The Author

Carson Winter is an award-winning author, punker, and raw nerve. His short fiction has appeared in over 20 publications, including Apex, Vastarien, and Chthonic Matter Quarterly. He is the author of Soft Targets, The Psychographist, and A Spectre is Haunting Greentree. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

-Carson Winter’s website

The Collection

Portraits of Decay, published June 16th, 2025, is a short story collection consisting of weird fiction by Carson Winter.

Under your mask, there is only decay. 

In Carson Winter’s debut collection of social horror, characters reveal their darkest selves in the face of the insane and inexplicable. 

A couple finds themselves trading identities in the form of masks. 

A podcaster follows strange clues to a mystery that may spell his end. 

A child’s world collapses into chaos as its dreamer awakens. 

Portraits of Decay poses subjects as both transgressor and victim; dreamer and derelict-in eighteen stories of anxiety, desire, and unbearable finality.

Featuring an introduction from Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold.

-Portraits of Decay’s Goodreads page

The Review

How do you know if you’re reading good weird fiction? The story embeds itself in your psyche and keeps you thinking about it long after you finish reading it. I will be thinking of Portraits of Decay for a while.

It is hard to pick a favorite story from this collection because Carson Winter does such a good job of finding new ways to look at tropes we’ve already seen. I especially felt this with his Kaiju story, “The Children of the Event”. I also enjoyed his experimental stories like “Zero Boundaries Podcast: Episode: 182”, an analysis on a podcast, and “Alive and Living (Pilot), a screenplay performed in front of a live audience.

If you want to feel something, this modern weird fiction collection is a must-have.

I made this review by reading an ARC copy from the author. This review embodies my own opinion about the book.

5/5