You can choose stories by reading time or genre—and they're all free!

NYC has its share of vending machines, from ones that dispense PPE to others that dole out designer handbags. Now, the city can add a Short Story Dispenser to the list. Choosing from three categories of short stories, visitors to the Center For Fiction in Brooklyn can "push" a touchless button and the machine will dispense a scroll with a randomly chosen story for free.

Foto's: Anna van Kooij

Geen kroket of een blikje frisdrank, maar een gratis verhaal trek je uit deze machine. De Verhalenmachine reist deze zomer weer langs veelbezochte plekken in Utrecht. De tournee is een aanloopje naar het International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), dat eind september in Utrecht losbarst.

Amaranthe Ivory Violeta pushes her long bangs out of her eyes as I set up my recorder and MacBook on the fourth floor of Central Library. The floor is still closed and being reset for fall 2021, so it’s eerily empty but for us. She holds an orange pencil—blunt from all the writing she has done this week—and a green leatherette journal in her lap, the matching ribbon bookmark draped lazily across her high-waisted shirt. “It’s a neat concept,” she says, describing Short Edition in a quiet voice. The French publisher has recently selected her poem, “Lunar Love,” for publication in its novel dispensers,

French publisher Short Édition made waves in U.S. libraries with its innovative Short Story Dispenser, which quickly gained exposure through a project called “Fostering Creative Community Connections,” a partnership between the publisher and Public Library Association (PLA), and funded by the Knight Foundation. The project was piloted in 2018 in four libraries: Akron-Summit Public, The Free Library of Philadelphia, Wichita Public and Richland Public in Columbia, SC. and, as testament to its success, all libraries renewed with Short Édition after the initial grant ended.

A YOUNG reader has a short story printed. Picture: Supplied

THERE is a new way to experience stories from the library. Kingston Libraries has purchased and installed two “short story dispenser” machines. The dispensers print free 150 word, 300 word, and 1,000 word original short stories for library visitors.

California’s rail stations now have dispensers that print short stories for free.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has teamed up with a French publisher to boost literacy and encourage reading.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/BCN) — Looking for something to read on BART? The transit agency has installed dispensers at the Richmond, Fruitvale and Pleasant Hill stations that spit out short stories for free. It’s part of a partnership with Short Edition, the company that makes the dispensers and puts together the short stories, which are suitable for all ages.

The Pleasant Hill BART station is one of three stations with a new short-story dispenser offering free printed reading material to passengers. (Dan Brekke/KQED)

These days, most BART riders spend their travel time staring at their phones—and understandably so. In an increasingly digitized world accelerated by the isolation of the pandemic, our lives have migrated almost entirely online.

BART installed a short story dispenser at four stations. This image shows the one installed at Pleasanton Station. (Photo courtesy of BART).

BART has installed Short Story Dispensers at some of its stations, including the Richmond station. The touchless dispensers print out short stories for riders to read — for free.

The Station coffee shop on Beacon Hill has the city’s first short-story dispenser, installed by Seattle Public Library. It... (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)

These days, with modern technology providing such easy access to all kinds of digital content, it’s tempting to think that reading something on paper is a thing of the past.

Perth is set to become the first Australian city to permanently hero the international literary trend: the very, very short story. The short story dispensing machines that distribute a variety of one, three or five-minute stories are the brainchild Short Edition, a French community publisher of short-form literature and will find its home at Raine Square from Friday 16 October.

Modern life may seem like it’s all about speed and efficiency, but it still involves a lot of waiting around, and when it does, we end up pulling out our phones while we wait in lines at the coffee shop or for the next train. 

 But if you stop by the Santa Barbara Public Market, you’ll find an alternative solution to boredom.

Visitors to the Public Market can find a different way to pass the time with a Short Story Dispenser, installed at the beginning of last April by the Squire Foundation in partnership with the Public Market.