SMITH Team News

Last Week to Enter: First Person Impressions

Rachel — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:39:37 +0000

First Person Impressions is a national competition for documentary and memoir writers, photographers, and videographers. It’s about real people sharing their real life experiences and stories in their own way. Don’t miss your chance to win cash prizes, acclaim, and unique publishing opportunities. More info here:

Each day countless stories unfold. Take a real life experience of your own and tell it in a way that only you can. Craft your story with words, photos or video. Make the ordinary magical, or the exotic familiar. Shock us, amaze us or make us pause to reflect. The only rule is that it’s real.

All entries must be new works that have not previously been published, exhibited or screened in the US.

Categories:
Film – up to 5 minutes
Essay – 1500 words or less
Photography – up to 5 images. Single images are welcome; multiple images must be related, as in a photo essay.

Prizes:
The top three winning entries in each category will be presented at the First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, November 12-16, 2008.

$500 – 1st place category winners
$100 – 2nd place category winners
$50 – 3rd place category winners

The 1st place writing and photography winners will have their work published in various publications including the Philadelphia City Paper, and of course, SMITH. The top five entries in each category will be featured on firstpersonarts.org.

The judges include:

Steven Rea, Film Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer
Samuel Adams, Contributing Editor, Philadelphia City Paper
Ron Kanter, Emmy Award-winning director
Katherine Ware, curator of Photography, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Daniel Jones, editor of the Modern Love column in the New York Times
Laurence Kirshbaum, Founder and agent, LJK Literary,
Amy Salit, Producer, Fresh Air, WHYY FM

Enter at impressions.firstpersonarts.org. It’s an incredible opportunity and a beautiful celebration of personal storytelling. We know you’ll make us proud!

New Webcomic: “My Name Is Emily and I’m a Recovering Artist.”

Rachel — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:03:16 +0000

Emily is 39, single, underemployed, and can’t decide if she’s a dilettante or a genius. We’re pretty sure it’s the latter. Her fearlessly blunt diary of her “gap years” exposes a unique worldview on art, commitment, Nazis, mice, copy-machine salesmen, Judaism, SUVs, and psychoanalysis. Plus, it has funny pictures.

Stark and hilarious, Graphic Therapy is SMITH’s newest webcomic, and we couldn’t be prouder. What Shooting War did for post-Bush war in Iraq and A.D. did for post-Katrina New Orleans, Emily Steinberg is doing for post-art school neurotics. Whether or not you’ve been there, you’ll find something to love in this candid and quirky account of an ordinary life. Ever felt aimless or creatively challenged? Ever struggled with familial expectations or a doomed relationship? Ever had a shrink who seemed crazier than you were? Click here to attend Session 1 of Graphic Therapy: Notes from the Gap Years. Now how did that make you feel?

New to SMITH? Welcome

Larry Smith — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:57:34 +0000

We’re a storytelling community: a place to read, write, and share stories. First time? Read on. We just published a book, Not Quite What I Was Planning. More than a year ago, we challenged our readers to write their life story in six words. More than 15,000 did, and 832 of these life stories are in this book, which is everything we believe storytelling can be: accessible, funny, profound, and addictive. The book’s really addictive. We feature new reader memoirs every day. Submit your six-word life story here.

Or maybe you’ve had an unexpected encounter with a celebrity that you can tell in 500 words or less? Share yours in Brushes With Fame. If you’re into 100 words answer our weekly reader question called The PopuList.(Current question: what’s the biopic of your life?). Over at Memoirville, we feature excerpts from just-published memoirs by the pros, as well as interviews with authors about how they tell stories. In Obsessions, we feature the best in “personal media,” like a slideshow of love letters from the past 150 years.

Read stories from the best of SMITH, and sign up for our monthly newsletter further down this page on the right. SMITH Magazine is a world of stories—we hope you’ll share yours.

The Pregnancy Pickle Contest

Larry Smith — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:27:43 +0000

Have you ever dreamed of your beautiful, pregnant belly featured on a jar of mouth-watering pickles? Us, too.

It’s no secret we’re a little obsessed with pregnant women around here. What you may not know is that we’re also mad about pickles. Now, magically, it all comes together in perhaps the most perfect contest ever. SMITH and artisanal pickle crafters Rick’s Picks are asking anyone with an amazing, unusual, or simply memorable pregnancy story to tell it in 100 words or less. You don’t need a bun in the oven right now, just at some point in your life (and a photo to prove it). We don’t care how or with whom you had/raised your baby, we just want to hear your story.

