Kevin Steil, also known as the Airship Ambassador, is responsible for the organising of ‘Steampunk Hands around the World’ project. One of the by-products of this interesting venture is the bilingual Steampunk anthology, half in Spanish half in English, “Steampunk Writers around the World” published by Luna Press Publishing. The book has just been announced and will be released on the 4th of August 2017, in time for Worldcon 2017. Pre-orders are open now for both paperback and e-book version.
In the course of the next few weeks, we will introduce you to the writers of this tremendous anthology and their stories. Each of the stories has a unique image created by Luna artist Jay Johnstone, who has also created the cover for the book.
Let’s start with Kevin Steil. In the book you will be able to read his introduction as well. A while back, Kevin was asked to tell us more about this fascinating multicultural project. here is what he said.
“This is another project which started out which such a tiny, simple idea. I was instant messaging with my friend, Josue’ Ramos, of MundoSteampunk in Spain, and I thought how great it was that technology enabled us to not only stay in touch but also talk real time. And then I thought how great it was to have a steampunk friend nearly on the other side of the planet, and that we could share our passion for steampunk with each other as creators. We were reaching our steampunk hands out around the work to shake in friendship and collaboration.
Those feelings were worth sharing, as well as encouraging other steampunks to meet each other and learn more about steampunk in other countries. Steampunk is more than just what we experience at home, or locally. It’s more than the regional conventions. It’s truly global and I hoped that this project would make it easier for people to experience that. From what I’ve seen over the years, people bring not only their own personal outlook and choices, but they also bring their local and regional culture and society into their expression of steampunk.
First, I thought I’d write a blog post basically saying that, then I thought maybe I could round up a few other steampunk friends to write something. I figured maybe I’d get ten people, tops, and maybe we could all post the same day. That would be cool, right?
In the end, several dozen people expressed interesting in writing up something, and we posted for the entire month of February. It has been so educational and rewarding to see the different perceptions and expressions of steampunk from literally around the world. There is so much inspiration to draw on, and people are so amazingly creative. I wish I spoke every language or had a Universal Translator so I could visit with all of these great steampunks everywhere.“
Kitty L loves books, space, fiction, frogs, furry animals and coffee. A lot of coffee. Fantasy, SF and Dark Fantasy have cocooned her world since the Mesolithic period. And she likes it like that.
