Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Nisi Shawl

Nisi Shawl is one of my fucking favourite people, and I am so honoured to share a TOC with her! She wrote a very useful book on Writing the Other, and has a short story collection or two. She's part of the Science Fiction Writers Association, has a LiveJournal, and recently got Twitter and Facebook, even.  In Steam-Powered II, she writes us a story called “The Return of Cherie.”

A two-sentence summary: 

Twenty years after she helped found a socialist Utopia in the Belgian Congo, Lisette Toutournier returns to the nation of Everfair with urgent advice about its role in Europe’s fast-approaching “Great War.”  And despite their ages, Lisette also hopes to rekindle the love she once shared with another co-founder still living there, Daisy Albin.

How did your characters come to be? 

Three of “The Return of Cherie’s” five characters are loosely based on historical figures: Matty on Peter Pan's creator, J.M. Barrie; Lisette on Colette; and Daisy on children's author E.M. Nesbit.  Rima is a sort of mash-up of Josephine Baker and Zora Neale Hurston.  Fwendi evolved from photos and anecdotes of several sub-Saharan children and women; the histories of indigenous peoples in that area are pretty much eradicated, so I have to use lots of references as her armature.  Her name is a phoneticization of the nickname a young playmate gave to Barrie, which he eventually elided into Wendy.

Why this setting? 

I chose this setting because it’s where most of Everfair, my novel-in-progress takes place, and the story is a fragment of said novel.  And I chose this setting for Everfair because King Leopold’s devastation of Equatorial Africa is one of the most extreme examples anywhere of the costs of Victorian technology, which is the fetish and domain of most current steampunk. 

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

In emerging pan-African culture at this time, in this world, I’m positing grudging acceptance.  Lesbianism is okay, but it’s not great.  Like burned toast—scrape it a little and it’s edible, with lots of jam.  Everfair is of much the same opinion on “inverts,” with a thin layer of liberalistic tolerance sprinkled on top. In Europe (which Lisette just left) lesbianism is simply shameful.  Think “Well of Loneliness.”

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece?  

What has been the most fun about writing “The Return of Cherie”?  It's hard to choose between the research and the characters.  And then there’s researching the characters.  I’ve wanted for years to write about Colette and E. Nesbit and J.M. Barrie.  I love them so much!  Lisette’s voice is an emulation of Colette’s, in this story and in Everfair.  She’s so sense-oriented, and that makes her scenes are tremendously engaging for me—and, I hope, for our readers.  Thinking of the project as a whole, research has in some ways been a nightmare, because much of the material I’d like to draw on for indigenous viewpoints is gone.  Millions of people died during King Leopold’s reign of terror.  History is told by the unslaughtered, so there are huge gaps in our recorded knowledge of this time and place.  However, there are material traces of Kongolese culture, museums full of looted goods.  I have a book on these museum collections (African Reflections, edited by Enid Schildkrout and Curtis A. Keim) that has helped me immensely.  Of course I want more—I could spend thousands on an Everfair library.  I’ve already spent over a hundred, even though I’m also using lots of the supplementary information available on the internet.

A random ramble? 

“The Return of Cherie” is a reference to two of Colette’s best known novels, Cheri and The Last of Cheri.  Colette’s Cheri is a young man in love with an older courtesan.  I’m 55, and I think about age and love a lot.  In my story, Daisy’s 55 and Lisette is 41, and there’s some concern that the advancing years may be putting an end to their amours.  Race is also a factor.  As for the technological aspect of steampunk in this story, there are gears, and gleaming brass, and dirigibles, and rubber fittings, just like in most current genre works—but it’s what people do with these icons that matters most.  It matters to me and it matters to them.  I hope it matters to you. 

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And this concludes this round of author interviews! By this time you should have enough information to make a decision whether or not to pre-order, so I shan't ask again. Thanks to all the authors for answering these questions, and thanks everybody else for reading!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Alex Dally MacFarlane

Alex Dally MacFarlane is another of those rare souls among us with a .com URL and stuff and a prolific writer to boot. Her story is “Selin That Has Grown in The Desert.”

A two-sentence summary: 

Dursun, a teenaged girl in 19th century Central Asia, must soon be married—but she is starting to realise that she only wants to be with other girls.  

How did your characters come to be? 

Even without the lesbian parameters of the anthology guidelines, I would have wanted to write about women.  Their stories are too often ignored in favour of male endeavours.  The lesbian aspect immediately gave me more details: my character is a lesbian, and I quickly decided she would be young, grappling directly with the difficulties of being a lesbian in a time and a place where such a concept was not acknowledged.

Why this setting? 

My starting point for the story was actually my quite strong disinterest in most of the steampunk I've ever read.  In short, it's very male and Victorian, with a great deal of glorification placed on Victorian England (and a lot of terrible attempts to write in Victorian prose).  JoSelle asked me to write a story for the anthology, but I didn’t really want to write a steampunk story.

  

At the same time, I was reading a really beautiful manga, Otoyomegatari (A Bride's Story) by Kaoru Mori, set in 19th century Central Asia.  I loved the domesticity of the story, how it focused primarily on female relationships and day-to-day life.

