In Memoriam compiles Roland’s best hits culled from his thirty years in music. We will be giving away signed copies of this double-CD to ten lucky readers.

Rocking for over 30 plus years, Roland’s music flirts with various genres like goth, psych-pop, and folk, with a unifying theme of exploring science fiction and horror tropes, especially those with a Victorian/Edwardian bent. Within his songs, listeners will find tales inspired by H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as original historical and romantic characters like opium addicts and Ripperesque murderers.

To celebrate this interview, Paul Roland has graciously donated ten signed copies of In Memoriam, a double-CD collection of his best work over his long career to send to our lucky readers.  If you’d rather not participate, but would like to sample his wares,  he has made several tracks available for free download (live links are at the end of this interview).

Official Rules: Only open to participants in the United States.  To enter, leave us your thoughts about Steampunk music.  You may post as many times as you like in the natural course of the discussion, but derisive, trollish behavior will be disqualified.   A winner will be randomly selected by Monday, April 30th at teatime (4 o’clock).  Please check your e-mail Tuesday or Wednesday following; winners who have not responded to us within 24 hours shall be eliminated, and a new winner selected. Official announcements of the winner will go live May 4th.

Well, now that we have all the logistics out-of-the-way, let’s return to the interview.

Joshua Pfeiffer:  A lot of current Steampunks are just discovering your expansive discography, where would you recommend a new listener start?

Paul Roland: I must say I find this immensely gratifying as I have been living alone in this Edwardian dreamscape for so long and wondered if anyone shared my obsession with airships, eccentric inventors and gentleman of leisure. The most obvious and accessible album would be the ‘In Memoriam’ 2 CD set which I compiled to celebrate my first 30 years of making music. These are the tracks that I thought represented my best and of which I was most proud. It has ‘The Great Edwardian Air-Raid’, ‘Wyndham Hill’ (about a Victorian inventor and his maiden voyage in a flying machine) and ‘Captain Nemo’ which are obvious steampunk themes as well as a few unreleased items (‘Moriarty’, ‘The Ballad of Mary Kelly’ who was jack the Ripper’s final victim) so that is a good starting point and I deliberately limited the choice to two tracks per album so if anyone then decided to check out the original albums they would have heard no more than 2 tracks already.    

JP: Do you have any thoughts on the development of the Steampunk Subculture? I’m sure you’ve seen it go from a small niche crowd in the mid-late 90’s, to the full-blown subculture that it is now.

PR: I still find it the most unlikely of movements and am amazed that other people have the same taste as I do, to some degree. But then, with so much contemporary rock being so derivative and contrived and pop being little more than processed baby food music generated by machines and digital software, perhaps it was inevitable that a section of the more discerning music lovers would look to the past and the future rather than the present. I hope it leads to a resurgence of interest in literary figures such as Wells, Arthur Machen, William Hope Hodgson, M.R. James and the like, even if they have little or no direct influence on the culture. And I would hope that I can create a Steampunk specific project before it mutates into something else. But then, if I had made music to fit a specific genre before I had established my own personal world I would have found it too restrictive. I have always lived in my own fantasy world and plucked characters from that which is what made my music unique, if I may say so. It has meant that I was not embraced by any single community but had a broader base which I think is healthier. But now that I have written everything I have wanted to write, I can concentrate on ‘concept’ projects and enjoy getting into something more demanding. It’s comparable to a writer of short stories gaining the appetite to tackle a novel. I did this first with ‘Re-Animator’ which drew on the stories of H.P.Lovecraft and with ‘Grimm’ which was inspired by the dark fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. But I would like to create a specific Steampunk project perhaps with contributions from leading figures in that field whose collaboration would serve to acknowledge my part in its evolution. That would be the highest form of tribute anyone could pay me, to collaborate with me on something new.
    
JP: First, as an artist who has been releasing your own material (largely self-published), how has it been adapting to the new forms of media distribution? I mean you obviously started out in a DIY fashion, but as the new millennium has rolled on, did you find it easy to adapt to the new media options such as Facebook, Kickstarter, Bandcamp, etc. Or are you still working on getting hooked up with more of those sources?

PR: I have been very fortunate in recent years in finding people who have offered to create artwork for my albums, post video clips on YouTube and create social media networking sites because they like my music and want to help me to reach a wider audience. And I make sure that they have all the material they need which includes writing blogs and typing in lyrics etc so that they have new material to feed these sites and keep visitors interested and coming back for more. It was my idea to create the themed ‘traffic drivers’ offering free downloads of my songs to the Steampunk, Poe, Lovecraft and Bolan communities and because I have the rights to all my albums I don’t have to ask a label or publisher’s permission to do that. That is the great advantage to being independent. I’m also going to be making some of my fantasy novels and short stories available as ebooks but I don’t understand the technical aspect of formatting and setting up web pages. These things take time to learn and to create and my priority has to be making new music.

