Siobhan Reardon and Chellie Cameron give the dispenser a spinPhiladelphia International Airport

Being stranded at the airport usually means scrolling through social media, or picking up a newspaper or magazine. But those doesn't need to be your only options at Philadelphia International Airport, where a free, no-WiFi-required alternative was unveiled Friday: a Short Story Dispenser, put in place by the Free Library of Philadelphia.

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

Francis Ford Coppola and the Short Story Dispenser

I loved the idea of a vending machine, a dispensing machine that doesn’t dispense potato chips or beer or coffee for money but gives you art. I especially liked the fact that you didn’t put money in. – Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola

Thusly did filmmaker Coppola arrange for a free Short Edition story vending machine to be installed in Café Zoetrope, his San Francisco restaurant.

Short Story kiosk unveiled - Columbus has now a lovely way to get short stories into the hands of kids. Columbus City School says the Short Story Kiosks are the first in the midwest...

Need something to read?

My morning or afternoon walk will usually take me over to the Copley/Prudential malls, which are only 10 minutes away from me. And every time I head into the Prudential side of the mall, I stop off at this thing that I discovered a few months ago...

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 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.