Carson Winter - A Spectre is Haunting Greentree - SSBA Horror Finalist

Hello again! Slight schedule change on the SSBA posts. Last time, I promised 1 every Sunday, but instead I got sick and missed one. The current plan is to post twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays) until the posts are complete! Anyway, today's featured author is one of our returning semi-finalist interviewees, Carson Winter, author of A Spectre is Haunting Greentree.

As usual, more information on the SSBA can be found here, and links to all of my other SSBA posts can be found here. Side note, nominations are open for the 2026 awards - so send them in!

On to the author spotlight!  

 Carson Winter - Author Biography

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. 

Where you can find Carson Winter: 

You can find Carson Winter at carsonwinter.com and every week on the Dead Languages Podcast, a horror craft-writing podcast. For social media, Carson Winter is on Bluesky and Instagram.

 

Interview

1. How did your writing journey begin/come about?

I’ve been writing for most of my life. As a kid, I’d write and illustrate my own stories, as a teen I’d write rather terrible novels on a yearly basis. However, I didn’t become serious about writing until I was around twenty-four, when I realized that I was stuck in a sort of creative stasis. I had spent a lot of time cultivating big dreams, but hadn’t yet acted on them. With that realization, I decided to start taking writing seriously—exploring the horror genre, the markets, and putting words on the page. 

2. Who are your biggest influences/favourite authors/books?

I have a number of big influences, but I’d say the biggest are Thomas Ligotti, Brian Evenson, Nicole Cushing, and Shirley Jackson—all of them have expanded what I believe the horror genre can be in different ways. Other authors outside of the genre I love are Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Don DeLillo. 

I grew up reading pageturners by the likes of John Grisham and Michael Crichton, which have also certainly influenced me in ways I probably don’t even fully realize.  

3. What are some recent books you’ve enjoyed and can recommend?

While I’m biased toward Tenebrous Press, I think readers who enjoyed A Spectre is Haunting Greentree would really enjoy the rest of their catalog as well. Some of my favorites are Agony’s Lodestone by Laura Keating, House of Rot by Danger Slater, and The Black Lord by Colin Hinckley. 

I’d also wholeheartedly recommend the work of Emma E. Murray, who has had a couple of novels out in the last few years that have all been tremendous. If you love extreme horror and complicated characters, with a dash of literary style, Crushing Snails will become your whole personality. 

4. Please tell us a bit about some of your other writing/work

I have two other books out with Tenebrous Press—Soft Targets, a novella about office workers who spend their days fantasizing about mass shootings, until they discover a tear in reality that allows them to enact their most violent desires consequence free; I also co-wrote Posthaste Manor with Jolie Toomajan, a sort of composite novel about a very haunted house. 

My novel 

The Psychographist

, from Apocalypse Party Press, is about a family who decides to join a focus group for a strange product and I’m proud to say that it’s been optioned for film. Besides that, I recently came out with my first short story collection, Portraits of Decay, from Salt Heart Press. 

5. What’s next for you?

Writing is a tough, slow industry. You never know what’s going to come next. I have a couple of stories due out in the new year, and I have a number of novels I’m currently shopping but nothing on the books. For readers who’d like to stay up-to-date on my work, please join my newsletter at carsonwinter.com or find me on 

Bluesky

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A Spectre is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter

REAP WHAT YOU SOW

In the wake of a series of panic attacks, isolated and introverted Carina takes a friend up on an offer: go to Greentree, Oregon, escape her abusive ex, and start a new life. 

But upon arrival, the town is stranger than Carina could have ever imagined. 

For one, they still have a video store. For two, everyone is rich. 

For three, what’s up with all these scarecrows?

As Greentree’s secrets begin to unravel, as the autumn sun bends below the corn, as scythes sharpen in the night—a violent revolution stirs.

Buy the book here!

1. What inspired you to write this book?

When I was writing A Spectre is Haunting Greentree, I had just gotten my first real taste of anxiety. I had been hyper focusing on my heart for months, to the point that I was in constant fear of having a heart attack in my late 20s. 

This anxiety, this feeling of being under something’s thumb, terrified me—but it also inspired me. 

The second influence for Greentree was a desire to write something decidedly old school. I wanted to write a horror book that would fit perfectly amidst the 80s paperbacks I loved so much. That’s where the scarecrows came in. 

A Spectre is Haunting Greentree is an amalgam of different emotions and interests that coalesced into a bizarre whole. An anti-capitalist killer scarecrow novel about anxiety—what’s not to love?

2. What was your favourite part of writing it?

My favorite part of writing A Spectre is Haunting Greentree was writing the scarecrows! They have such a unique perspective on their predicament, and I loved channeling their revolutionary tone.  

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! 

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