Three grand prize winners will be featured on a nationally distributed line of pickles, the aptly named Slices of Life—“the pickle of pregnancy.” Seven runners-up (six moms and one dad) will win a delicious Rick’s Picks Pregnancy Pack and a copy of our new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure. Our all-star panel of judges include Girl’s Gone Child’s Rebecca Woolf, Offsprung.com founder Neal Pollack, Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen editor Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, and Lori Leibovich, editor of the anthology, Maybe Baby.

You. On a jar of pickles. Really good pickles. How great is that? Enter here.

SHOOTING WAR: The Miniseries

Larry Smith — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:10:51 +0000

When I first read Anthony Lappé’s treatment for Shooting War, I knew immediately that I wanted to publish his story somehow, some way on SMITH. We had never done anything like it—it was fiction for starters, and SMITH typically sticks to nonfiction stories with a focus on personal narrative. Still, the story was too good, the ideas behind it too smart, the whole sensibility too current to pass up. Lappé and I had actually met moons ago at Burning Man, and were reunited by Jeff Newelt. Jeff read the same treatment and had a genius vision for Shooting War as a comic; a few drinks later, it was decided: Shooting War would be SMITH’s first serialized webcomic. All we had to do was find an artist. Dan Goldman was miraculously found. The boys dug in. A webcomic sensation, and soon after hardcover graphic novel, was born. And now Shooting War is headed into its next life: a miniseries.

After optioning the film and television rights for Shooting War, London based independent producer Power, is developing a brand new state-of-the-art TV series on the war on terror, the media and the rise of “citizen journalism.”

“I’m very psyched to have sold the option to a UK company,” says Lappé. The Brits are great at two things: dark humor and more recently, America-bashing, so I think it’s a great fit. There seems to be much more latitude to deal with ‘war on terror’ issues on television over there. I am especially thankful for the SMITH editors and readers who helped me launch the project.”

Power founder and CEO Justin Bodle told Comics2Film, “This has to be the graphic novel of 2007,” a sentiment many agreed with, including USA Today. “I am delighted that Power now has the opportunity to bring this astute, vivid and brilliant web serial and book to the screen.”

The Brits have had a lot of love for Shooting War. The December ‘07 British GQnamed the book one of the 100 best things in the world, and the authors launched their world tour in London (Lappé blogs about it here). The UK-based Forbidden Planet International named it the top graphic novel of 2007, declaring it an “absolute revelation.”

Revelation—and a testament to the power of original, dynamic storytelling.

Our Technical Difficulties

Tim Barkow — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:32:09 +0000

As some of you may be aware, SMITH has been behaving a little erratically over the past few days. Well, we’re super sorry about that, and we believe that it should be smooth sailing from here.

We had to perform a high-wire act this weekend, changing servers, and it went about as smoothly as we could have hoped, but there were still a few hiccups here and there.

We still have some buttoning up and dusting to do this week, but we’re hoping to be on a much more stable foundation now.

Many thanks go out to the guys at WiredTree, our new Web host, for answering my many questions this weekend. I know I wanted to be doing something else, and I’m sure they did too.

Brevity is the Soul of It

Larry Smith — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:11:54 +0000

We are so grateful for the incredible response—worldwide at this point—to SMITH Mag’s just released book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure. Some 832 six-word memoirists, most of whom have never been published anywhere before, have shared the most intimate details of their lives with perfect strangers, and done so with humor, creativity, and candor—in just six words. This little book, which costs less than the next bottle of wine you’ll pick up on your way to a party, is a manifestation of everything we believe about storytelling: populist, accessible, fun, profound, and addictive. That was our short, sweet message in a recent piece co-editor Rachel Fershleiser and I wrote about the power of six words on the op-ed pages of The LA Times.

The reviews that have come in from a wild range of places: Vanity Fair, The New York Post, Publishers Weekly, Playboy, Penthouse, O Magazine, ReadyMade, Philadelphia Magazine, Style.com, and BlackBook, among others. We’re thrilled to be featured on radio shows as far and wide as the BBC’s Today Programme, Utah’s KCPW public radio, and a recent 2am live segment on “The Joey Reynolds Show” (where, oddly, Rachel was given two bowls of soup on her way out). The six-word video, made in an 18-hour marathon by SMITH cofounder Tim Barkow, was featured on The Daily Tube, and then started popping up all over the place. And we hope you’ll tune in on Thursday, Feb. 7, as we talk about six-word memoirs and the power of personal storytelling on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Many of the book’s contributors have been its greatest supporters, like Melissa Delzio, a Portland, OR designer whose six-word life story is, “Put whole self in, shook about”—and who we can’t wait to meet on our upcoming book tour. And I especially want to call out two pieces that meant a lot among all this wonderful coverage. Ben Kaplan’s “A Life in Six Bon Mots” in Canada’s National Post got the six-word memoir project’s heart and soul better than any piece I’ve read. Susan Henderson’s interview with Rachel and I—and killer presentation—in her popular writers’ site LitPark is a piece I’ll be pointing to for a long time when someone says: So, what’s SMITH’s story?

