The 400 Words Project
Friday, December 08, 2006 by Red Cloak
About the Project
It started with a simple idea, a simple assignment: write the entire story of your life in 400 words or less.
400 Words is a magazine of short-short nonfiction. (Kind of like ‘microfiction,’ but all first-person, and all true.) Each piece that appears in it is 400 words in length or shorter. It’s a literary magazine for people with short attention spans and over-abundant curiosity. Every issue of 400 Words covers a theme. The short responses are delightful in themselves, but when put into conversation with each other they gain a truly awesome kinetic quality.
400 Words lends itself to being read compulsively, in small sips and Big Gulps; on trains; while waiting; and most of all, in the bathroom. We exist, and want to exist, at the seams of sociology and lit.
Finally, 400 Words wants you. Participation is the blood that keeps this project alive.
We’re usually acccepting submissions for something. Everyone (literally! everyone!) is invited to write their own 400-words-or-less about the upcoming theme, and send them in for possible inclusion in the next issue.
Okay, so participate already
The 4oo Words project is now accepting entries on WORK.400 Words Project: http://www.400words.com/
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write about work. Yourself and work, more specifically.
Where do you work?What do you do there?What was your first/worst/best job ever?What would you like to be doing?How does what you’re doing now compare with what you wanted to do, 5 or 10 or 50 years ago?What are the thoughts that go through your head while you’re on the job?How does what you do differ from, or repeat, what your parents do or did?What did other people want or expect from you?