Grimm is one of Roland’s latest CDs, inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

JP: Have you noticed any renewed interest in your project with the recent rise of the Steampunk Subculture? Have any of the current musicians working in that scene contacted you at all?

PR: You are the first! Actually I had a steampunk novelist contact me some months ago asking for permission to include a quote from one of my lyrics and that was the first indication I had that my music had filtered across the pond and that my audience might have found me at last! I haven’t touredAmericaand hadn’t released any albums over there so I didn’t think I had made an impression, although my albums are available on CDbaby and I have always received mail from the States. I haven’t made any conscious effort to cultivate interest because I wanted like-minded people to gravitate towards me, but I now realise that is a bit naive in this multimedia age and you have to network. So, I will be making several of my tracks available as free downloads for the steampunk community through my Facebook page as soon as this interview is posted and then those who think they like the sound of my songs can download the tracks and maybe they will want to hear more. My hope is that I can find a label in the States to reissue my albums and promote them so that those who are looking for baroque Edwardian chamber psych(!) can find them. I have spent the last couple of years retouching those albums and combining two albums on one CD where possible for a small German label and presenting them with new artwork so that I finally have them the way I wanted which wasn’t possible when I recorded for Bam Caruso (UK) and New Rose (France). And as I have the copyright in all my recordings and also the publishing, I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to license them to a new label. That is why I have remained an independent. I couldn’t bear the idea of a label owning my albums and preventing their re-release or refusing to licence them to a foreign label if there was interest. As an independent I could give any label that wanted to release my records permission to do so and that meant that I had 4 labels at one point in Germany, France, Italy and Greece who organised tours and made sure the albums were in the shops. I am also hoping that I might get the opportunity to produce some Steampunk bands as the production side is as important to me as writing the songs. A band isn’t always the best judge of how their record should sound, they’re too close to it and I think I have a good ear for reconstructing other artist’s songs and embellishing them to get the best out of them.

JP: It seems that you are under the impression that the Steampunk scene is largely an American phenomenon. But in fact the UK scene seems to have just as big, if not a bigger amount of new talent, including musicians, artists, crafters, etc. Have you not been able to get in touch with any of your local Steampunk acts?

PR: I just write whatever I like and trust that it will find an audience. I have always written for my own pleasure and only in retrospect have these tracks been described as steampunk, Goth and psychpop. I would love to be embraced by the steampunk community and play conventions and festivals, but I have never had an agent or manager to arrange these appearances. My labels have always dealt with organizing tours. I’m just waiting to be asked!

JP: Any current plans to release new material? If so do you plan on reaching out to the larger Steampunk fanbase?

PR: My next album will draw on the songs I wrote for members of the Velvet Underground who had agreed to work with me around the time of their ‘VU’ album, but sadly Nico and Sterling Morrisson died before we could make that record. Then I’ll be writing another creepy acoustic album based around the stories ofEngland’s greatest teller of ghost stories, M.R.James. After that I have plans for an album based on Poe’s ‘Fall of the House of Usher’ and then perhaps the Steampunk project? But the only way I’m really going to connect with the SP community is if I can come over and play some concerts or conventions.

 If you’d like to know more about Mr. Roland, check out these url sundries:

Free downloads are available for our readers at the following links:  http://paulroland.wordpress.com/downloads/ 

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/proland11

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/proland9

You can also find more info about Mr. Roland at the following venues:

Wikipedia

Official website

Online discography (with samples)

MySpace

Facebook

Twitter: @paulrolandmusic

Dear Steamers,

Jeff and I are honored by this award.  Our number one goal in writing this book was to show how much momentum is behind this movement, and you can’t have momentum without a wonderful community like you all.  Having our readers within that community vote us best in non-fiction tells us we did accomplish that goal, and inspires us to continue accomplishing it.  Thank you all so much. We could not have done this without you.  Now enough mush– go back to enjoying STEAMFEST!

Cheers,
Jeff and S. J.

Thanks again to the readers, writers, and editors of The Steampunk Chronicle, and especial congrats to all the nominees and winners.

Paul Roland was one of the first musicians to write about Victoriana and Edwardian themes.

Rocking for over 30 plus years, Roland’s music flirts with various genres like goth, psych-pop, and folk, with a unifying theme of exploring science fiction and horror tropes, especially those with a Victorian/Edwardian bent. Within his songs, listeners willl find tales inspired by H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as original historical and romantic characters like opium addicts and Ripperesque murderers.

