Short Story Wednesday: Harvest

“Harvest” by Carson Winter is a horror crime story published in Cold Caller Magazine on March 11, 2026. (Text)

Cold Caller summarizes this story perfectly: a trio of siblings do what they must to survive among the hardscrabble farms of the heartland. It’s one of those stories where saying more would give away too much, though I will say that the emotional impact of the piece is deeper than the title, genre, and summary suggest.

Part of the reason for that, and why I was so compelled by this story, is the narrative point of view (POV). The story is told in first-person POV from the middle sibling’s perspective, but in first-person peripheral rather than central. For those of you searching the archives of your mind for the distinction, allow me: first-person peripheral is when the narrator tells the story of the main character(s) from the periphery. Think of Watson telling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or Nick Carraway telling Jay Gatsby’s story in The Great Gatsby. And the reason you had to search your archives? It’s kind of a rare POV!

What the peripheral perspective does for this story reminds me a little bit of the objective point of view in “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway. Because the narrator isn’t able to access the interiority of his siblings, to tell their story well, he must make incisive and specific observations of their actions and reactions, but also of the actions and reactions they don’t take. The details Carson chooses to emphasize are precisely the ones we need to relate to and empathize with the children, leading to an emotional impact that, for me, has lasted well beyond the end of the story.

Each Wednesday, I review my favourite published story I’ve read during the past week. If you’d like to join me by reviewing a short story on your blog each Wednesday, email me the link to your post, and I’ll share it below. I learned of Short Story Wednesday from Patricia Abbot’s blog.