Joseph Gordon-Levitt's foray into fiction

Yes, the name above is correct; and yes, that is the Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The actor may not actually be an author of this little book, but he is a contributor and overall founder of the company that created the book. The company, HitRECord.org, is an online production company created in 2005 by Levitt and his brother. It's a site where artists can submit their "hit records" (which actually means stuff like drawings, songs, or stories) and other members on the site can “remix” them. On HitRECord, remixing means collaboration: editing someone’s story, adding to a piece of art or making music for a short film. If any of the work becomes profitable, the money is shared with the original artist.

HitRECord has produced short films, songs, videos and stories. Tiny Stories is a collaboration of artwork and thought-provoking haiku-like stories, with the second volume being released in 2012 and a third on its way in 2013.

Tiny Stories was made by artists that needed stories and writers that needed pictures. wirrow, who came up with the original concept for the Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, contributed his own stories and provided artwork.

The stories range from strange to poetic to sad to dark. One piece features a little girl wearing a cape and a caption that reads: "Tell no one about the cape."  A poetic story with a couple holding hands says, "Once upon a dream in a blanket of night sky you asked me to tell you a story which began with us holding hands." Another story shows two identical people floating on balloons, both figures sleeping, while the caption reads: "Life and Death both took a break, weary from their burdensome rules. Nobody lived or died that day."

This book is filled with magic on every page and is the perfect book for any writer or as a source of inspiration. Some artists on HitRECord.org have recorded songs based on the stories in the book.

Once these stories latch themselves onto your brain, begging you to expand your mind, begging to inspire you, it’s hard to let this little book go. I keep it by my bedside so that when I need it I can open to a random page and ponder over the words and pictures on the page.

The book begins with this quote, edited by wirrow and originally by Muriel Rukeyser: "The universe is not made of atoms; it's made of [tiny] stories."

Never has a quote been more true for such a perfect book.