Litreading brings classic short stories to life—expertly narrated with care, clarity, and just enough character to keep things lively. From Poe to Twain, Wolfe to Hemingway, each episode features a complete tale designed for immersive, thoughtful listening in a few minutes to an hour.
In addition to timeless tales from the past, explore New Tales Told—a podcast of original short stories that echo the tone and texture of the classics, but are entirely new. Search New Tales Told wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Litreading brings classic short stories to life—expertly narrated with care, clarity, and just enough character to keep things lively. From Poe to Twain, Wolfe to Hemingway, each episode features a complete tale designed for immersive, thoughtful listening in a few minutes to an hour.
In addition to timeless tales from the past, explore New Tales Told—a podcast of original short stories that echo the tone and texture of the classics, but are entirely new. Search New Tales Told wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
There’s a reason crows gather in cemeteries. They remember. They watch. And sometimes, they wait. Murder of Crows isn’t a tale borrowed from the past—it’s one I wrote for New Tales Told, a series of original stories that echo in the spaces between memory and myth. This one lingers in the cold silence of the American frontier, where the shadows are long and the watchers have wings.
Set in Montana Territory, 1868, Murder of Crows is a western—but not the kind you remember from Saturday matinees. The dead don’t rest. The land doesn’t forget. And the crows? They remember everything.
Author's Note
There’s an old belief that crows remember faces. That they mourn their dead. That they never forget a slight.
It was early morning when a murder of crows descended on the sycamore outside my bedroom window, their cries so sharp and relentless they pulled me from sleep with a strange sense of dread. I lay there, half-conscious and irritated, staring at the ceiling as their screams echoed through the glass. And in that moment—quietly, almost reflexively—I had a thought I wasn’t proud of: Maybe this murder deserves one of its own.
From that flash of anger came something unexpected: a story. Murder of Crows began as a whisper of guilt and folklore. Though it draws faint inspiration from the life and legend of Jeremiah Johnson, this tale is entirely imagined—fiction through and through. But like many stories, its roots are tangled in real emotion: grief, memory, regret… and the uncanny way the natural world sometimes stares back.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.