DAVID PARRY/PA

Irenosen Okojie, Bernardine Evaristo and Nicola Williams unveil their short stories, which have been added to the Short Story Stations at Canary Wharf, London, to celebrate Black History Month

Black Britain: Writing Back with Bernardine Evaristo, Short Story Stations, Canary Wharf London, photogr. David Parry, PA Media

Award-winning author, poet and activist Bernardine Evaristo has joined forces with Canary Wharf to make short stories from up and coming black authors available for free to thousands of people throughout Black History Month. The Booker Prize winner has selected five black authors to have their stories published in Canary Wharf’s Short Story Stations – the innovative vending machines that will dispense one, three and five minute stories for free to help raise the profile of black writers.

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.

Depuis plusieurs semaines, la clinique générale de Valence a installé un distributeur d’histoires courtes dans une salle d’attente dédiée aux patients en chimiothérapie. Il s’agit de la première borne de ce type, créée par une entreprise grenobloise, installée dans la Drôme.

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,

Ook deze zomer gaat de eerste Verhalenmachine van Nederland weer op tour langs Utrechtse hotspots. Uit de ILFU Verhalenmachine trek je geen kroket of blikje fris, maar een van de honderden gratis korte verhalen.

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.

La Rmn-Grand Palais, la Région Centre-Val-de-Loire et Short Edition ont imaginé l’opération « Gare aux histoires ! » pour faire redécouvrir les sites connus ou méconnus de la région !

L'opération « Gare aux histoires ! » s’inscrit dans la programmation 2021 des « Nouvelles Renaissance(S] » le Festival de la créativité et de l’art de vivre en Centre-Val de Loire. Elle a pour premier objectif de permettre de redécouvrir ou parfois de découvrir des sites de la région Centre-Val de-Loire, connus ou méconnus. Elle s’adresse non seulement aux habitants de la région pour renouer avec le patrimoine local mais aussi aux touristes et aux visiteurs de passage pour leur donner envie de venir, de rester, de rêver.

Want a shot of literature with your daily latte? At The Station Coffee Shop in the heart of Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, you can now order up a 1-minute, 3-minute or 5-minute short story at Seattle’s first-ever short-story dispenser, installed by The Seattle Public Library.

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.

Sylvia Tempesta et Christophe Sibieude, associés fondateurs de Short Edition © E. Tolwinska

Fidèle à sa vocation de propulseur de littérature courte, Short Édition a inauguré fin 2020 un premier prototype de distributeur extérieur, de taille plus importante que les précédents. Il a été installé sur le rooftop de Green Pea, un parc commercial écologique à la pointe de l’innovation à Turin.