New Tales Told – Original Short Stories

Before there were screens, there was a fire, a voice, and a story. Narrator and author, Don McDonald invites listeners back to humanity’s oldest tradition—listening. New Tales Told features original fiction inspired by the timeless tales that made us human—stories written for adults, but you won’t need to cover the kids’ ears. Gather by the fire—or more likely, on your walk or in your car—and rediscover the power of a story well told. You never outgrow good stories.

New Tales Told is part of the "Short Storyverses" podcast network. If you love stories, check out our other shows: Season's Readings for holiday tales, Litreading for classic fiction, Readastorus for stories the whole family can enjoy, and FRIGHTLY! for when you want to lose a little sleep. Find them all at shortstoryverses.com.

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Frank has reasons for not decorating anymore. Christmas is quieter now. Darker. Easier to ignore.

Then a new neighbor moves in next door—six years old, endlessly curious. What starts as a simple conversation turns into a small act of defiance against grief, routine, and the belief that some lights, once turned off, should stay that way.

The Star is a gentle story about unexpected persuasion, borrowed wonder, and how the smallest voices sometimes know exactly where the switch is.

If you enjoy short stories, there are dozens more just waiting to be heard on the Short Storyverses channel or at shortstoryverses.com

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“The Long Echo” follows a man sorting through his late father’s belongings when he discovers journals and letters from generations he never knew. As he reads, he begins to notice something startling—tiny inherited patterns that have traveled through his family for more than a century. A gesture. A habit. A way of thinking. The story becomes a meditation on continuance through lineage, showing how every life leaves traces that outlast the body. Nothing is permanent, but nothing is entirely lost. What we are does not vanish; it moves forward through the people who come after us.

We fear endings because we imagine they’re absolute. But the truth is more complicated—and far more comforting. What we think, how we move, the quirks we never question… they keep traveling long after we’re gone, carried quietly from one life into the next. If you enjoyed this story, there are more like it at Short Storyverses dot com—where new tales, old tales, and everything in between continue their own echo forward.

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Drawn from a true incident and retold with a few reconstructed details, Safety Matches looks back at a 1962 summer when kids roamed free, parents were overwhelmed, and a box of matches seemed like a reasonable way to pass the time. It’s a story about curiosity, misjudgment, and the surprising weight of a moment you’re too young to understand.

 You’ll find more stories like this—true ones, tall ones, and the ones that live somewhere in-between—over at ShortStoryverses.com. It’s the home of New Tales Told, Litreading, Season’s Readings, FRIGHTLY! It's a multiverse of stories crafted for people who simply love a good tale well told.

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A lonely late-night talk show host at a 50,000-watt "blow torch" station goes from no callers to every line lit up, with every caller sharing the same impossible story. These listeners are from across town, but much father away. Dead Air is an original New Tales Told story about connection, loneliness, and the signals that resonate out into the void.

Authors Note:

Dead Air is a very loosely autobiographical story. In the mid-1980s, I worked the overnight talk-show shift on the 50,000-watt clear-channel “Voice of the Rockies,” 85 KOA in Denver. Some nights, I’d find myself talking into the void, waiting for a caller — and every now and then, a voice would drift in from halfway around the world. If you enjoyed this original New Tales Told story, please share it with a friend and leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. (If you didn’t… maybe just forget you listened. I’m no O. Henry or Hemingway — just trying to entertain.)

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Before laws, before guilt, before language fully formed—someone planned the first murder.

Told in the voice of an ancient storyteller, this episode imagines that moment: when hunger, envy, and reason collided, and the first deliberate killing changed humanity forever.

Murderous Origins explores the likely beginnings of premeditated violence among early Homo sapiens.

Archaeological evidence suggests organized conflict and intentional killing appeared tens of thousands of years ago, around the same time as symbolic thought and complex tools.

This story reimagines that shift—from instinctive survival to calculated intent—when planning death became part of being human.

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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.

As for the birds? They haven’t left.

They’re still watching.

Just outside my window.

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This is the inaugural story for the New Tales Told podcast available on this service.

While this story is purely fictional, it unfolds in the shadow of a real disaster—one that affected communities close to my own family in Asheville, where my mother, sister, and niece live. I want to express my sincere concern and empathy for those who were impacted. That said, this is not a story about the tragedy itself. It’s a tale of personal escape, buried secrets, and a woman who may have used chaos as cover for something darker—or perhaps something justified. The events are imagined, but the setting was chosen for its emotional weight, and I’ve tried to treat that weight with care.

Author's Note

Publishing this story has been one of the scarier things I’ve done in my life. Reading the works of others is far different than narrating a creation of my own. Honestly, I haven’t written fiction since high school—but I’ve always wanted to. I first published this on my Litreading podcast, but as I have now written more stories, I decided to give these stories their own stage, New Tales Told.

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