Guest Post by Emile P. Bush: A Steampunk Bedtime Story

Published on February 21, 2012 by Mecha Underwood.

It’s been a month of firsts, here. A love-fest give­away, and now our first guest blog­ger!  We’re thrilled to have author Emi­lie P. Bush in the 2.0 Fac­tory.  She has writ­ten two Steam­punk nov­els and a brand new children’s book, HER MAJESTY’S EXPLORER: A STEAMPUNK BEDTIME STORY, which she’s here to talk about, and you can see the book trailer over at Coal City Press’s blog.  In a genre flooded with all man­ner of tales for grown-ups and young adults, graphic novel read­ers and even poetry lovers, this gen­tle tale is one of the first of its kind – a pic­ture book for the small chil­dren. The book is about a young automa­ton that marches and explores for coun­try, cause and queen [my synapses have always fired for a bot in uni­form]. His trav­els make him tired and very dirty. Upon return­ing to his home base, he pre­pares him­self for the adven­ture of going to bed.

Also in this book is a bonus story, “Three Cheers for Steam­duck,” the tale of St.John Mur­phy Alexander’s plucky bath­tub duckie who ven­tures out into the wider world. You can see reviews of the book here and here:

But S. J. asked Emi­lie to call on us today to tell us another story, the story behind Her Majesty’s Explorer, in which col­lab­o­ra­tion with illus­tra­tor William Kevin Petty was born and raised through the won­ders of com­mu­nity and its modern-convenient acces­si­bil­ity via social net­work­ing.  Thanks to Emi­lie for being here.

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Be Our Valentine Giveaway Winners

Published on February 17, 2012 by Mecha Underwood.

Well, that was a lot of fun, and I’m happy to announce we have three winners!

Anna, Jesse Car­dens, and Natalie Zaman.

They will be receiv­ing a spe­cial valen­tine as well as a signed copy of THE STEAMPUNK BIBLE.  Thanks to every­one who par­tic­i­pated and wrote such lovely and cre­ative things.  It widened the steam-valves of my lit­tle click­ing heart.

 

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We Love Steampunk for the People : An Exclusive Interview with Airship Archon’s Captain Anthony LaGrange and First Lieutenant Salena van Eycke

Published on February 14, 2012 by Mecha Underwood.

Cap­tain Anthony LaGrange and First Lieu­tenant Salena van Eycke (Sally for short) are crew mem­bers of the immensely active and dap­per Air­ship Archon, a Steam­punk group based out of Colum­bus, Ohio founded by LaGrange in 2008.  The crew trav­els all over the coun­try pro­mot­ing the imag­i­na­tive pos­si­bil­i­ties of Steam­punk with their unique fash­ions and cel­e­brated events (orga­nized by Miss van Eycke).  Read­ers of The Steam­punk Bible may rec­og­nize LaGrange from two images within the Fash­ion chap­ter, dap­per and iconic in his sig­na­ture corset.  Funny story about these images, a bit of mis-information led us to credit LaGrange incor­rectly.  Van Eycke imme­di­ately con­tacted us about the error (now cor­rected in the recent edi­tions), and from there a con­ver­sa­tion was struck up with S. J., about why the couple/shipmates love Steampunk.

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Posted in 2.0 exclusive material, Fashion, Fun times, Groups, Interviews, Photography 3 Comments

Steampunk Revolution: Call for Submissions

Published on February 2, 2012 by Mecha Underwood.

Steam­punk Rev­o­lu­tion, edited by Ann Van­der­Meer (co-editor of both Steam­punk and Steam­punk II: Steam­punk Reloaded) to be pub­lished in the Fall 2012 by Tachyon Pub­li­ca­tions, announces an open read­ing period.

Steam­punk Rev­o­lu­tion fea­tures a rene­gade col­lec­tive of writ­ers and artists — includ­ing steam­punk leg­ends as well as hot, new tal­ents — who are reboot­ing the steam-driven past and pow­er­ing it into the future with orig­i­nal­ity, wit, and adven­ture.  Going far beyond corsets and gog­gles, Steam­punk Rev­o­lu­tion is not just a ride in your great-great granddad’s zep­pelin — now it’s a much wilder ride.

Look­ing for reprints only (stan­dard reprint rates apply).  Will­ing to look at all kinds of Steam­punk fic­tion, but mainly inter­ested in work that pushes the bound­aries, that truly is a rev­o­lu­tion to the genre.  Pre­fer works under 10,000 words.

I [Ann Van­der­Meer] will read sub­mis­sions between Feb­ru­ary 1, 2012, and March 1, 2012. Any English-language story pre­vi­ously pub­lished in the past decade on a web­site or print pub­li­ca­tion is eli­gi­ble for con­sid­er­a­tion. Will­ing to look at all kinds of Steam­punk fic­tion, but mainly inter­ested in work that pushes the bound­aries, that is truly a rev­o­lu­tion to the genre. 

Sub­mis­sions up to 10,000 words should be sent in a Word or RTF doc­u­ment to steam­punkrev­o­lu­tion at hotmail.com. Please cut-and-paste the first three para­graphs into the body of your email and include prior pub­li­ca­tion infor­ma­tion, but no need to include any bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion about your­self. If you pre­fer, use snail mail by send­ing your work to POB 38190, Tal­la­has­see, FL 32315. Snail mail sub­mis­sions should be marked on the out­side of the enve­lope as for Steam­punk Rev­o­lu­tion con­sid­er­a­tion. No SASE is required if you pre­fer email response. All Sub­mis­sions will be responded to no later than March 31; please do not query about a sub­mis­sion prior to that date.

Pay­ment will be on pub­li­ca­tion, at stan­dard reprint rates of one to two cents per word, against a share of any roy­al­ties from the North Amer­i­can or for­eign edi­tions, as well as one con­trib­u­tor copy.

Posted in Fun times, Literature, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Be Our Valentine?

Published on February 1, 2012 by Mecha Underwood.

Saint Valentine’s Day (1861). Source: Prints and Pho­tographs from the Library of Con­gress (Image owner: Harper’s Weekly).

It’s been a great nine months for us here at the 2.0 Fac­tory!  So great that we are brim­ming — brimming! — with affec­tion­ate appre­ci­a­tion just beg­ging to be shown! Alas, I have nei­ther legs nor mouth, but I can type, by Jove, and post, and I can send parcels to whence my leg­less body can’t roam.  So, it seems that all this points to one cel­e­bra­tory option:  a Valentine’s GIVEAWAY! Oh, how grand!  How I can’t wait to send three lucky win­ners a Valen­tine as well as a signed copy of THE STEAMPUNK BIBLE.  But in order to select my three lucky win­ners, we need a con­test, don’t we?

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Posted in Fun times, Giveaway 23 Comments