Living Through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Six-Word Memoirs

Written by and
Published on March 27, 2020

What is a six-word memoir?   One of my favorite genres and a great technique for sparking writing and sharing, six-word memoirs were popularized by Larry Smith in November 2006 as a Twitter challenge that simply asked “Can you tell your life story in six words?”   You can learn more about them in this Ted Talk here. 

For this assignment, the first time we gathered online after spring break I asked the staff to “say it in six,” sharing their six-word memoirs of living through the COVID-19 pandemic, “social distancing,” and the shifting of all classes to online delivery.  (Larry Smith calls this “Coronatime”) 

Below, in a design by editor Chrissy Getts, are some of the staff’s responses.

We’d love to read your six-word memoirs, too.  You can share them with us on Twitter with the hashtag #hcc6words, as a comment under our post on Facebook, or in the comments section right here on the web site.   We may publish them online or in our print edition!

Prof. Steve Mark, Advisor to Horizons