Follow Here To Purchase Seven At The Sevens: A Collection of Seven-Word Stories, Memoirs and Poems

Authors: WritersAnonymous TM

Editor: Grant Trenton Gardner

Illustrators: Darren Buchanan and Kathleen Whipple

ISBN: 978-0-615-69271-1

Have you ever pondered how challenging it is to convey your thoughts as briefly and efficiently as possible? Could you do it in seven words? Try it and see how difficult it can be, yet on the other hand, you may actually like it.

This is exactly what a group of writers do as they meet every week at The Seven Pubs, an eating and drinking establishment on Beacon Hill in Boston. The group known as WritersAnonymous have been inspired by Good Gray Ghost, Walt Whitman and the spirit of Ernest Hemingway, and their own burning desires to tell a story in seven words. The culmination of these writings was the publication of their Seven At The Sevens: A Collection of Seven-Word Stories, Memoirs and Poems, which are described as self-contained entities, or as Hemingway believed, only the beginning of something more.

As you savor these succinct musings, you realize how powerful imagery and meaning can turn out to be and , as mentioned in the introduction of this delightful tome, you do not need a lot of words to convey something poignant and powerful. This is particularly in evidence when you write when you are sad or despair “because in such depths lie the rite of passage to places where the greatest truths are revealed.( Good writing not only demands originality, keen observation and wit, it demands emotion!).” It was Mark Twain who brilliantly summed it all up when he declared: “the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter-it's the difference between the lightening bug and the lightning.” To put it another way, it is above all the brevity of the language that is the engine that provides the inspiration that perhaps, as the authors hope, will enable you to embrace the challenge with both trepidation and delight.

No doubt, readers can be forgiven for being suspicious of a collection of seven word reflections from a group of unknown voices. However, if you automatically assume this of Seven At The Sevens: A Collection of Seven-Word Stories, Memoirs and Poems, you will certainly deprive yourself of a pleasurable reading experience. Just consider some of the following to understand what I am trying to convey and I am sure you will agree that no verbal flab invades the images.

“Always on schedule but still misses deadlines.” -Adair Willow

“Creative writing, feels like holding your breath.” -Kent Ethan Clarke

“Cell phone died. So did social life.” -Lime Anderson

“Going against the grain smooths the surface.” -Lime Anderson

“I'm recyclable. Been used over and over.” -Lime Anderson

“I wish someone could proofread my life.” -Adair Willow

“Making money was an impossible career goal.” -Uncommon Bostonian

Adding to the collection's charm and cleverly engaging the reader in pondering the penetrating concepts of the texts are the many illustrations contributed by Darren Buchanan and Kathleen Whipple. And not to be left out, the editor also includes a collection of seven-words selected from the not-so-anonymous that were likewise at one time anonymous such as Louisa May Alcott, Neal Cassady, Rebecca Lee Crumplet, E.E. Cummings, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickson, Bob Dylan, Ralph Aldo Emerson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, O.Henry and others. It would have been a pity if we had ignored these great writers because they were unknowns.