Filed under: Other by Katie Casey
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This is officially my favorite news story of the day: It tells about an all-female London gang that existed from as early as the 1700s to the 1950s, pulling enormous shoplifting heists and beating up anyone who invaded their turf.

“Dressed in specially tailored coats, cummerbunds, muffs, skirts, bloomers and hats sewn with hidden pockets, they mounted raids on London’s West End shops, where they plundered goods worth thousands of pounds. … They became so well known in London that panic erupted when they were seen near high-class shops.”

Check out the whole thing here. It’d make great inspiration for a story, I think!

Filed under: Other by Katie Casey
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Happy Holidays, everyone! (Did you see the eclipse on the Solstice? If not, there’s photos here!)

Whatever your holiday plans were/are, there’s an upcoming internet event which all might enjoy – Lia Keyes (@liakeyes) and Matt Delman (@mattdelman) has started a tradition of weekly steampunk chats on Twitter, under the hashtag #steampunkchat. They’re every Friday at 9pm EST, and Jha is hosting tomorrow night. Just enter #steampunkchat in the search bar of Twitter to join the conversation! You can also get to it through tweetchat.

(Steampunk Santa via CyborgNecromancer on DA)

Filed under: Other by Katie Casey
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Earlier this month, I received an email from Christine Danse, author of the steampunk novella, Island of Icarus. She had seen a blog post I’d made about a year ago regarding the subgenre of biopunk, and raised the question of why it has sat so quietly in the back corner of popular culture. From there, we generally both agreed that it was high time to bring biopunk a little further into the limelight. The result is The Biopunk Reader, newly released from the test tube to blink it’s beady eyes.

If the subgenre is unfamiliar, the basics are explained on the blog, or here at: http://www.ottens.co.uk/gatehouse/dieselpunk_articles-3.php

At this point in the process, we’re looking on a rolling basis for short fiction, poetry, artwork, news stories, reviews- all of course, with a hefty serving of punk on the side. And who better to understand and sympathize with our mission than the steampunk community, so talented and gutsy?

Submissions can be sent to miss_abiotic@yahoo.com or christinedanse@gmail.com.

That said- have a happy, muculent holiday season, everyone!

Filed under: Co-Conspirators, Links, Other by Leah Dearborn
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I’m not normally one to go spreading around the steampunk Christmas cheer (I don’t have a problem with it per se, but it’s not a holiday I celebrate and I’m old enough now to complain about the fact that the build-up starts in August), but today I’m going to be making an exception. That is because my very good friends The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing have just released the Christmassy-themed A Very Steampunk Christmas EP that is well worth the mention whether you love this time of year or not.

Some of you may have heard their ‘Ebenezer’s Carol‘ around this time last year, and they have re-recorded it for the new EP, along with a long-awaited release for their song ‘Fox’. There are also two new songs where The Men offer their own unique take on a couple of traditional Christmas songs: ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Comfort And Oi!)’, and ‘Silent Night (Stille Nacht)’.

If you’re looking for something festive, gentle and soothing then you probably have the wrong band, but if you’re looking for a funny, intelligent and boisterous steampunk Christmas album, then this is the EP for you.

‘A Very Steampunk Christmas’ is available for download, and also on very special 7″ vinyl.

Filed under: Co-Conspirators, Community by Allegra
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There’ve been a few interesting posts recently about Native American-inspired Steampunk, particularly issues surrounding costuming, so I thought I’d pass them along!

Beyond Victoriana has a guest post on stereotypes in costuming and incorporating native technology.

And Multiculturalism for Steampunk has about a dozen posts on the topic. Here are my favorites:

Native American Steampunk: An Approach, a good overview on the subject.

Reflection from the Crow-Lady, Miss Kageshi’s response to criticisms of the above-mentioned post.

(There’s a bunch of costuming stuff on the same site, in addition to some recipes.)

And finally, I missed most of Tor.com’s Steampunk Fortnight a while ago, but there were a few posts dealing with imperialism, colonialism, and non-Euro-centric steampunk, including this one which has an overview non-European steampunk possibilities, including Native American characters.

Filed under: Activism, Community by Katie Casey
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I meant to post this a few days ago and just got to it: Jha posted a pretty fantastic rant, tweeted with the comment “I, too, can rant about steampunk!”

Here’s my favorite bit, at the risk of spoiling the ending:

“You want to hate on steampunk? Steampunk’s not the problem. Imperialism is the problem. White supremacy is the problem. Consumerism is the problem. Implicit, microaggressive racism is the problem. Steampunk’s just the aesthetic being run over by the usual bullshit, because, guess what? Of course it’s going to be! HELLO CAPITALISM, HOW R U. US OF A SENDS ITS LOVE AS USUAL.”

Filed under: Activism, Community by Katie Casey
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Howdy, all. Lately, I’ve been experimenting a bit with a new writing medium- flash fiction. If you haven’t heard of it, flash fiction is a story that usually runs around 500 words. A sort of hybrid between short fiction and poetry, the best flash fiction punches you in the jaw and leaves you dazed (in a good way) for the rest of the day. So I was excited to stumble today across a steampunk flash fiction contest hosted by The Bookkeeper blog at: http://www.rikkidonovan.com/index.php/steampunk-challenge-2/steampunk-flash-fiction-writing-contest/

Check it out!

Filed under: Events, Links, Other by Leah Dearborn
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As we mentioned yesterday the Gaslamp Bazaar is closed for the foreseeable future. However, as promised, we’ve been looking into how to make the SteamPunk Magazine more community-orientated, and we are happy to announce that you can now register your very own SPM account.

Once registered, you will be able to manage your profile, comment on articles, talk to other users, and even submit articles and blog posts to us for publication here on the website.

To register, please go here, or use the ‘Login’ section at the top of this page.

We are very much looking forwards to hearing from you all, and hope to bring you more guest posts and articles from our readers, writers, artists and contributors in the coming weeks.

Filed under: Community, Website by Allegra
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After much deliberation, we have decided to close the SteamPunk Magazine forum down for the foreseeable future.

Between the spambots and the technical difficulties, it has gotten increasingly difficult to maintain the Gaslamp Bazaar over the last year or so. We tried to make forums somewhere different and interesting place to hang out, but the fact of the matter is that we just don’t have the time to make them something really special any more. As such, the time has come for us to move on, and focus on other things.

Many thanks to all the people who have frequented the Bazaar over the years and made it generally an awesome place to hang out. Thanks also to T-Kew, who has spent a lot of his time moderating and generally looking after it.

For now, we hope to be seeing more comments and discussion on the articles here in our blog. In the future, we may even be looking into a registration system that will allow people to sign up for accounts, and even submit articles directly to our website.

Filed under: Community, Website by Allegra
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