Autofiction

Did you catch the story with the cat and the toboggan? It’s about a frisky feline who, despite his owner’s warnings, ventures outdoors during a snowstorm. He slips off a fence and lands on a sled, which begins to slide — indeed, “the sled was now taking the cat for a ride.” The fast and furry‑ous protagonist of Jill Nogales’s children’s poem “Macks and the Slippery Sled” nearly bonks into the neighbour’s St. Bernard, then zooms down the boulevard. He fishtails “on a patch of ice” before “spinning round a snowman twice.” Late last year, commuters could have gotten their hands on this delightful verse for free with the press of a button.

In downtown Toronto, on the south side of the pedestrian bridge that connects One York to WaterPark Place, sits a black, cylindrical kiosk and, beside it, a placard that invites hurried passersby to “take a short adventure.” Since 2019, the ATM-style Short Story Dispenser has been distributing on‑demand literature — printed on long...