Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Steampunk Style

While Steampunk is all too often associated only with Great Britain, there is no reason it can’t apply to Ireland as well. People joke about Steampunk being about brown, but there is nothing that restrict you to drab colors. The wearing o’ the green can also be the wearing o’ the steam!

Now, if you didn’t plan ahead, it’s probably too late to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Steampunk style this year. There is always next year, however, so here are a few ideas to get you thinking for next year.

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Ay-leen the Peacemaker on “Re-Racing Steampunk”

Diana Pho, aka Ay-leen the Peacemaker, friend of the site and editor of Beyond Victoriana, spoke recently at Roger Williams University where she gave a lecture on “Re-Racing Steampunk: Race, Memory & Retrofuturism”.

If you have concerns about Steampunk’s glorification of the past, and you should, the lecture is a must watch. As always, Diana’s words are thought-provoking and insightful.

You can read her post about the experience on her blog or just watch the video here. I’m sure she’d appreciate hearing what people think, so please post any comments on her blog.

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Steampunk Books Coming Out in March 2013

At the start of each month, the Hugo award winner Fanzine SF Signal compiles a wonderful list of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (and thereabouts) books coming out in the next month. And from that I’ve gleaned the Steampunk (and related) books from their list for March (and one for April that snuck in there). As ever, please visit SFSignal’s full list for genre fun outside beyond our little genre neighborhood.

Cards & Caravans (The Gaslight Chronicles) by Cindy Spencer Pape, Carina Press, March 18

Clockwork Angels: The Watchmaker’s Edition (Audio Book) by Kevin J. Anderson, read by Neil Peart, Brilliance Audio, March 1

Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices) by Cassandra Clare, Margaret K. McElderry Books, March 19

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Call for Submissions: Dark Beauty Magazine 3rd Steampunk Issue

Dark Beauty Magazine is looking for content for their third annual Steampunk issue, as announced on Facebook:

The Airships are rising and we are gathering our forces for this our 3rd Annual Dark Beauty Magazine Steampunk issue out in April 2013. If you are interested in featuring your fashion, weapons, gadgets, jewelry and other amazing air quality steampunk goodies we are more than excited to share it with our readership this April. Content is due March 15th, send to us at http://bit.ly/DBM_Submit.

I know there are a lot of Steampunk designers and artists out there. Show them your stuff. Submissions for print have to be previously unpublished, but the same restriction does not apply for submissions for their online photo stream.

And, regardless of whether you are in a position to submit, remember to look for the issue in April.

Free EBook: A Steampunk Valentine

We are very proud to announce the release of A Steampunk Valentine, our first ebook. This little volume collects all forty-one entries from our Valentine short short story competition into one easy-to-read form. And it turns out that a lot of little things add up after a while as the book clocks in at almost 30k words.

The book is available from from Smashwords for Kindle, Nook, and other ebook readers. We might be a little biased here, but we think it would make a wonderful Valentine’s Day present for the Steampunk aficionado in your life. Hint.

Tell your friends. Heck, tell your enemies; maybe they’ll become friends too.

And above all, have a happy St. Valentine’s Day!