In recognition of the tenth anniversary of September 11th, SMITH Magazine and PBS’s weekly newsmagazine program, Need To Know, are seeking Six-Word Memoirs of people who were directly impacted by the events of 9/11. After reading the stories the stories that come in, a selection of these Six-Word Memoirs will then be turned into a special segment on the September 9 Need To Know. The memoirs could be a tribute to a life lost, a portrayal of lives forever transformed, a description of the healing process, an account of the events of September 11, 2001, or any other experience that the participants would like to share. Anyone who would like to participate should do so in the comments area of this post by August 22.*

Last fall, SMITH and Need To Know teamed up to create a segment featuring the stories of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars based on their Six-Word Memoirs (watch it on the PBS site, and read more veterans’ memoirs on SMITH). The memoirs, and accompany backstories, were extremely moving and gave viewers a unique window into the experience of our nation’s soldiers. We suspect “Six-Word Memoirs for September 11” will offer a similarly powerful and meaningful experience. Watch it below.

* Two notes. 1) if you share a Six-Word Memoir on September 11, we still won’t broadcast it on TV without your permission. 2) If your memoir is selected for the show, and you like the notion of opening up the story more, “Need To Know” producers would then conduct a brief audio interview so that they could then put their memoir in context. Ideally participants would provide video to use with their interview.