The New New SMITH

Tim Barkow — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:56:41 +0000

Welcome to our relaunched and reloaded site. There are lots of way to contribute in areas we call story projects. Write and share a six-word memoir, a brush with fame, or answer our (almost) weekly question, The PopuList. If you’re curious, you can read more about our new look, or our thoughts one week later. And the top story around here? It’s a story of six. Our new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning, goes on sale next week, February 5th! There is arguably no better gift for under $12 to bring to a party, or send to that cousin you just don’t really understand. As SMITH member Michael Finkel once said: “It’s a hard book not to love.”

Head in the Clouds: SMITH One Week Later

Larry Smith — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:53:17 +0000

We’re a week into the wildest redesign in SMITH’s two-year history. Watching members join the community and make profiles while the submissions roll in has been one of the most exhilarating experiences in my whole silly career. In the same breath, as the February 5 release date of our six-word memoir book approaches, we’ve been blown away by kudos from spots as varied as the NY Post (”the brilliance is in the brevity”) to ReadyMade (”the petite self-portraits encompass love and love, joy and sorrow–everything you’d expect from a longer book”). And it seems the six-word signs keep coming from above, appearing in the form of pigs and six-word therapy. Admittedly, it’s a little hard to keep on top of it all: a week after relaunch, Rachel’s battling the flu, Tim can barely make out his own code, and I see dead people. What we are, above all, is lucky: we get to experience, from the ground up, the birth of a storytelling community. All of us. To borrow a word from novelist and six-word memoirist Nick Flynn, “Many hands have kept us afloat.” And to paraphrase God and Stephen J. Dubner, on the seventh day we certainly don’t rest. After all, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and so do you. So, what’s your story?

SMITH Magazine: Our New Look

Larry Smith — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:21:19 +0000

Welcome to the new SMITH Magazine. It’s like the old SMITH, only much, much better.

If the site looks different, that’s because it is. We’ve undergone the biggest redesign of SMITH since we launched just over two years ago, on January 6, 2006, which happens to be National Smith Day. We’re especially excited about the new features that move us one step closer to the site we’ve always wanted: a populist storytelling community. We still feature interviews with some of the world’s best memoirists and excerpts from their books in Memoirville. And all the photo essays and long-form interviews with soldiers and others with fascinating personal stories can be found in our feature archives. The major change that we’ve made is that it’s much easier and intuitive for readers to post, share, and save their favorite stories in story project areas like six-word memoirs to brushes with fame to tales of ex-lovers to our (almost) weekly reader question, The PopuList. When you write a story, you can instantly sign in and create a profile. Your profile shows the rest of the community what stories you’ve written, what stories are your personal favorites, and how to get in touch with you, if say, someone wants to send you a personal note or suggest you come on into their offices to discuss a book deal (it’s happened quite a few times on SMITH). For more details on how it all works, cruise on over to our about page, writers’ FAQ, or help page.

We don’t have the means to do months of beta testing, but a small group of us have been building and rebuilding and playing with this evolving version of SMITH for quite a while now. I don’t think you’re ever really ready to get married, have a child, or relaunch your magazine, but at some point you just say: Let’s do it. So we have. And we hope you’ll let us know what you like about the new look, feel, and function of the site, as well as any thoughts on how we can make it better.

Make a profile, write a six-word memoir—jump on in. Now when you post a story to SMITH, you can write your own headline and add a pullquote (skills for which editors at Conde Nast get paid big bucks to exhibit!). And so the editors of SMITH still have a reason to get up in the morning, we’ll be pointing out our favorites among your stories each day in each story project, with the best among all the projects blogged about on the homepage. Call it the reader-generated, editor-curated community. We hope you continue to make SMITH your home for telling, sharing, and reading stories.

When we launched in 2006, we offered a simple mantra: Everyone has a story. With this new day on SMITH, we believe we’re one step closer to making that happen.