Author Spotlight: C. Lenz
C. Lenz (she/her) is a writer, scientist, and odd little thing. Her stories have appeared in Metaphorosis, Fanatical Magazine, and on the NoSleep Podcast, among others.
She was and honorable mention in the 2023 Hamilton GritLit short story contest, and her debut novella, Thyrst Festival, was released in 2024.
She lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with her wife Zoey.
Author Links:
Instagram: @sealenz
Threads: @sealenz
Get Thyrst Festival: Amazon Link
Free Stories: linktr.ee/sealenz
What is your favourite creature feature, and/or your favourite monster-slasher trope?
I love whenever someone thinks they can control the monster or use it for profit. Think Umbrella Corp from Resident Evil or Weyland-Yutani from the Aliens series wanting to use monsters for military applications. Yes, the spectacular backfiring of that idea is totally predictable, but when you look at the kinds of environmental destruction that venture capitalists invest in, the staggering lack of foresight is almost realistic. The attitude of “yeah, this is a bad idea, but I’ll be out of here before it’s a problem,” was definitely a bit of an inspiration for Mitchell, one of the villains of Thyrst Festival.
Tell us more about your book, Thyrst Festival. What inspired this story, and what inspirations might readers pick up on as they read?
I’ve always had a fascination for con artists. Obviously Fyre Festival was a huge inspiration for Thyrst Festival. For a while, I was watching and reading everything I could about it, before moving on to other recent stories about con artists and scammers like Anna Delvey (Inventing Anna) or Elizabeth Holmes (Bad Blood by John Carreyrou).
I was obsessed with the type of person who builds this elaborate lie. Do they think it will work? Do they think they’ll stay far enough ahead of the lie to keep it going indefinitely? Do they even know they’re lying?
I started out wanting to do something where the main characters know the antagonist is lying and have these kinds of questions.
The story I had planned would have been much shorter and much more like a dark comedy take on The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, (and I might still write it at some point). I was also, at the time, working on a horror anthology I was planning to call Eat the Rich, with a focus on class warfare and conspicuous consumption.
Thyrst Festival was meant to be a short story within that anthology before it, y’know, got to novella length and I realized it stood very well on its own. (I also had a couple of the other intended stories, Confession and The Fishbowl, published on the NoSleep Podcast and Nobilis Erotica.)
Thematically, Thyrst Festival is about old money vs. new money, and how there isn’t much of a difference when they’re all vampires.
Can you tell us about your own festival-going (or gig/concert) experiences? Have any of these made it into the book?
I’ve been the first person (or at least part of the first group) to get to a music festival before, and I definitely used that for the vibe of what we see of Thyrst Festival.
It’s an interesting experience to sit on a blanket in a more-or-less empty field while surrounded by the structures of an outdoor concert, but none of the vendors are really open yet and the show hasn’t started.
It’s kind of relaxing but also really weird. You’re looking at this big stage and scattered booths, and you see some staff speed-walking around in the background sometimes, and you’re just wondering if everything’s still on track or if everyone is back there putting out some kind of fire. That uncertainty and lack of behind-the-scenes information, as an audience member, was a really fun flavour to add to a horror story.
How did you develop your protagonist and get into her head, what is your character-development process like when you’re drafting? Did she turn out the way you planned, or did she surprise you?
When I’m outlining a story, I mainly start with the plot and I’ll have a rough idea of who the character needs to be in terms of backstory and general personality in order for the events of the story to make sense. When I actually write the first draft, I’ll usually find the characters by letting myself dip more into what their thoughts would be about the things happening around them. In the case of Grace, the main character of Thyrst Festival, she is a personal assistant who’s ended up at the festival because she’s working for an influencer.
When I was coming up with the major plot beats, I more-or-less imagined her as needing this job to pay student loans but also used to being surrounded by rich people with trust funds, so she’s also usually the first person to actually address an issue rather than try to delegate. At that early stage, I was only thinking of the reasons for her to be there and why she would be the right character to follow.
When I actually began to write the first draft, I started to think more about how she would feel about where she is and who she’s with. I didn’t want her to strongly resent the people around her, because I felt that would feel too negative, but I also didn’t want her to be uncritical and feel like a long-suffering doormat. In trying to balance that, I ended up adding a bit more of myself than I maybe should have, and gave Grace a lot of morbid curiosity early on about how exactly Thyrst Festival is going to fall apart.
How do you build tension and suspense – what techniques do you use, and what’s your favourite way to elicit dread in your readers?
When I’m writing stories with a lot of suspense and action, I find it’s important to think about how fast things are happening. When you’re coming up on a reveal or turning point, you want to start drawing things out before suddenly hitting the reader with some big realization.
I find you can slow things down in a really effective, tense way by playing with the level of detail of the image you’re creating.
For example, if you want your main character to, say, stumble on a den of vampires, you can make the moment before the truth comes crashing in take a little longer by giving the POV a laser focus. Zoom in on little, out-of-context details to build up the image bit by bit, before throwing the big picture at the reader.
Share some reader responses to Thyrst Festival and let us know what they think!
I’ve been getting a lot of good reviews. Something I was proud to see come up was that I really de-romanticized vampires. They’re definitely more monstrous than how I think most media portrays them.
Most of my friends and family have also told me that they read it in one sitting.
Obviously as a novella it’s on the shorter end, but I’m very happy that people are into it enough to just finish it in one go.
I was also going for “beach read,” so that’s perfect!
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