UPDATE |The Altered Tarot Deck & Guidebook: Continuing a Fool’s Journey
📢 New Update: The Altered Tarot Deck & Guidebook is Now Available!
✨ The magic you’ve been waiting for is ready when you are. ✨
After many months of anticipation, creative alchemy, and more than a few midnight tracking-number refreshes… the Altered Tarot Deck & Guidebook is finally stateside.
Creative tools like this deck belong in the hands of artists, seekers, and anyone drawn to meaning-making through beauty. Every purchase supports independent publishing, collaborative artistry, and the kind of slow, soulful work that can’t be rushed.
🛒Find it now in our shop.
(Original project update from 09/06/2025 follows below.)
Project Update on The Altered Tarot Deck and Guidebook
The Altered Tarot Deck and Guidebook has been a long time coming—and now it’s taking shape in a form that feels true to its vision.
For those who haven’t followed from the beginning, The Altered Tarot Deck and Guidebook represents the culmination of years of collaboration between poet Robyn Tanksley and photographer Kristin Hiatt, two Portland-based educators whose creative partnership has evolved into the identity known as Altered Tarot.
The duo self-published their first book, Altered Tarot, in 2019, pairing poetry and photography and tracing a journey from limitation toward freedom, holding vulnerability and strength in tension. Their second collection, Altered Tarot: The End of Love (2022), was published by Unencumbered Press and extended this collaboration, exploring grief, healing, and resilience through a five-card spread structured around the four elements. Over time, Robyn and Kristin became known simply as Altered Tarot, and along the way, they’ve also built an organic Instagram following of more than a thousand readers, where they routinely share thoughtful graphics and glimpses into their creative work.
Now, with The Altered Tarot Deck and Guidebook, they bring that vision into a new form. The deck is the most tactile expression of their work yet: rooted in the Rider–Waite tradition, it contains 78 full-color cards, each paired with an original poem, and is accompanied by a 188-page guidebook. Designed with care and created entirely without AI, it’s a project that feels both contemporary and timeless. As Robyn writes in the introduction:
Tarot absolutely does not read your future, nor does it forebode ideas to expect or wait for. Tarot helps to recognize what has already been discovered and known, reminding us of our path toward actualization. It is a form of storytelling that helps you see what is before you, acknowledge what has been, and realize what is yet to come.
But the version of the deck that’s emerging today didn’t arrive fully formed, and getting here wasn’t simple. Like the Fool, its path has been cyclical, patient, and transformative. Early prototypes revealed what was missing: the cards needed more space, more presence, more durability. So the creators waited, revised, and refused to rush a deck that deserved care, holding out for a version that felt right. That instinct led to two big changes—enlarging the deck and choosing more premium materials.
When the new sample arrived this summer, I opened the package with my mom at her dining table in Spokane. Later, a close friend snapped photos while her daughter and I explored the cards; eventually, I carried the deck with me on the road to Dallas, living with it for a while before sending it on to Robyn and Kristin. —Stephanie Johnson Lawson
Back in Portland, they are working with the cards—testing their feel, falling deeper into their presence, and weaving them into the rhythms of their own practices. 
From here, The Altered Tarot Deck and Guidebook begins its penultimate voyage. Once the bulk order is complete, it will set sail from WJPC in China, spend about thirty days at sea, and then make its way to the U.S. In its last leg, each deck will be packed and sent to readers—two months from now, give or take.
Our next update should come with the opportunity to purchase the deck, so stay tuned!
