stories, ‘Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak (By Writers Both Famous and Obscure),’ they culled entries from their blog of the same name, run through the website of their magazine, SMITH.
The two editors spoke at the Brookline Booksmith Tuesday night.
‘Passionate love, parently love, platonic love ‘- it seemed to be the most universally life-changing factor for storytellers of every age, background and worldview,’ Smith read from the book’s introduction. ‘This book celebrates life in all its shades of red ‘- a valentine, if you will, to every kind of love. But it’s also a nod to love’s evil twin:’ heartache. So many of our favorite memoirs, from ‘Ex-wife and contractor now have house’ to ‘Girlfriend is pregnant, my husband said,’ reflect the other side of cupid’s coin.’
In addition to the reading, Smith and Fershleiser placed notecards on every seat, encouraging the approximately 40 audience members to write their own six-word memoirs and participate in a ‘jam session.’ As men and women around the room read their pieces, laughter often erupted, as well as gasps and sympathetic sighs. As the evening drew to a close, The News spoke with Smith and Fershleiser about their pithy pursuits.
Huntington News:’ How long did it take people to notice the memoirs from the time you first started blogging them in 2006?
Larry Smith:’ A lot of the blogging and writing world already seemed to know about SMITH. Also, we were kind of lucky because Twitter had just started up, and we said, ‘Why don’t we Twitter out a six-word memoir a day?’ A lot of the folks that joined us were early adapters, you know ‘- they had blogs, made a couple thousand six-word memoirs and were really passionate about it.
Rachel Fershleiser: With bloggers especially. These things spread sort of virally. It really was kind of an Internet phenomenon.
HN:’ Did you have any doubts about how well people would be able to write the memoirs?
RF:’ They don’t sound like they’re going to be as interesting as they actually are … I read 700 a night. It’s so easy. They’re so addictive.
HN:’ A lot of writers and writing instructors say shorter is better, or more powerful. Do you agree?
LS:’ F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the great American writers, said, ‘I would have written a shorter letter if I had more time.’ Writing shorter’s actually quite hard.
RF: I don’t know if it is innately more powerful or less powerful, so much as it’s available. It lowers the bar to entry. Any form of writing can be powerful. This just gives so many people the opportunity.
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HN:’ What themes do you prefer?
RF:’ I’m always more entertained by heartbreak than love. I mean, who wants to hear, ‘Oh, we’re soooo happy!’ It’s not that exciting. I love the ones that are weird and quirky and detailed. One love memoir was, ‘They both hated wide-
ruled paper.’
LS:’ As a pretty non-religious person, I was blown away by how amazing the memoirs that had to do with faith and spirituality were. It made me think about religion a little differently, and how much it means to people.
HN:’ Besides challenging your perception of religion, has this project changed your views on life at all?
LS:’ The whole idea we had is, everybody has a story. This short self-expression has been used a lot. For instance, battered-women shelters have been using six-word memoirs to help women cope. People with post-traumatic stress disorder in a hospital in Florida have been using it. It’s sort of therapeutic.
HN: Which are your favorites?
RF:’ One that always makes us laugh’ from the’ ‘Love & Heartbreak’ book is,’ ‘Married by Elvis, divorced by Friday.’
LS:’ A lot going on there ‘- kind of fun, kind of tragic. [There’s also,] ‘He posted our sex tape online.’
RF:’ A lot with technology. A lot about people breaking up over Facebook or Blackberry or seeing a text message sent to somebody else.
LS: One of my favorites is, ‘Everyone’s crazy except you and me.’ If you’re in a relationship, and you don’t believe that, I think you’re in the wrong relationship.
HN:’ How often do you write your own six-word memoirs, anyway?
LS: Every day.
RF:’ It sort of gets addictive. Everything that comes out of your mouth, you start counting it. Often, you’ll say something accidentally to another person, and go ‘Oh, six!’
LS:’ I joked the other day that my six-word memoir is, ‘Now I obsessively count the words.’ It doesn’t get old.
