Starting Nov. 1, Centre County writers are able to submit their works for consideration to be distributed through the short story dispensers that are located on the Penn State campus and in Schlow Centre Region Library.
In 2017, Penn State became the first educational institution to partner with Short Edition of Grenoble, France. The company produces the dispensers that print free short stories. The university installed four dispensers on campus and one in Schlow Library.
Penn State faculty, staff, and students have been able to submit their work for editorial review and possible distribution through the dispensers. Now, Centre County writers are invited to submit their work for consideration.
“Since Schlow has a Short Edition dispenser from the start, it made sense to explore the possibility of adding community stories to our community content,” says Hailley Fargo, student engagement librarian for Penn State University Libraries. “I know that we have a great community of writers in Centre County. We are excited for their contributions and being able to publish local work on our Short Edition dispensers.”
Stories can be submitted online at short-edition.com/en/community/psu. Short story submissions may not exceed 8,000 characters (including spaces) and poetry submissions may not exceed 7,000 characters (including spaces). For short stories, all genres are accepted as long as they are about literary fiction — historical fiction is acceptable if it includes an imaginative story.
Complete rules and instructions are on the website.
“We are very grateful to University Libraries,” says Maria Burchill, Schlow’s head of adult services. “Hailley and the editorial review board have opened a new world of publishing for authors in the Centre Region. This is a unique opportunity for them to share their work with the larger community and for new authors to experience the thrill of publishing.”
Since the dispensers have been installed, nearly 30,000 stories have been printed at all Penn State dispensers. Schlow’s dispenser has printed out nearly 3,500 stories.