The first to feature uchronie material in his tunes, Roland’s music has been the inspiration for several prominent Steampunk musicians like Pfeiffer, as he told S. J. in an e-mail exchange:

“As for Paul Roland, if anyone deserves credit for spearheading Steampunk music, it is him. He was one of the inspirations I had in starting my project. He was writing songs about the first attempt at manned flight, and an Edwardian airship raid in the mid-80’s long before almost anyone else….”

Knowing Roland was interested in an interview, it seemed only natural that one icon interview another, and we’re thrilled that Pfeiffer agreed to helm the following interview with Roland.

This special will be featured in two parts. The second part, which will be running Wednesday, will include a giveaway with lucky winners receiving Roland’s IN MEMORIAM, a double-CD compilation featuring the best of his goth and Steampunk work over the past 30 years. Stay tuned for more details, but if you are interested in sampling his wares, he has made several tracks available for free download here.

Without further ado, let’s hand it over to the maestros.

Joshua Pfeiffer: When you first hit the scene in the early 80’s, how did your listeners react to the Victorian Fantasy/Occult/Horror themes in your music? Did you find that a lot of people understood your influences, and/or appreciated your old world sensibilities?

Paul Roland: The first album I made, The Werewolf of London, was released in March 1980 under the band name Midnight Rags (an allusion to shrouds, not jazz! because I had an obsession with old black and white horror movies from the 1930s and I had been addicted to American horror comics such as Ghosts, The Witching Hour and House of Mystery since the age of ten or so). But there was no Victorian element in my lyrics at that time unless the stories happened to be set in that period, as with the title track, which I had borrowed from Warren Zevon because I felt that songs about Werewolves should only be set in the fog of Victorian London and it was too good a title to be used just once.

I was still finding my voice then (I was 19 when I recorded that album), and was writing in a variety of styles which is why there are sparse acoustic songs (“Lon Chaney” and “Flying Ace”) alongside rock songs dominated by keyboards in a cross between Ultravox and Gary Numan! Not that I was into those bands, but the keyboard player that I worked with had been in a prog rock band called Seventh Wave and he was both a brilliant musician and had good taste when it came to blending keyboard sounds, so I was happy to give him the space to show me what ideas he had for the songs.

The album was a very low key affair, financed by myself with a pressing of just 1,000 copies (it was later reissued by another label who had The Soft Boys with a slightly amended tracklisting and a colour cover). That was the thing to do at the time for bands who didn’t want to be bothered doing the rounds of the major labels and who actually enjoyed the business of designing their own records, distributing and promoting them themselves. It was the end of the first independent labels period that followed on the heels of punk and so there was no real Goth or other movement to embrace it. DIY labels were a genre in themselves. I made the album I wanted to make from a collection of songs that I had written and hoped that it would find listeners who would enjoy it. I wasn’t aiming at a specific audience.

Thirty years later when I was told that the author of a book on Bauhaus credited Bauhaus and myself with introducing Goth rock to Britain, I couldn’t take it seriously, as I had simply sold the 1,000 copies of the Werewolf, had a few radio plays, one or two reviews (Zig Zag called me “a name to watch”) and a couple of interviews in the lesser music weeklies. But it appears that the album was a favourite at the BatCave club in London, so perhaps the album made an impression that way, by word of mouth, because it couldn’t have gone far with such a limited pressing. And in those days people didn’t make copies of albums for friends unless it was a cassette.

So, to answer your question, finally, I had no idea what if any impression my music was making until I returned to music in 1985 (after taking a three year break) with the Burnt Orchids mini album on which I indulged my predilection for  Victorian and Edwardian subjects. I can’t say where that originated, other than perhaps a childhood fondness for the tales of H.G.Wells and the abiding memory of a children’s TV play in which a domineering father destroys the orchids that his son had been nurturing because he thought it “unmanly.” (It was the inspiration for the title track in which the son poisons the father, a theme that was not in the original play).

But as I wasn’t playing live at the time, I had no idea how many people were actually listening to the album or what aspect of the songs might have impressed them. My only feedback came from fanzines who raved about it and helped spread the word. At the time I thought it was because they saw me as some part of a Sixties revival!

JP: Your music shares a lot of similarities to 70’s Prog-Rock, and Neo-Folk music. Are there any acts or artists, that you cite as major influences?

PR: I was a big Marc Bolan fan from the age of 12 and listened to practically no one else until I started making records myself, so that is why I sound like him on that first album.

Marc Bolan has been Roland’s hero since he was twelve-years old, and has honored the rock legend in this comprehensive biography.

