Universities

Helping Universities Engage Their Diverse Student Body

Three students reading a short story in front of a Short Story Dispenser

Get known for your University’s devotion to and innovation in the arts realm

Our mission, as an international publishing house, is to help you engage students around literature, another art form to spark creativity across campus. Short Edition offers so many random, quick bites of fiction and creative non-fiction, to help students take a break from the heavy textbook learning. 

The idea of ‘creative idleness’ by reading for pleasure, can be a 1min, 3min, or 5min moment traveling through another story or realm. Because big ideas are often born in idle moments when reading a short story, poem, or comic strip.

Your College or University’s mission is also to invite culture in many different forms that seem conducive to Short Edition’s offer of free short literature to inspire all young, diverse creatives.

Showcase Student Talent

Interdisciplinary Engagement

Short Édition has done more to revitalize the interest in short stories on the UNC campus than anyone since Thomas Wolfe. I loved this project from its inception and it has never disappointed.

Daniel Wallace at age 9

Daniel Wallace*,

Director of Creative Writing Program, age 9.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina


*Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels, including Extraordinary Adventures, 2017, and Big Fish, his first, which was adapted into a film and a Broadway musical, and translated into twenty-five languages.

Project

Eight short story dispensers are scattered across UNC-Chapel Hill as part of a collaborative partnership with UNC Press, the Department of English & Comparative Literature, UNC’s Creative Writing Program, and Arts Everywhere.

A Short Story Portal is also available for students to be published on campus, under the « Carolina Stories » button of the dispenser, giving them the opportunity to be reviewed and considered for international publication by Short Edition’s editorial team.
More info here

Two people taking a short story out of Short Story Dispenser
Featured author Maia Sichitiu

Launchpad for Writing Projects on Campus

Creative writing and getting published are not just for the English Department students. Whether they’re medical students, the business savvy, in the engineering school, history majors, or hailing from the science wing, we’ve found fantastic and talented writers picking up the pen and submitting their stories.

Everyone has a story to tell and Short Edition offers solutions that enable Universities to publish & showcase their student’s works, both online and across the Short Story Dispensers. 

Imagine if the next great writer was discovered on your campus and he or she attributes that success to the opportunity that you provided? Publication is the ultimate encouragement for new and emerging writers.

Showcase Student talent

International student publication

We are thrilled that a Carnegie Mellon undergraduate writer (Marie Ivantechenko) will have their work published in Short Edition Dispensers worldwide. We love Short Édition and have appreciated our partnership with the company as we successfully established Dispensers on the CMU campus and at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Short Édition provided us a highly creative and innovate way to highlight and share writing and humanities, which is central to our mission.

Picture of Nick Ryan

Nick Ryan,

Business Manager Dpt. of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Showcase Student talent

Short Stories on the Go! The Leatherby Libraries promoting literature in an innovative way

Our Short Story Dispenser is a stand-alone kiosk on the first floor of the library delivering fiction to the Chapman Community while breathing new life into storytelling. It is a creative and innovative way to boost reading for fun, encourage creativity and improve the waiting experience of any visitor. Even though more than 300 dispensers are installed worldwide, Chapman is the first and only academic library in California to own one! Our collection will change and grow over time. Currently, the dispenser connects readers across countries and cultures through contemporary short stories, poems, and comics free of charge, at the push of a button. We are partnering with Faculty members to encourage submissions of original short stories and poems from our students are the undergraduate and graduate levels.


Left to Right: Dr. Joanna Levin, Professor, English Department, Essraa Nawar, English Liaison Librarian, and Dr. Kevin Ross, Dean of the Leatherby Libraries

Picture of Essraa Nawar

Essraa Nawar,

MBA, MA, MLIS, Leatherby Libraries Diversity and Development Librarian Chair, Arts, Exhibits and Events Committee
Chapman University
Orange, California,

Dr. Joanna Levin, Essraa Nawar and Dr. Kevin Ross in front of a Short Story Dispenser

Showcase Student talent

University Library Innovation

We are proud to be the first location in Asia to host a Short Édition Dispenser. It is a unique experience and consistently draws positive attention from our patrons. The dispenser has also opened opportunities for us to collaborate with partners on campus. For example, the university’s Language Centre reengineered their long-running short story competition to showcase winners using the Short Édition Dispenser. For 7 years running, the company has been a joy to work with, and we look forward to continuing providing access to literature in this innovative way.

