The Moment

Book excerpt: From the creators of Six-Word Memoirs comes The Moment, a collection of personal stories from writers both famous and obscure revealing how a single instant changed their lives forever. An innocuous decision, an unforeseen accident, a chance conversation, a tag sale, a terrorist strike, a tweet . . . sometimes all it takes is a single moment to redirect the course of an entire life. In the tradition of Smith magazine’s Not Quite What I Was Planning and the sensational Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak—and in the spirit of StoryCorps, the Moth, and This American Life—The Moment unveils everyday people’s inner lives in narratives of all shapes and sizes, with stories from six to 1,000 words, photographs, comics, illustrations, handwritten letters, and more. It’s enough to change your life forever.