But after the three year break, I lost that pervasive influence and found my own voice in time for the Burnt Orchidsalbum. By then I had realised that I wasn’t going to be and didn’t want to be signed by a major label, so I may as well make the kind of music that I wanted to make and to hear. No one was using real strings at the time and I had always loved that rasping string sound on Bolan’s early records, so I thought I would create a chamber music ensemble sound to give the historical and supernatural songs a suitably Victorian ghost story type setting. It was only years later that I heard The Left Banke and Donovan, although their songs had contemporary themes and Donovan favoured a more jazzy approach. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have any seminal influences that my music sounded different and because I always wrote on an acoustic guitar which meant that the songs were enriched by other instruments but could still sound interesting if stripped down to guitar and voice.

I had also liked 50s rock after seeing the movie That’ll Be The Day in ’73. Those early rock records instilled into me the idea that you should say everything you need to say in 3 minutes or less and get to the point from the first few bars or risk losing the listener’s attention, an approach shared with Glam Rock which was at its peak when I first discovered music. Writers of newspaper articles and fiction have to do the same and as I had been writing short stories since the age of nine, that idea of hooking the reader or listener from the first sentence or verse must have been uppermost when I began writing songs.

My school friends introduced me to Yes, ELP, Led Zeppelin but they were just for pleasure. They didn’t influence me as I didn’t want to make that kind of music myself. Though I must confess that “In The Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson became a significant reference point for the latter Duel album, but nothing else by King Crimson touched me as they didn’t replicate the medieval majesty of that debut album once Greg Lake left them top form ELP. Now I am into so many artists I couldn’t list them all, everything from rockabilly to Rammstein, but again, these are for pleasure, they don’t pervade my own imaginary world.

JP: Any current musicians you are listening to that you would recommend to your fans?

PR: Too many to list here. I have a very eclectic taste. I wrote a biography of Marc Bolan last year so I have been listening to his entire back catalogue and still never tire of anything pre 1974. Psychobilly CDs are constantly on the stereo along with Iggy Pop, Stax classics, The Doors, early 70s Stones, Captain Beefheart and loads more. I also play Michael Nyman’s soundtrack to The Draughtman’s Contract a lot but reserve that for special occasions as it’s like a fine wine or a good cigar that must be savoured. I would like to think that people feel that way about my music.

JP: You mentioned writing short stories at nine, and your bio of Marc Bolan. Why did you choose music as an outlet for storytelling, instead of pursuing a career as a novelist?

PR: I don’t make a dis­tinc­tion between writ­ing songs and writ­ing fic­tion. Both involve the cre­ation of char­ac­ters and an envi­ron­ment using words to con­vey what one sees in one’s mind. I’m very for­tu­nate in being able to tell a story in verse with suit­able musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment and also in prose form, whether fic­tion or non-fiction. I pride myself on bring­ing his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ters to life whether they are Jack The Ripper’s vic­tims (‘The Crimes Of Jack The Rip­per”), noto­ri­ous ser­ial killers (“In The Minds Of Mur­der­ers”) or eccen­tric eso­teric fig­ures (“The Dark His­tory Of The Occult”). But mak­ing a liv­ing as a nov­el­ist is pre­car­i­ous at best and can be soul destroy­ing if you spend a year writ­ing it only to receive count­less rejec­tion slips. Whereas songs can be writ­ten and recorded com­par­a­tively quickly and you don’t have to have the approval or back­ing of a record com­pany to release them. I have only writ­ten one novel ‘on spec’ – with no com­mit­ment from a pub­lisher–The Magi­cian of Grimm, but I did that as an exer­cise, to see if I could sus­tain a story for the length of a novel. It was my appren­tice­ship and it took me many months of hard con­tin­u­ous work. My non-fiction books have all been com­mis­sioned by pub­lish­ers though some of the sub­jects were my idea and oth­ers I accepted because the sub­ject inter­ested me and they don’t involve months of work with no guar­an­tee of pub­li­ca­tion. I can now write a book in six weeks and I have a con­tract guar­an­tee­ing pub­li­ca­tion. But if a pub­lisher offered to pub­lish my nov­els or short sto­ries I’d start writ­ing one tomorrow.

Stay tuned for the second installment of the Paul Roland interview by Vernian Process’ Joshua Pfeiffer.  Meanwhile, if you’d like to know more about Mr. Roland, check out these url sundries:

To sample some of Mr. Roland’s Steampunk songs, he has made some free downloads available for our readers here:  http://paulroland.wordpress.com/downloads/

You can also find more info about Mr. Roland at the following venues:

Wikipedia

Official website

Online discography (with samples)

MySpace

Facebook

Twitter: @paulrolandmusic

Meanwhile, the next few weeks will see our intrepid authors en route.  First, S. J. will be heading to sunny Daytona Beach, FL for the first Florida Steampunk Exhibition April 13–15. Can find more info about schedule and the Exhibit here.