Chris Chan, University Librarian, HKBU, Hong Kong

Chris Chan,

University Librarian,
HKBU
Hong Kong,

Hong Kong University Short Story Dispenser

Some of Short Edition's partners who have adopted our student engagement solutions, to create a reading & writing culture across all their campuses:

Our university partners

How to Create a Reading & Writing Culture 


Content is key and we have been innovating over the past 12 years with writers worldwide, to help organisations, both large & small, reach this goal and offer various tools to create playful and memorable reading and writing experiences.


Short Edition’s Software
The management tool for all project managers

Short Story Portal monitoring tools

The Short Story Portal, is the software gateway to all of the published content, written by paid writers worldwide, in Short Edition’s collections. The Portal is also a tool to curate, edit and publish local content, and it is connected to all of our hardware solutions to make literature accessible, at the push of a button or via QR code

The backend of the Portal allows administrators easy access to monitor devices at a distance, configure content for different audiences instantly, and see reporting statistics on how many stories were offered, distribution per button, and includes a built-in creative writing platform. This platform is the launchpad for your writing projects and contests for all disciplines, either in the classroom or across campuses. 

Short Edition’s Hardware Solutions
Short Story Dispenser, Short Story Cube & Short Story Disc

The iconic Short Story Dispenser 

A person reading a short story in front of a Short Story Dispenser

With the Short Story Dispenser, seek to combine rebellion and innovation to create unplugged community spaces in the library, University center, around campus and beyond. Be guilty of committing random acts of culture across all your campuses!

As part of your outreach program, you can also offer free, accessible reading in unexpected places across town while placing Dispensers where your future students are...at the bus station, in a school, at the community center, or airport... All roads can lead to your campus.

Your library, humanities department, marketing, arts or innovation team can lead the initiative to build an innovative ‘storied campus’, while also celebrating diversity and fostering inclusion.

Fiction connects and Short Story Dispensers provide libraries countless ways to inspire student engagement and creative connections. 

We currently have more than 500 Dispensers installed around the world from San Francisco to the University of Iowa, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, London, Hong Kong, Australia and beyond.

A selection of our Short Story Dispensers

Learn more

The Short Story Cube

Our Short Story Cube

The Short Story Cube is a more portable version of the Short Story Dispenser for professors on the go, and they may be shared from classroom to classroom or as part of your outreach program. The Cube is a new, tabletop tool with the same technology as the Dispenser, to offer stories on a eco-friendly scroll, at the welcome desk in the library, or in creative writing workshops. Students are thrilled to go home with their polished, printed stories, poetry & comic strips. Foreign language professors love to teach with the short bites of fiction & classics in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch...

The Cube is destined to provide new energy and a fresh beat to intense screen-based learning by allowing educators to conduct a symphony of stories, at their fingertips, and a new kind of literary pulse.

Learn more

Outreach for Universities

Community Engagement with the Incarcerated

With limited library shelves, readers who are incarcerated can run out of access to stories that form connections. We are grateful for the can-do attitude of the amazing people behind Short Édition. Their willingness has boosted our efforts to increase quality participation in artistic exchanges between the outside free world and the world behind bars. Short Édition's dispensers make possible our distribution: Never-ending global and local story collections can now be shared through a push of a button!

Picture of Sarah Stanley

Sarah Stanley,

Founder of the InsideOut StoryLab, a collective from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks

A person next to a Short Story Cube
InsideOut Storylab logo

The Short Story Disc

Our Short Story Disc

The Short Story Disc is the 100% digital version of our innovative solutions to access all our content, which you select, and readers simply scan one of the QR codes to read as much as they wish on their smartphone. 

The digital experience is just as remarkable, and something memorable as readers access random stories, poems, and comics while discovering the Short Story Disc at the campus café, University center or at the train station.

This solution allows Colleges and Universities a greater reach into the community, encouraging literacy and literature where people are. 

Learn more

Which Solution for Your Objectives

Our Short Story devices and objectives table

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