Be in a Book from Fresh Off the Boat & Six-Word Memoirs!
The Six-Word Memoir project and ABC’s acclaimed series, Fresh Off the Boat  invite you to share your story for a new book, Six Words Fresh Off the Boat: Stories of Immigration, Identity, and Coming to America, publishing  in fall 2017 from Kingswell/Disney Publishing. We believe this book’s simple and inclusive form will offer powerful and fascinating perspectives on coming to America — stories of safe havens, long journeys, complex transitions, and customs brought into this country by the millions of immigrants who indeed make America great.

Who has a Six Words Fresh Off the Boat story? Everyone.
We are seeking the widest range of stories possible, stories from the lens of immigrants and their descendants, as well as anyone who has a family story of coming to America. In other words, all of us have a story to share. We’ll also be including a number of “backstories,” more information below.

Writers are welcome to submit a memoir in their native language (so long as the English translation is six words).

A few examples:

Immigrant. Worker. Sole provider. Extraordinary Woman. 

Grandma’s apron sailboats docked in kitchens.

Sister pretends she can’t use chopsticks.

A secret life because of immigration.

Emerged educated emigrated immigrated. Elected. Elated. 

Russian immigrant learns English, becomes MD.

Feuding with three family members? Persian. —Nahnatchka Khan, showrunner, creator Fresh Off the Boat

Another Greek Odyssey, thriving in America. —Arianna Huffington

​The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2017, and anyone can share a story on sixwordmemoirs.com/fotb or send an email to fotb@sixwordmemoirs.com.

Educators, Teachers, and Organizations
We are working with organizations and educators to engage the communities they work with to take part in this creation of this book, and can provide some simple tools to engage those you serve to take part in this simple storytelling form. We anticipate half of the stories in the book will be from recent arrivals to America, while the other half will be about how one’s descendants came to America, and their experiences once they did.

Six-Word Memoirs is a popular lesson plan in classrooms across the world. One simple classroom exercise: Create a “My American Experience in Six Words” lesson in your classroom (a lesson that could incorporate having students nterview their relatives to tell their own six-word stories). Share some of your students’ stories with us and they could be part of this new book. We have a special blog devoted to showcasing how teachers use the six-word form of self-expression to engage their students.

Check out our Six Words Fresh Off the Boat Took Kit and Teachers’ Guide to help you get started!

          DOWNLOAD TOOL KIT               DOWNLOAD TEACHERS’ GUIDE

Backstories
This book will include a number of “backstories” from these Fresh Off the Boat Six-Word Memoirs. If you’re submitting your story on the website you can include a backstory of up to 500 words along with your memoir. If you are sending us your story by email or via social media, please note if you would like to tell us more — we may get in touch with you for a backstory interview. Sharing your story directly on SixWordMemoirs.com/fotb is by far the easiest and most efficient way to include a backstory, which we encourage you to include.

Deadline
Share your six-word story at SixWordMemoirs.com/fotb by February 15, 2017. We’ll let you know by spring 2017 if your story will be included in this book. All published contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the book.

Download the Six-Word Form
Download our “What’s Your Six-Word Story” form to use with your communities. We will need contact details — name and email, or phone number, to verify the writer(s), confirm permission to include in the book, and know where to send the published book should his or her six-word story be included.

 

How to Submit
Online
1. SixWordMemoirs.com/fotb
2. Sign in with Facebook or register in under 30 seconds
3. Share your six-word story (include a photo and/or backstory if you’d like)

Social media
• Twitter: @sixwords @FreshOffABC
• Facebook: facebook.com/sixwordmemoirs
• Instagram: @sixwordselfie
• Tumblr: sixwordmemoirs.tumblr.com

ProTip!
Take a photo of yourself holding up your Six-Word Memoir and share on SixWordMemoirs.com/fotb or any of our social media channels.

About Six-Word Memoirs
Over the last decade, more than 1 million people—some famous like Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, Madeleine Albright, Whoopi Goldberg, and Elizabeth Gilbert, as well as many others never-before published—have used this simple and meaningful form of self-expression to think about their lives. In classrooms and boardrooms, churches and synagogues, veterans’ groups, and across the dinner table, Six-Word Memoirs have become a powerful tool to catalyze conversation, spark imagination, or simply break the ice.

Eight volumes of Six-Word Memoirs have been published with HarperCollins, St. Martins, and TED Books​. Six-Word Memoirs has grown through with collaborations with Bono’s One.org, Oprah Magazine, the National Constitution Center, among many others organizations.

Six-Word Memoirs was founded by Larry Smith. More on Larry here.

Check out the Six-Word Press page for links to stories from The New York Times, Vanity Fair, NPR, People, and more about the world of Six-Word Memoirs.

Questions
Contact: larry@sixwordmemoirs.com