Jeff, along with Hugo award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer, will be guests at the Victoria Steam Exposition III, April 20–22.

As previously mentioned, S. J. will be there covering Florida’s first ever Steampunk convention for Beyond Victoriana. While she’ll be gonzo-ing around the hotel, getting the scoop on Steam in the Sunshine State, she will also be discussing The Steampunk Bible and reading her short story “Dr. Lambshead’s Dark Room” from Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s Thackery T. Lambshead’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Saturday, April 14th from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.

She’ll also be participating alongside authors O.M. Grey and others in the Literary Roundtable on Saturday from 2:30–3:30 pm. 

In addition to her reading and panel, she’s really looking forward to seeing Abney Park, attending Ms. Grey’s High Tea, and panel-hopping and talking steam on the shores of her homestate. 

It should be a blast, and tickets are still on sale. Details from their Press Release are below:

ANNOUNCING FLORIDA’S FIRST STEAMPUNK CONVENTION

The first of a three–part convention series is scheduled at Daytona Beach

The Florida Steampunk Society will sponsor and host Florida’s first all-­Steampunk convention April 13-­15, 2012 in Daytona Beach.

Steampunk is a sub-­‐genre of science fiction based on a Victorian vision of a future run by steam power and clockwork, where fantastical machines inspired by the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are commonplace. The literature has inspired an entire subculture and fashion, as well as an emerging musical scene.

Florida Steampunk Exhibition East will be a gathering of world-­‐class and internationally-­‐recognized artists, including the quintessential Steampunk band, Abney Park, the raucous and infectious sing-­‐along stylings of the Bawdy Boys, and the unbridled energy of the one-­‐of-­‐a-­‐kind performance artist, Perego LIVE!

Aside from performances, exhibition attendees will be invited to shop at the Merchant’s Grand Bizarre for Steampunk crafts, gear and more, attend breakout workshops on DIY gear, hear keynote speakers and authors, and enjoy the musicians, magicians, and mischief makers who will be wandering the hallways.

Other highlights include demonstrations by Airship Isabella, readings at the High Tea hosted by highly-­‐acclaimed author O.M. Grey, the time-­‐traveling Steampunk musical musings by Florida band, The Cog is Dead, and performances by Cupcake Burlesque.

Ticket and hotel information can be found at the exhibition’s Eventbrite website or
contact the Director of Communications, Daylina Miller, by the email or cell number listed above.

Somehow, I missed that we were included in  CNN’s gift list, and we were pleased to see we made Popmatters best non-fiction list of 2011.

The link to the HGTV program Selling New York, in which we get a brief camera cut shout-out in Dr. Grymm’s laboratory (thank you, Joey!), is now available. The video features a brief interview with another SPB contributor Ayleen-the Peacemaker, and throughout you can see luminaries like Emperor Justinian Stanislaus of the Red Fork Empire, gentleman and scholar Daniel Holzman-Tweed, and members of The Wandering Legion of the Thomas Tew. Dr. Grymm was the mastermind behind helping CORE realtors promote the apartment by introducing them to Steampunk, and coordinating the widely publicized first Steampunk Open House.  The Chelsea apartment, which is listed at $1.75 million is still available.

Dr. Grymm writes of his involvement with the CORE realtors, critics of Steampunk design, and the Chelsea apartment as a whole here.

Selling NY — Steampunk Apartment from Joe Marsocci on Vimeo.

And finally we were thrilled to learn that Steampunk is alive and well in our own neck of the woods. The Florida Steampunk Exhibition began selling tickets earlier this month for its East event in Daytona Beach, FL on April 13 through 15. Guests include a star-studded line-up with Abney Park, Professor Elemental, O. M. Grey, and many others. You can find tickets and event listings here.

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,

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.

Thanks to S.J. for having me as a guest blogger. A little back-story for your readers is that she and I met some time ago on the Steampunk convention circuit, and we sat side-by-side at a group book signing. We’ve been in several “same place at the same time” situations since then, but there’s rarely time to talk. So it’s really wonderful to be able to take my time and tell my tale here on her blog.

As most of us can guess, there’s more to making books than writing and printing. Especially with picture books, which usually require collaboration between writer and illustrator, and doubly so in the 21^st century, where one has the benefit of technology, making things faster, more worldly and, sadly sometimes, even  more impersonal.

