In 2024 the New York Times launched a reader contest, inviting their teenage readers to tell a true story about a meaningful life experience in just 100 words.
The Times’ inbox was swamped. So they ran the contest again last year, and this month, after over 25,000 entries, they published the 20 winning stories.
Like this one:
A Letter to My Biological Mother
Dear Lindsey,
It’s me. I hope this finds you well. I spend a lot of time thinking about you. I check your Facebook page every so often to catch a glimpse of what you’re doing, how you’re doing, where life has taken you.
I sit there, pondering these big questions time after time. You haven’t wished me a happy birthday since I was seven. Would you ever care to meet me? Are you a bookworm like I am? Do you resent me for ruining your teenage years?
And, most importantly: What would happen if I clicked Add Friend …?
— Sarah Moore, 16, Canton High School, Canton, Mich.
These “tiny true tales” are part of a tradition begun in 1983 with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which offers fame and no fortune to the person who can write the worst possible opening sentence to a novel. Like last year’s best from Lawrence Person in Austin Texas: “She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.”
In the past few years, short-short stories have also had their moment, as have one-sentence stories (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”), which begat a sub-sub-genre of six-word stories (“Joining the President is his husband…”).
While I’m all in favour of helping teens to write, it seems odd to ask them to write about meaningful life experiences when they’ve had so few. Why not ask people at the other end of life’s teeter-totter to write 100 words? I mean, I’m 75. Ten years ago, I was 65. But 10 years ago, the oldest teenager at 19 was …nine.
So I’ve decided to launch a memoir contest for people between the ages of 60 and 100. Like the Times’ contest, these stories need to be true, meaningful not just to the writer, but the reader, and no more than 100 words long.
100 words is six or seven sentences. So this is an exercise in concision, not expansion. It’s writing tight, not loose and long.
It should not be your condensed life story, a first draft of your obituary; it should be a single telling and memorable story from your life whose archive stretches back many years.
So you may want to strike out in a new direction here, not dressing up one of your old favourites that you can recite like poetry. Try something new – not just to us, but to you. That trip to the ER to get your stomach pumped out. The trusted elder who turned out to be an abuser. The “Reply All” that was meant to be just “Reply.” It’s amazing how all that reticence disappears once you’ve written it down.
Your 100 words should also be written by you, not your avatar, your bot, or your teenager.
Finally, you’re writing about yourself, not someone else, much as you love your mother. Points will be given for felicity of expression, depth of feeling and lack of exclamation marks!
The deadline for submissions is Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Please e-mail your submission to bob@ramsayinc.com.
I will select the Bronze, Silver and Gold medal winners, and publish them in a future OG blog. Prizes include the quiet pride in a job well done, but as has been true for centuries and for billions of people around the world, your real reward will be in …heaven.
Meanwhile…
1. In-depth interview with an in-depth human. Angus Reid says the vast majority of Canadians know nothing about Mark Carney. They should watch his interview with Alastair Campbell and Anthony Scaramucci. Indeed, Carney impresses horizontally as well as vertically, as he interviews Damien Hirst about art and money. And speaking of the power of art, it can extend your life for up to 10 years.
2. 50 years of travel tips. I don’t know Kevin Kelly, but he is both smart and wise about how to leave home in order to find yourself when you return. So tips like pay your taxi driver to take you to visit his mother. Or go to the farthest destination on your trip and work your way back. And organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. As he says: “There are two modes of travel; retreat or engage.” A steamer trunk of sound advice and links to more.
3. True love. It’s boring. And it’s chaotic. And it’s New York and it’s …over. All because love takes c-c-c-c-c-commitment.
4. Buy a bag. Save a nation. A great idea from Canada’s national magazine, which says “Canada’s not for sale. Maclean’s is.” Last week, it launched this made-in-Canada True North Strong Free tote bag which sold out instantly. A quick re-stocking and you can get yours here.
5. “If you loved The Jackal, here’s your new favourite assassin.” Ian Rankin said that about Toronto author Robert Rotenberg and his new Ari Greene novel, One Minute More. Rotenberg launches his book next Thursday, Feb. 27th at Innis College at the U of T. Reception at 6:00. Interview (by me) at 7:00. And the book, which ends climactically at Hart House, will break your resolution to get to sleep early this year.
6. Breaking the laws of physics. Some Republican states claim they had no abortions in 2023. None. Also, what’s the largest sofa you can move around a corner?
7. Auschwitz reminds Toronto. It’s odd to say you should rush to see Auschwitz at the ROM. But you must. Not just to reinforce that humans do horrible things to each other, but because if this exhibit had been running last February instead of this, there wouldn’t be a second sound-track in our heads whispering: “Don’t look back. Look south.” Speaking of concentration camps, JD Vance visited Dachau the day before he berated European leaders for marginalizing European right-wing groups, including Neo-Nazis.
8. A bunch of animals. They don’t sound like us. They don’t look like us. They don’t paddle like us. They don’t lie like us, and they sure don’t dance like us.
9. You don’t know Jaeden Izik-Dzurko. But you will. He’s the 25-year old Canadian pianist who last year “won Leeds,” one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions. He’s performing for the first time in Toronto since his Leeds win on Sunday afternoon March 23 at Hugh’s Room. Tickets here.
10. You know things are bad when…Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, “can’t stand it anymore.” And what can’t he stand? Remote work…and when a lawyer like Danielle Sassoon has to resign rather than cave to Trump’s demands not to prosecute New York Mayor Eric Adams for corruption.
11. Feeling unsafe or vulnerable on a night out? Ask for Angela. That’s a new program in Britain where, if you’re feeling unsafe in a bar or nightclub, you can get help.
12. What I’m liking. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I’ve heard them (there are 30) in dribs and drabs since I was a kid. But just like I promised myself to one day read War and Peace and never have, so too had I never heard Goldberg from start to finish. Until Tuesday night when Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson played the whole thing at Koerner Hall. You can do the same via his latest Goldberg recording which won a Grammy this month in LA. Hear here.
13. Whoops. In last week’s blog about how the concert venue, Hugh’s Room, is funded, I said “They paid off one mortgage via one big anonymous donor and converted another mortgage into ‘friends’ bonds.’” The donation was large, but it wasn’t anonymous; it came from the Green Sanderson Family Foundation. Sorry about that.