Litreading delivers classic short stories—carefully selected, beautifully narrated, and updated every week. From Poe to Twain, O. Henry to Wharton, each episode presents a complete tale in a clean, immersive performance lasting anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. These timeless stories are read with clarity, warmth, and just enough character to bring them fully to life.
Litreading is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional storytelling. Explore New Tales Told—our companion series of original stories inspired by the tone and spirit of the classics; Season’s Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year; FRIGHTLY! for tales of terror; and Readastorus for for younger listeners. Search for all of these titles wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Litreading delivers classic short stories—carefully selected, beautifully narrated, and updated every week. From Poe to Twain, O. Henry to Wharton, each episode presents a complete tale in a clean, immersive performance lasting anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. These timeless stories are read with clarity, warmth, and just enough character to bring them fully to life.
Litreading is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional storytelling. Explore New Tales Told—our companion series of original stories inspired by the tone and spirit of the classics; Season’s Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year; FRIGHTLY! for tales of terror; and Readastorus for for younger listeners. Search for all of these titles 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.