Instead of dispensing soda, new vending machines popping up around the nation spit out short stories.
Short Édition, a French company, designed the short-story dispensers to be installed by businesses with long wait times. The machines have been placed at more than 30 locations in the U.S., including restaurants and universities.
Readers select the story length—one that takes either one minute, three minutes, or five minutes to read—and the tale is printed on a receipt-like strip of paper for free. The machines currently pull short stories from a database of original works submitted by French authors and translated into English. But the company plans to hold contests for English speakers to submit stories.
Says Andrew Nurkin of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which plans to install the kiosks: “Who knows? Maybe you press a button and get a story written by your neighbor.”
So start writing!