And to tell the truth, if you’d asked me a year ago about me having a children’s book, I would have laughed. But then came Facebook. This project started back in May of 2012 when I got a bit of fan art inspired by my first Steampunk novel — CHENDA AND THE AIRSHIP BROFMAN. What came was the drawing of an airship with a note asking me if I thought it looked like the Brofman as I pictured it in my mind. It was close, so I replied with what was right with the image, and what was missing. The next day — a new drawing arrived — all of this through Facebook.  The speed at which a second drawing came impressed me, and I gave more feedback. One more day went by and a third drawing turned up, and it was bang on.

This was my introduction to William Kevin Petty. MORE remarkable than the drawings themselves was that he sent them from Kuwait — where he was deployed.

Shortly after he sent the Brofman sketches, I started the summer book tour (I went out to publicize book two of the Brofman series:  The Gospel According to Verdu). As I am a soldier’s daughter myself and was flattered by Kevin’s lovely drawings, I showed them off to a few comic designers when I was doing signings in Portland. They looked at his work and said, “Not only is he good, he’s VERY good. If he wants to do a project — you should probably do one.” And no one needed to tell me twice. I looked through his Allied Aethernautics images and found one that caught my imagination, the picture of a soldier in the REGEMENTAL MECHANICA. I wrote the story of Her Majesty’s Explorer based on this guy, and emailed it to Kevin.

He loved it, and started adapting his original drawing. He softened the look of the automaton, took away his vent-like mouth, enlarged the eyes and swapped the giant gun for a hobo bag and a telescope and we started story boarding. Then, we set some goal dates.

Keep in mind –this has been totally arranged in the most tedious way possible — through Facebook and email. It felt like we were very good friends – just friends that lived inside the computer.

The storyboards started well, then Kevin got sent from Kuwait to Baghdad. That slowed the project down a bit. Infrastructure — like internet and access to pencils and a quiet place to draw – are hard to come by in Iraq.

I started to feel like a pest at that point. Just to make conversation I would send a message like, “So, how’s the drawing coming?” and get a reply that went, “I’m still deployed.” (which I translated into, “Don’t nag me, woman.”) Over time and many texts back and forth, I came to really know what that meant. His time in Baghdad really was the worst. His emails hinted that getting the job done sucked out loud: little sleep, rotten working conditions, co-workers who are armed AND on edge AND living right on top of one another. There was no place for him to work on what he loves — drawing. It is a testament to his talent and his character that, even when he couldn’t put pencil to paper, he could still be thinking of delightful, happy and childlike things of beauty in what was the ultimate in ugliness. I would ask him sometimes — “How has your day been?” and get an answer that went, “It’s a war: the height of man’s inhumanity to man. You?” Even when I had a crappy day, it never compared.

Furthermore, the time zone issue gummed things a little — we were 8 hours off. So I would wake up and get working, at the time he would be finishing up the “day –job” portion of his day, and he would be on his way to dinner and his cot. Sometimes at midnight here — I would be saying good morning and sharing ideas that I’d had during the day when he hadn’t gotten his coffee going yet. Strange way to work.

But sending messages at odd times was better than NOT hearing. Kevin’s job involved being at the tail end of the US pull-out of Iraq. A few weeks into his time there, I got a message that read: “Hey — I may be totally out of contact for a while — just a heads up.” I replied (knowing he was not allowed to give me any details), “You must be going to a place less civilized than Baghdad. Should I worry?” He said, “It won’t help,” and I didn’t hear from him for a week.

I took up checking Facebook for Kevin sightings. I felt like a kid looking for Easter eggs under the same leaf over and over again. There comes a point where it seems ridiculous. “Back in Kuwait,” was the best message ever.

In short order, he was back to the U.S., where we were back in business, if just a little rushed. In the end — we hit our deadlines.  We cut it fine getting the book to the layout designer and onto the printer — but we are on schedule to launch on the 28^th.

Remarkably, we did so much and became very good friends, without any “real” contact. Other than a couple hours in the Atlanta airport (where Kevin was in uniform and really still on the job taking care of the folks in his unit traveling with him) the first time we spent real face time was at the end of January when we went to Chattacon in Chattanooga, TN. He drove into Atlanta on the way to the event, and we sat down to dinner. He looked at me across the table and said, “Can you believe we’re sitting here?” It really was a little weird.

If you want to know about me — read my books, and the kind of person I am is in there. You want to know about Kevin — look at his drawings. They are quintessentially HIM. We’d spent months exchanging ideas, working strange hours, and creating something – we think – is really something new. Then meeting face to face, well, it was odd. We knew all about the other and then met for the first time. Backwards, no?

BUT — face to face or inside the computer — we work well together. We have a shared folder called “the idea bin” and it’s overflowing. We have a lot of Coal City Stories planned, and we will continue to work in the Aether, as Kevin will be deployed to Germany in a few weeks, and we will start the avalanche of idea e-mails all over again.

