Tall Tales has its own domain now! The service plan with my webhost was upgraded this week, which means the site now has a simple .com address (as you can see above) and I was able to customize the footer to have quick-access links. It also means that I will (hopefully) be able to put some ads on the site to help cover the cost of the upgrade. Don't worry, I also hate when they interrupt the flow of things, and will place them accordingly.

This week I hit a point in my post queue where I can begin stepping away occasionally to work on other projects without running the risk of missing updates. One project I've managed to get some work done on was the first Tall Tales Anthology, which I expect to have available before summer ends. Keep an eye out for details on that!

The other projects I hope to finish in the nearish future now that I have planned a system for shifting between them well include a fantasy story that follows a couple retired adventurers on a quest to restore magic to their world, and a science fiction thriller written entirely as the interactions of a ship's computer and a crewman trying to access records. I'm really excited to share all of this with you!

On a more somber note, today is my son's third birthday, but he isn't home with us right now. With our quarantine over and my wife and I returning to work as essential employees, we made the difficult choice to have them stay with a home-bound relative for a time so they wouldn't be exposed to anything from us. This is going to be a rough week for my wife and me, so please be patient if I'm slow with advertising new posts as they publish.

As of yesterday, my family is in quarantine. Thankfully we have at least most of what we need to stay in for two weeks, but I will have to take the next two weeks off work which will impact us financially.

The biggest issue for you as readers, though, is that I actually have less time to write with both kids home because they fight; and thanks to a series of seasonal colds that were tearing through the house before all this Coronavirus business kicked off, I was already burning through my buffer faster than I'd like. I should think I'll be able to build it back up before it runs out, but if the site suddenly goes silent for a little bit, I apologize and assure you that that's probably why. During this time, however, my wife and I have started settling details on an idea we had on extra content for you all, and I'm now very hopeful that will become a real thing. Stay tuned!

One final note. Due to various circumstances, I have not always managed this week (or last, if I'm honest) to share the word about new posts as promptly as I'd like. Do remember that no matter what time or day I advertise a given post, they always publish at the stroke of midnight on their scheduled publishing days, Eastern time (United States east coast). If you want to more reliably know when they're up, or just want first look at them, I would remind you that we offer a Tall Tales Mailing List which sends you the full content of each post at 2 am Eastern time (except the Narrator blog, which emails at 3 am to avoid Daylight Savings complications) on the day they publish! This only includes story blogs, and may in the future include very rare announcements about new things coming to Tall Tales.

As Matteson was spending over a week focused on Lori and the fallout of Mark's death, his blog was not scheduled to update this week. However, because I did not want to rob you of something new to read during a period of social distancing, I added a short story that had previously only been available for sale to the website that day. Enjoy!

"Legion" finished this week, which means that the Editor's Choice Reading Order now includes as much of "Golden Calf" as has published so far.

So far, there has thankfully been little impact on our household from COVID-19. My daughter is home from school, but I was already home with my son during the week, so we did not need to make any special accommodations there. My wife's job is looking into how much work they can have her do from home, and considering paid time off options for employees. The big issues are church, which we are waiting to hear on, and my job. I work retail on the weekends, which hasn't closed, but if it does (or I get sick by being there) we will feel the hurt from losing that income. If you enjoy the story, please consider supporting it through my Patreon or Ko-fi!

​I'm glad you're here! You may jump in at any post below; but if you prefer to read the entire story to date first, I recommend you start here.

I'm glad you're here! You may jump in at any post below; but if you prefer to read the entire story to date first, I recommend you start here. Note that at this time, "Golden Calf" is not worked into the Editor's Choice Reading Order, as it fits in after "Legion" which is not yet complete.

Tall Tales has new posts four days a week, and this can be difficult to maintain as a reader. To help those who find it useful, allow me to introduce Tall Tales Weekly! Every Tuesday, a new post will go up on this page with an update of everything happening with Tall Tales. This will contain summaries and links to the posts published that week, tools for navigating current story arcs, and any announcements (like this one) that may come up.

I'm glad you're here! You may jump in at any post below; but if you prefer to read the entire story to date first, I recommend you start here. Note that at this time, "Golden Calf" is not worked into the Editor's Choice Reading Order, as it fits in after "Legion" which is not yet complete.