Once upon a time, a kiosk dreamed of delivering something more exciting than tickets.

A customer at Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco reading one of the short stories doled out by Short Edition’s story dispenser.Credit...Olivier Alexandre/Short Edition

Stories are shared many ways. They are recounted in books and magazines. They are read aloud around the campfire at night. They are randomly dispensed from stand-alone kiosks, doled out on strips of paper like grocery store receipts. Wait, what was that last one? Leave it to the French, with their love of Voltaire and Simone de Beauvoir, to revive literature in the era of hot takes, fast news and smartphone addiction.

A Short Story Dispenser at work.

The future of the publishing industry is, increasingly, virtual. This week, news broke that one of the final bastions of print publishers — Fortune 500 company Barnes and Noble, Inc. — has abruptly laid off 1,800 full-time employees. Amazon's dominance over the book world seems uncrackable, and everyone's e-readers can fit more books on them anyway. But one innovation has broken new ground for voracious readers who prefer their next story stay in the physical realm. The Short Story Dispenser, which made a splash last month at CES 2018

A short story vending machine in Grenoble

In a time where progression in every field of human endeavour involves ever smarter phones, virtual reality or colonising Mars, it is of some comfort to hear that a new innovation exciting people across the Channel involves none of the above.

Don't have time to read any more? Residents in a town in southern France don't have that problem. Thanks to the startup website short-editions-dot-com 10,000 short story authors have been matched with a community of 150,000 regular readers with time to kill while waiting on line. David Turecamo explains an innovative technology.

The Alpine city of Grenoble has scored a surprising hit with automatic dispensers that offer free printed short stories

A flight of the imagination is transforming one of the banes of French life — waiting for service in state offices — into an opportunity to immerse oneself in the written word. The Alpine city of Grenoble has scored a surprising hit with automatic dispensers that offer free printed short stories to citizens waiting for their bout with bureaucracy.

The city of Grenoble, France, is testing the first models of a local startup’s short-story vending machine.Photograph by Pauline Bock

When Jess Mateychuk entered the tourism office in Grenoble, France, he wasn’t looking for information about the city. “I finally found them!” the twenty-one-year-old exchange student from Winnipeg, Canada, said with excitement. He was referring to the city’s recent cultural innovation turned Internet hit: a black and orange, rocket-looking cylinder that spits out short stories, free of charge.

Journey’s the end ... a short story vending machine in Grenoble. Photograph: AFP JP Clatot

A publisher is doing brisk business dispensing free fiction from machines in Grenoble, to help readers make the most of ‘dead time’ on their journeys.
Readers in Grenoble can now nibble fiction instead of vending machine snacks, after publisher Short Édition introduced eight short-story dispensers around the French city.