Advice in 6 Words for Your 18-Year-Old Self, Celebrating Mom in Six with Susan Orlean, Six-Word Celebrity Challenge

Six Contest: Six-Words For Your 18-Year-Old Self

Graduation season is upon us, and high school and college students are facing the one-year anniversary of remote distance learning. With even more trials and tribulations ahead of them, we’re taking the time to reflect on our past challenges. For SixContest #139, we’re asking you to write a letter to your eighteen-year-old self.

Some Sixers remind their past selves to explore their passions (“Go to New York! Disregard Grandma!” — Solstice). Others recommend avoiding broken hearts (“Let boys grow up. Then date!” — CanadaGoose) and empty wallets ("Save money. Plenty rainy days ahead.” — Neesha101). As for those who aren’t eighteen yet, what do you want to tell your future self?

This newest contest ends on June 30th. Make sure to submit your memoir for a chance to win a Six-Word Memoir book of your choice!

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Mother’s Day Backstory Video: Susan Orlean

“I have begun ironing his underpants.” So begins legendary New Yorker writer and bestselling author Susan Orlean’s six-word backstory, given at a Mother’s Day-themed “Six Words Live” show ten years ago (a story I suspect I recorded on a Flip Camera; the hot gadget of 2011!).  Susan is a masterful storyteller on the page and on the stage, and I hope you enjoy this story about the inevitable horror of one day realizing that almost all of us become our parents. 

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Six Word Search :“Mom”

In celebration of Mother’s Day, we searched for memoirs which recognized a mother’s strength, challenges, and love for family. Here are some of our favorites among the thousands of "momoirs" on sixwordmemoirs.com:

“Motherhood: my biggest learning curve yet.” — MrsBClark

“Mom’s smile sneaked across my face.” — canadafreeze

“Hugging Mom, and then I’m home.” — LexaHernandez

“Mothers rest. World stops. True story.” — ctgoods2

"Suffered miscarriage; daughter offered her doll." — Tara Lazar

"Roles: creator, counselor, fighter of monsters." —Amy Sahar

"Mom, have you seen my _______?" —Michelle Goodman

“NO MOM, THESE SIXES ARE LIFE.” — themelord125

What should we search next?

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Celeb Six: Tina Fey

Writer, producer, mom, all-around funny person, and May birthday, Tina Fey, is our celebrity inspiration this month. She’s best known for her work on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and also a celebrated memoirist of the book Bossypants. Let’s celebrate Tina Fey with six words about this woman of words. Click through to our Substack page to leave six words in the comments. We’ll share our favorites in our next newsletter.

Short Cuts: Six Word Reviews

From Substack: Dearest is a newsletter which examines antique jewelry found at auctions and through dealers. From Qing dynasty snuff bottles to diamond eye patches, Dearest shares a witty, engaging history behind unique, often eccentric, jewelry pieces.

Six-Word Memoir intern Danielle Shum’s Six-Word Review: “Adorned with history, jewelry reveals all.”

From the World: You surely don’t need another streaming service. Except that you do. Kanopy is a streaming service focusing on independent, documentary, and classic films. It’s a service that’s both increasingly popular and still somewhat under the radar. It’s also free for many university students and library-card holders around the world. My first few spins around the Kanopy universe took me to Spellbound (the spelling bee doc, not the Hitchcock flick), To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock!), Man On Wire (as suspenseful as Hitch), and the incredible fourteen-part civil rights doc series, Eyes on the Prize, which I was so glad to introduce to my ten-year-old son. My Six-Word Review: “Kanopy: art house in my house.”

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The Craft of Writing Tip #7: Ride the Metaphor

Metaphor is a beast. Metaphor is pure gold. Metaphors about metaphor are writing’s beating heart … or maybe heart murmur. Why do we love metaphors so? When asked what makes good poetry, the poet William Carlos Williams wrote “no ideas but in things.” Those five words encourage us to focus our attention on concrete objects rather than abstract ideas in order to give our brains a better chance of making sense of the words.

Shortly after The Six-Word Memoir Project launched in 2006, YouTuber Micah the Maniac (see above) shared his own Six-Word Memoir: “A rollercoaster ride of unbelievable events,” a perfect metaphor that allows us to not only see how he views his life, but feel it too. Metaphor, and its cousin imagery (see our last newsletter for a tip on imagery), gives the reader a shortcut to what you are trying to convey, no matter the word count. When you only have six words to work with, using metaphor is a life saver.

My smile is made of velcro.  —Michelle Wolff

You were ill-fitting shoes; heart's blistered. —RoseRiv885 

Cherry trees weep pale petal tears. —Stella Matutina

Cathedral of trees invites forest worship. —A. Hume

After cancer, I became a semicolon. —Anthony R. Cardno

You’re my chapter. I’m your page. —D. Ralways

Put your own metaphorical powers to work and share a metaphor-driven memoir on sixwordmemoirs.com. We’ll feature some of our favorites in our next newsletter.