Six word memoirs: more than just a twitter feed

A couple of weeks I wrote about a Twitter challenge the Loft Literary Center started, asking people for their six word memoirs.

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One of the more than 700 six word memoirs Emily Lloyd has collected

It turns out Emily Lloyd of Eden Prairie Hennepin County Library has been asking people for their six word memoirs for some time, and her hope is to get all of Minneapolis to participate.

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That's 382,605 residents, six words each.

Lloyd says she was inspired to create the project after the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure arrived in her library. Inspired, she created a display where people could leave their own abbreviated memoirs.

Suddenly, the 6-word memoir concept was flooded with meaning: I was reading the memoirs of patrons (and staff) that lived in the community where I work, people I passed on the street or in the stacks every day. Some were endearing, some were angry, some were silly, some were prayerful, some were witty, and every last one mattered. I felt my love and compassion for the community increase. I looked forward to every new addition. I felt more connected to the struggles and joys of the people I was sharing space with. And I thought, Someone should do this with Minneapolis.

To date Lloyd has collected more than 700 memoirs, which you can see on her flickr stream. She'd like to gather thousands more before she starts displaying them on portable murals around the city.

To participate, it's as easy as tweeting your memoir to @6wordsmpls. In addition to the memoir, be sure to include your first name, neighborhood and age.