Meh, it works for us.

–

The Launch Page:  http://www.facebook.com/events/347525985265865/

The Her Majesty’s Explorer Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/HerMajestysExplorer

The blog:  http://coalcitysteam.wordpress.com/

The Video Book trailer: http://youtu.be/kHb3Wpe3F2o

The Tease Read by Captain Robert of Abney Park: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2931604900935

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.

The Steampunk Bible:  How long have you been active in Steampunk?

Captain Anthony LaGrange:  I have been active in the community for about four years now.

Salena van Eycke:  For me, this all started with Dragon*Con 2009 (held Labor Day weekend in September in Atlanta, GA). Walking in the parade with other Steampunks wearing what I wore to my high school prom was what made me realize that I now had a name for a style I loved for years. I had dabbled in Steampunk before that not knowing what it was called. I did attend Gothcoming in Columbus, OH with my friends but at that time I still wasn’t sure I wanted to get on this bandwagon called “Steampunk.” It took seeing hundreds of others at a convention to change my mind.

SPB:  What originally drew you to Steampunk, and what keeps you interested?

ALG:  Every year in here in Columbus, Ohio we have an event called Gothcoming. That year’s theme was Steampunk and I had no idea of what it was at first because no one could really explain what it was. The first time I really saw what Steampunk was was at Dragon*Con. I saw Outland Armor and Penny Dreadful Productions walking around in their amazing Steampunk gear. Then I saw Abney Park’s clothing, instruments and aesthetic and instantly fell in love with the subculture and knew I wanted to be a part of it.

SvE:  The costumes originally drew me to Steampunk. I had spent hundreds of dollars making the perfectly awesome Goth wardrobe and needed a new outlet when our local Goth bar, Outland, started to have less and less Goth nights. You can’t exactly wear Goth club garb on the streets without getting something thrown at you. But when you wear Steampunk on the street, people are polite, interested and aren’t afraid of you. You also aren’t exposing any skin really which makes people think you were just attending a wedding or a funeral. What keeps me in this movement is the amazing people I have met. People are exceedingly friendly and I have a huge group of friends within the Steampunk community. Now I have friends to dress up, go out with and have a good time!

SPB: Sally, you mention coming out of Goth and into Steampunk. What are your thoughts about the notion that Steampunk is Goth in Brown clothing?  Are there similarities, or are the two subcultures incomparable?

First Lieutenant Salena van Eycke of Airship Archon. Photo: Rob Manko

SvE:  I don’t agree that Steampunk is just Goth in Brown clothing. There are a lot of people who came from the Goth subculture but assuredly not all Steampunks are Goth. The reason many Goths were drawn to Steampunk is because there is the ability to show your personal style without getting dirty looks on the street. The Steampunk community in general is more accessible than the Goth community. Steampunk seems to be just a little higher class and more educated than Goth. There are a lot of people with a re-enactment background who wanted to play dress up but not necessarily have to be historically accurate. The same goes for seamstresses who wanted to make clothes that were less historically tied down. There are many train/plane/automobile enthusiasts in Steampunk now. There are people with history backgrounds who want to pay homage to the era. These people are all independent from the Goth subculture.

I think the reason people associate Goth with Steampunk is because of the dreary mono-tonal clothing and accessories (specifically goggles). We as a group are trying to distance from that image and actively talk to the Steampunk community about how it is safe to play with color and multiculturalism with your outfits and characters. Another reason might also be because of the pre-existing sub culture in Goth that appreciated Victorian aesthetics over cyber, industrial, or fetish looks. I fall into that category, so many of my “Goth” clothes have seamlessly fit into my “Steampunk” clothes. If you look at the Japanese Lolita fashion, the line between Goth and Steampunk is even further blurred.

SPB:  What are your favorite aspects of Steampunk movement [fashion, lit, music, LARPing, etc] and why?

ALG:  There are so many things that I love about the community. I’ve really gotten into the literature, with Cherie Priest quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. The fashion is amazing; you will not find a better dressed subculture out there. Steampunk has changed my wardrobe drastically. I went from jeans, t-shirts and hoodies to waistcoats, button-ups and a fine collection of hats. Out of everything, though, my favorite thing has to be the people. They are so polite and outgoing it’s amazing, No matter where you are, if you see another Steampunk it’s perfectly OK to walk up to them and chat them up about their outfit or accessories. I have met some of the most wonderful people by being in the Steampunk community and traveled to so many places I may not have ever been before. Steampunks are quite frankly some of the most generous and polite lot one could ever meet. Sally and I are constantly traveling and we have had a number of people open up their homes to us although we may have only met them once or over the Internet. We, in exchange, have done the same, sharing a bond of trust and camaraderie that is rarely seen these days.

