What to know
- A Short Story Dispenser in Toronto’s PATH near Bay Street and Wellington Street West lets passersby print free short stories by real authors with the push of a button.
- The kiosks offer one-, three-, and five-minute stories across different genres, printed on eco-friendly scrolls that readers can enjoy immediately or take with them.
- Created by international publishing house Short Édition, there are more than 600 dispensers around the world, with more than 5.6 million stories read for free through the machines.
- The project aims to turn waiting and commuting time into reading time, while encouraging creativity, making reading more accessible and giving local writers an international platform.
A kiosk tucked into the city’s PATH system allows passersbys to take a moment to print a short story submitted by a real author.
Short Story Dispensers, a worldwide line of stand-alone kiosks by international publishing house Short Édition, are machines that allow people to print and read short stories at the push of a button.
The dispensers are designed to promote the publishing house’s mission to make reading more accessible, while also giving people a creative escape when waiting, walking, or commuting.
Readers can choose between stories that take around one, three, or five minutes to read.
The stories are printed on eco-friendly scrolls that resemble receipts, giving readers something physical to take with them and read right then and there or later.
There are more than 600 dispensers installed around the world, including one Toronto location in the PATH near Bay St and Wellington St W, as well as internationally, in major cities like San Francisco, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Paris, London and Philadelphia.
According to the Short Édition website, more than 5.6 million stories have been read for free through the dispensers.
The machines offer stories across different genres, meaning readers can encounter everything from quick fiction reads to stories about different cultures and communities.
Rather than scrolling through a phone while waiting, readers can choose a story that fits the amount of time they have available.
The goal is to encourage leisure reading and creativity while making those otherwise uneventful moments of the day a little more enjoyable.
“Installed in cities worldwide, [the dispensers] turn waiting time into reading time, connect communities across cultures, and showcase local writers to millions of readers,” the organization wrote on its website.
The short story dispensers can also platform local writers, giving authors a chance to share their work on both a city-wide and international scale.
In a world where waiting time tends to be filled by doomscrolling on a phone, the dispensers offer a different, more stimulating option.
