Just like opinions editors and nosy aunts, everyone has a story to tell—though not everyone has the chops, time or ability to pen Proustian tome of their lives. Those with attention span disorders are welcome at SMITH Magazine, where your DIY memior can be as short and punchy as life itself. Dedicated to the abbreviated art of personal storytelling, SMITH takes full advantage of the bottom-up media model, giving its registered users access to a number of ongoing story projects like Six-Word Memoirs, Brushes with Fame, Memoirs-in-Progress, My Ex and The PopuList. While most of the work reads like clever magnetic fridge poetry, Smith also features longer works of up to 1,500 words, as well as photo essays and an innovative graphic narrative section that adapts stories into a comic book format. SMITH’s editors both assign and accept stories through an Obsessions section, which covers everything from jobs, war and beautiful pregnant women (not a typo). An exciting new approach to online publishing, SMITH makes a compelling case for the notion that brevity is the soul of wit.
