“I don’t remember the three times my mom tried to kill herself before I was five. I do remember visiting her in the hospital, and I remember the long drive when dad kidnapped me,” one piece in the “Autobiographies” issue begins. Another, in “Compulsions,” recites the real-estate listings a man visits week after week–with no intention of ever buying. Not every piece in 400 Words is a gem. Sharpe gets her submissions–hundreds of them, all for no pay–by posting prompts on her blog and the Web site Craigslist, drawing writers and nonwriters alike; collectively, their work is personal, fascinating and distilled to the very core. “I teach writing, and that’s exactly the kind of exercise I’d give to students–to say a lot in a small space,” says Leah Ryan, a Craigslist-recruited writer from Queens in New York. Can you really say anything meaningful in 400 words? You be the judge: it’s this item, doubled.
