Shannon Turlington

I’ll admit that I don’t generally like to read memoirs. I don’t mind memoirs if they are well written; I’ll read anything that’s well written. But it seems like anyone who is remotely famous feels obligated to write a memoir, even if they are way too young to have done anything memorable enough to write about. So I avoid the genre generally.

A 6-word memoir is a different story. Can you sum up your life in 6 words? It’s a challenge. Apparently, there is a collection of these brief little memoirs by both well-known and obscure people. I’d imagine that these memoirs are much more compelling than the latest celebrity blathering.

Here are a few examples from the book:

Well, I thought it was funny. — Stephen Colbert

Revenge is living well, without you. — Joyce Carol Oates

This inspired me to write my own 6-word memoir. I do my best writing in the car and the shower, which is why so little of it actually makes it to paper, so here’s what I came up with on the way home from work:

Read everything I could; learned something.