A lot has happened to Robert Swartwood in the year since a slim paperback he edited featured dozens of authors creating whole literary worlds with very few words.

The Lititz writer was interviewed on a national radio program, and his book was reviewed favorably in prestigious publications. His work inspired an art exhibit and a film contest, and he was asked to judge short-fiction contests around the country.

In November 2010, W.W. Norton & Co. published "Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer," edited by Swartwood.

The West Lampeter Township native and Millersville University graduate had coined the term "hint fiction" in 2009, in what he called a "sardonic, tongue-in-cheek essay" on the Everyday Fiction website's Flash Fiction Chronicles blog.

Swartwood, 30, who already had an agent for his own thriller- and supernatural-genre fiction, had long been enamored of the evocative power of a six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

"I always thought it was a story," Swartwood said. "A lot of people [online] did not think it was a story" because it had no characters, conflict or plot.

In his essay, he suggested such ultra-short pieces could be called "hint fiction," since they hinted at a fuller story, at something larger.

The concept went viral, accelerated by a hint-fiction contest Swartwood ran on his own website. Award-winning author Stewart O'Nan, with whom Swartwood had been corresponding for years, was the judge. O'Nan's name attracted the attention of authors, publishing-business websites and Norton. So Swartwood ran two more contests — judged by James Frey and Joyce Carol Oates — seeking other writers' submissions for the anthology.

"When the book came out, I didn't think it was going to be as well received as it was," he said. "I was surprised … at everything it inspired."

The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times and other publications ran positive reviews of the anthology in late 2010, and soon Swartwood was being interviewed by National Public Radio "Weekend Edition" host Scott Simon.

Then, "Hint Fiction" really took on a life of its own.

The director of the Columbia (Mo.) Art League heard the NPR interview and was inspired to create a juried art exhibit in August, based on some of the stories in Swartwood's anthology.

"(Artists) could basically pick any of the stories to create a piece of art from," Swartwood said. "A lot of the art pieces that were in the show … and won awards were very abstract.

"They flew me out there for the opening reception, to speak. It was really neat to see what everyone came up with."

A Colorado film festival also got on the bandwagon. Jan. 15 is the deadline for submissions for an online, one-minute-film contest based on Swartwood's concept. Each filmmaker is being assigned two stories from the anthology from which to choose a piece to interpret on film.

The contest winners will be chosen by a panel that includes "Clerks" and "Jersey Girl" filmmaker Kevin Smith, Swartwood said. The hint-fiction films will be screened at this spring's Vail Film Festival, which the Lititz writer and editor will attend.

Swartwood also served on a hint-fiction writers' panel during a Washington conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs last February.

One of the short-fiction contests for which he has been asked to be a judge is the "Nanofiction" contest, featuring Twitter-length fiction of 140 characters or less.

In the past year, Swartwood, whose short stories have been published online and in various journals, has also been concentrating on his own genre-fiction novels.

Though he still has a New York literary agent, he has self-published paperback and digital versions of books "that have been collecting dust on my hard drive," including "The Calling," "The Serial Killer's Wife" and "The Dishonored Dead." His most recent book, October's "Man of Wax," is the first part of a trilogy, Swartwood said.

"I'm working right now to release the second one, 'The Inner Circle,' which I hope to have out in the spring."

With wife Holly and author friends as editors, and designers hired to create the book covers, Swartwood has published the books himself, in both paperback and digital versions. He's selling them on Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's websites, which he calls "very author-friendly in terms of royalties." He earns $2 from every $2.99 electronic book sold, said Swartwood, who has always held day jobs to supplement his writing income.

"With the way things are turning out in publishing and with bookstores closing," he said, "it's making more sense to just go the digital route."

Still, "Hint Fiction" has done very well, he said, noting the anthology sold 13,000 copies in its first five months, and is in its third printing.

Robert Swartwood blogs at robertswartwood.com. For more information on the Hint Fiction Film Contest, visit hintfictionfilm.com.