Konn Lavery’s New Supernatural Thriller Novel: Crystal Moth Conspiracy
Today, my guest is fellow Canadian author Konn Lavery. He grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, while being a homeschooled vegetarian. A horror and dark fantasy writer, graphic designer, and lover of industrial music, let’s welcome him to the blog to chat about his latest novel, Crystal Moth Conspiracy.
Thanks for having me, Simon. A quick one-sentence pitch would be:
Lola Cabello is a fugitive after exposing the law’s connection to the notorious Crystal Moth gang who destroyed her life and family, igniting her need for revenge and descending into a world of reptilian drug lords, demons, and the fantastic.
How did the idea for the novel come about?
I had the novel idea floating around in my head for 15 years. It had a general premise, setting, and some character types. Still, they weren’t well defined. Crystal Moth Conspiracy is the first book for the novel idea, part of the new Ash Born series housed in my superverse, The Macrocosm.
An interactive timeline is on my website’s homepage at https://konnlavery.com/
The first draft of the novel was finished in 2021. I started writing it in 2020 during NaNoWriMo since I had some spare time and figured I finally had the maturity and experience to tackle the book’s themes and depth of character.
Talk about the characters. Who is the hero, the villain?
There is a clear protagonist that we follow, plus some additional points of view because the precise definitions of hero and villain are blurred as the story continues. The main character is Lola Cabello, who shows up in a previous novel I wrote called YEGman. She had a support role in that story and worked great as the main character for Crystal Moth Conspiracy.
The closest villain would be Scalebane, a reptilian assassin working with a drug lord. She is sent to silence Lola while she deals with her own internal politics from her people.
What was your favourite scene to write in Crystal Moth Conspiracy?
My favourite would be where Lola, Scalebane, and Synarion have their first and only civil discussion in chapter 46. It’s tense.
Your books have won multiple awards, including Crystal Moth Conspiracy, placing Bronze in Global Book Awards Magical Realism Category and Finalist in Readers’ Favorite Supernatural Category. Have you always strived to be a writer?
I’ve been writing as long as I can recall, creating backstories to board games I made up and comics I drew. Making a full-time career out of my fiction is still my dream. Although I also quite enjoy my interest in graphic design and web development, my primary bread and butter for 14 years.
Great segue to the artwork of the book. How have your design skills impacted your writing?
I’m a big fan of transmedia storytelling, which encompasses multiple mediums to tell a bigger story. This includes artwork, music, interactions, movies, literature, everything. Most people know about transmedia storytelling, think Star Wars or Game of Thrones, which are big-budget and have multiple studios involved.
On a small scale, the budget doesn’t exist. I still collaborate with musicians and illustrators while making tracks and illustrations of my own for the books. With Crystal Moth Conspiracy, I contracted a good friend and colleague, Lee Nielsen, to paint the cover while I did the typography and interior artwork.
My design work has inspired my writing and vice versa, all depending on the project.
And what is next for you?
Currently, I have several projects on the go. The main one is a prequel novel to Crystal Moth Conspiracy titled World Mother. It will be a newsletter exclusive. So sign up if you want it! That novel follows Synarion and the events leading up to the first novel.
I’ve also got the first draft of Ash Born 2, a horror novel on the go, and several short story submissions.
Where can readers discover you?
My newsletter is a great way to strike up a conversation or to keep tabs on my work and get exclusive access to stories, The Macrocosm Wiki, and voting privileges on b
ook titles and characters.
https://konnlavery.com/newsletter-sign-up/
My work can be found on my website at konnlavery.com, where I have the novels, short story collections, anthologies I am in, and audiobooks. https://konnlavery.com/
Crystal Moth Conspiracy can be found here: https://konnlavery.com/novels/crystal-moth-conspiracy/
If people want to interact with me, I am active on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Thanks for having me!