SvE:  My favorite aspects of this movement are the limitless amounts of creativity and encouragement we get from each other in every endeavor we pursue. I have friends who write in the genre, friends who sew the outfits, friends who are into leather making, painting, photography, making and modifying props. The various forms of art in Steampunk are amazing and I love to see skilled artists succeed in their craft. I love how the Steampunk movement is somewhat intertwined with the Maker and Green movements. People are encouraged to create things on their own and create them using pre-existing parts. Being raised as sort of a hippie artist, and my dad always encouraging me to do whatever I want, the Steampunk movement really fits who I am.

SPB:  Tony, you are the founder of Airship Archon to which Sally has been a long-term member. Would you two mind telling us a little about the airship and crew:  How long you all have been active; what you all do?

Captain LaGrange, left center. Photo: Jesse Nobles

ALG:  We have been flying the skies since 2008.  We first formed at the year’s Gothcoming and have been growing ever since. The crew is an eclectic mix of people from all around Ohio:  We have seamstresses, crafters, builders, painters, writers, leather workers and all sorts of trades and skills. Each person brings an individual flavor and personality to the ship making us a strong force to be reckoned with. We even have a few stories written about some of the crew by our very own author Sarah Hans, who has taken our personas on exciting adventures. I can honestly say that none of [the] things the Archon had done would be possible without such an amazing crew of people. We do a lot of different things when normal life does not get in the way. We have meet-ups at various places around Ohio; our last was a trip to the full-size replica of the Santa Maria that is docked in downtown Columbus. We hold “Build Days” which are usually held at my house (which has been nicknamed “The Captains Quarters”) in which we all get together to eat food, watch movies and work on projects together. This gives us a chance to intermingle our skills so that we have a large pool of information available to everyone. So if you can sew but need help painting there is someone who has that skill and can help you and vice versa. We also invade the local Renaissance faire, have picnics, and visit the other Steampunk groups around Ohio such as The League of Cincinnati Steampunks. The ship also frequents conventions quite a bit as well. We have gone as attendees, guests, staff and panelists to many of the cons we attend.

SvE:  My title for the ship is Ship Entertainment & First Lieutenant. In these roles, it is part of my main duty to organize and plan events and outings. I share this role a lot with the Captain and our Second Lieutenant (Melora Dashwood) but I am the go-to person for getting an event started. I take feedback from the rest of the group as to when/where is best for everyone. I know that sometimes I can’t please everyone, but I try to be accommodating. We have many types of events such as: picnics, movie-outings, museum visits, theatre-outings and just plain meet & eat’s. Tony tends to be more of a leader in planning build days than I am but on those days, I make sure food and drink are taken care of. During a party, I make sure people have enough food and drink.

I became a member of the Airship Archon unofficially in late 2009/early 2010. There really is no official initiation and you get out of the group as much as you put into it. We have 100+ members if you include all of our Yahoo! Group, Facebook Group and Community. Of those, there are a handful of perhaps 30 active members. These are people who attend conventions and events we throw (like photoshoot meet-ups, picnics, and build days) that are convenient for them. This isn’t a die-hard group typically. You go to what you can when you can. A lot of our members are a fair distance apart, have children, professional lives, and finances to consider before they can attend something Group-related. This isn’t a problem for us since we’re pretty relaxed. We probably have about 10 members who consistently show up to the majority of Group Outings.

SPB:  Tony, you make your costumes and hold building nights at your house regularly. Do you make other things in addition to costumes? If so what are they? What’s your favorite piece? What, from Making and Costuming, do you find fun and satisfying?

ALG:  I make all sorts of things beside costumes. I make different types of props and gadgets to go along with my wardrobe. I dabble in leather working and also do some electrical work like making lanterns. My favorite piece would have to be my mug, it’s something I made on a whim but has been a staple in my outfits ever since. The thing I find most satisfying about costuming has to be the interaction with other people. Everyone works hard on their costumes or outfit and displays it to the other costumers. There’s a sort of mutual respect between Steampunks that you just don’t see that often.

SPB:  Photoshoots are a big part of Steampunk interaction at conventions and meet-ups. For our readers who have never been to a Steampunk photoshoot, would you mind explaining the appeal?  Is it just a way to show off costumes, or something more?

ALG:  It is all those things, as a social event it’s people dressed in their best taking pictures of one another. It’s also a chance to see what other people have come up with and talk to them about where they found items, how they made a certain piece or how much time went into all of it. It creates that common bond that opens up the lines of communications between people. I have meet people at photoshoots three years ago that I still talk with to this day.

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.