I först Frankrike och nu USA finns automater som spottar ur sig kortnoveller -
alldeles gratis. Novellerna skapas och väljs på en särskild site,
short-edition.com.
https://lithub.com/frances-beloved-short-story-dispensers-are-coming-to-america/
he kiosk, built by the French publishing company Short Edition, is called a
Short Story Dispenser. It’s the first of its kind in the United States. With
just the push of a button, the dispenser prints a one-, three-, or five-minute
story, completely free of charge. The stories come out on long rolls of paper
like a receipt.
Lydia Valledor, the Café Zoetrope’s general manager, says the dispenser has
been a huge hit since it was installed a year and a half ago. ...
The dispensers first started popping up in Short Edition’s hometown, the
French city of Grenoble, in October, 2016. “We always believed in the power of
short literature, and the fact that it is particularly adapted to the modern
world, as a way to bring (or bring back) people to reading,” says Loïc Giraut,
an international business developer for the company. According to Giraut, the
dispensers were born after a seemingly routine habit ended in a flash of
inspiration. “One day, while they were in front of the coffee vending machine,
the four co-founders of Short Edition—Isabelle Pleplé, Sylvia Tempesta, Quentin
Pleplé and Christophe Sibieude—thought: ‘Why couldn’t we do the same thing, but
with culture and stories instead of coffee? Literature should be available
everywhere!’” The company built a prototype and showed it to Grenoble’s mayor
Eric Piolle, who commissioned eight machines to be erected around the city.
The dispensers are extremely simple to operate. “When plugged in, [the
machine] connects to the GSM network, which allows us to manage it and adapt
the content,” says Giraut. For example, during December, the dispensers only
put out Christmas or holiday-themed stories. Writers are discovered through
Short Edition’s expansive online community of 100,000 short stories by 9,000
authors. An even larger community of readers—some 200,000—vote on their
favorite stories.
“We always work with the community… to identify the best texts,” says Giraut.
“Anybody can create an account on short-edition.com, take part in a writing
competition that we organize, and publish his or her text.” Submitted stories
are eligible for one of two prizes. The public winner receives the most votes.
The Short Edition editorial board and a jury of readers select the winner. “All
the texts that have sufficient quality are then included in the dispensers
worldwide,” Giraut says.
Reaction to the dispensers has been overwhelmingly positive so far. “We are
receiving tons of messages, both by email and social media, of people just
saying ‘thank you,’ or telling us that the story they read has made their day,”
Giraut says. “We often hear people saying they had the feeling the story they
picked up randomly was made for them, that it was really related to their
actual life. It makes us really proud, because this was our goal when we
invented the dispenser: to create emotion.”
Today, there are more than 150 short story dispensers worldwide, most of
which are in France. But there are 20 machines in North America, and that
number is about to grow. “Our objective is to pursue our development [in North
America] by installing more and more dispensers and starting to gather content
from North American authors by launching writing contests in the US,” Gairut
says. “We have a lot going on in the beginning of 2018, and new machines should
very soon appear on both west and east coasts.” "
--Ahrvid
--
ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx / Follow @SFJournalen on Twitter for the latest news in
short form! / Gå med i SKRIVA, för författande, sf, fantasy, kultur
(skriva-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, subj: subscribe) och deltag i
FANTASTIKNOVELLTÄVLINGEN 2017, info
https://www.freelists.org/post/skriva/Fantastiknovelltvlingen-2017 / Om Ahrvids ;
novellsamling Mord på månen: http://zenzat.wordpress.com/bocker C Fuglesang: ;
"stor förnöjelse...jättebra historier i mycket sannolik framtidsmiljö"! / Nu
som ljudbok: http://elib.se/ebook_detail.asp?id_type=ISBN&id‘86081462 / Läs ;
även AE i nya E-antologin Oskuld http://www.novellmastarna.se/Oskuld.htm / Och ;
fråga om hans sf-fanhistoriska uppslagsverk Fandboken / YXSKAFTBUD, GE VÅR
WCZONMÖ IQ-HJÄLP! (DN NoN 00.02.07)
-----
SKRIVA - sf, fantasy och skräck * Äldsta svenska skrivarlistan
grundad 1997 * Info http://www.skriva.bravewriting.com eller skriva- ;
request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx för listkommandon (ex subject: subscribe).