In December of 2000, I met an old friend for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other in nine years, and hadn’t been in contact for eight. With only a few hours on a chilly evening in London to catch up before his plane left for Canada, we shared our stories in breathless bursts. So much had happened. We had to narrow it down to the essentials.

When I got home, inspired by my evening and the biography of a mayfly, above, I asked readers to sum up the last year of their lives in twenty words or less. The Mayfly Project was born.

Due to popular demand, we ran it again in 2001. People had a lot to say - or rather, a lot of people had not much to say: twenty words, to be precise, and over a thousand contributions in just a few short weeks.

In December 2002, the Mayfly Project was launched again.

Over the last three years, the Mayfly Projects have been featured in The Guardian Editor, CBC, b3ta, The Daily Mirror, Yahoo Internet Life, UKPlus, as well as hundreds of weblogs and other sites.

Visit the most recent version of the Mayfly Project.