These two combined, giving me the idea of a story set in a part of the world where steampunk was at best irrelevant, at worst an indicator of foreign imperialism.  And I wanted to focus primarily not on the technology, but on the people of Central Asia.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

As far as I can tell from my research, lesbianism was simply not a concept in 19th century Central Asia as it is in a number of present-day countries.  Women married men and bore children—and that was that.  Dursun does not want to fit into this norm, and the story is about how she deals with this problem.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece?

Research!  I've spent many hours in the British Library, reading about Turkmenistan past and present, and many more hours online, sourcing pictures and snippets of historical texts and travel stories and Turkmen-authored information—it is not an easy place or period to research in the English language, and I enjoyed the challenge (and still do). 

My greatest find so far has been Carole Blackwell’s Tradition and Society in Turkmenistan, which collects several hundred folksongs sung by Turkmen women and recorded throughout the 20th century, now translated into English.  It is a rare and wonderful resource—far too often, women's voices are simply not written down, and are gradually lost over time. 

A random ramble? 

I am now turning the story into a novel, which I am really excited about.  I even have an idea for a second book, narrated by someone else—also a young Turkmen woman, with a story of her own that connects to Dursun's.

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Hey, hey, hey! Less than a week to Steam-Powered II's release! [HINTHINTHINT]

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Beth Birdsall

Beth Birdsall's main internet presence is at LiveJournal, and she brings to us the story “Journey’s End.”

A two-sentence summary: 

In an alternate 1910, Chief Engineer Dolores Salas has spent her career working on sentient, aetherium-powered airships.  When her airship’s time to die comes, Dolores agrees to accompany her into the unknown—but the sky contains more surprises than the certain death she thinks she’s sailing towards.

How did your characters come to be? 

I wanted to explore a character who was blue-collar, from an immigrant background, and not an aristocratic officer from a privileged upbringing.  Dolores is the child of Mexican immigrants, and a no-nonsense woman who’s spent her whole life working with her hands and navigating a world that may not be actively against her, but also isn’t set up for her success.  For Mabel, her sort-of-potentially love interest, I wanted another working-class character, but one from a different background—she’s mixed-race, daughter of an ex-slave, from California—who grew up in a different setting, and had slightly different challenges in life.

Why this setting? 

I wanted to do a steampunk take on a fantasy trope, and I settled on the idea of ships sailing into the west, and into the epilogue, and what happens when a character gets to live into her ‘epilogue.’  Airships were the logical choice.  I didn’t want to rework an active war, and I didn’t have time to do as much research as I would have wanted to do a setting I didn't know as well as the US—but I definitely wanted to address the blue-collar side of the military that a lot of military-set history ignores.  I also liked the slightly claustrophobic self-sufficiency of a vessel on a long voyage, and this version of airships let me play with that to an extreme.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

It’s a semi-accepted, semi-ignored subculture of Dolores's US Navy—basically, an officially ignored open secret.  Women refer to it as being "old maids together" or "particular friends" or similar, but because the US military accepts women and forbids them to be pregnant or married while enlisted, there’s a large proportion of women who for various reasons aren't interested in heterosexual marriage.  Some of them are asexual, or heterosexual women willing to postpone marriage in favor of a military career, but women who are interested in other women have pretty good odds in the military, and a subculture has grown up around that.

The civilian world varies a lot.  In the town where Mabel grew up it’s fairly similar, except with less statistical assurance that the ladies around you may well be amenable.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

The science!  *laughing*  Both fun, and frustrating, which made it a really interesting challenge.  The aetherium propulsion system is pure handwaving, of course, but I did a lot of work on figuring out whether what I was proposing for high-altitude life could actually kinda-sorta work.

The other funnest part doesn’t show up in the story in any detail, but it was designing a 1910 naval uniform for women.

A random ramble? 

I don’t often listen to music when I'm writing, but nearly the entire time I was writing this story, I listened to Dougie Maclean’s “Ready for the Storm” on loop.  When it comes up on my iTunes now, I still have to repeat it a few times before I can move on to another track.  It’s habit, and it makes me think of Dolores.  I’m very fond of her now!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable: S.L. Knapp

S.L. Knapp can be found cross-posting between LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, and she brings us a really cool set of answers about her story that features Cuba, “Amphitrite”

A two-sentence summary: 

An engineer from newly-independent Cuba must recover her stolen submarine. While crossing the open ocean, she has just the plan to evade anyone who might try to claim her vessel.

How did your characters come to be? 

I knew I wanted a submariner and a mermaid and had the basic plot structure laid out, but they really came into existence as I wrote the story. Two paragraphs in and I knew the sort of woman Consuelo was. I mentioned Amphitrite, and I knew that at age twenty, Consuelo had met this rough-around-the-edges older woman who taught her what’s what. Twenty years later, she does the same thing for the naive but earnest Aurelie.

Why this setting?  

I don’t see much about Cuba in fiction and I wanted to put more out there (I’m also lazy and it required less research). I set the story a bit later than traditional steampunk, but the War of Independence was a fascinating time, especially for Cuban-American relations, and it’s fairly close to when my great-grandfather graduated from medical school and had female classmates. I figured a woman engineer would be historically believable. You know, if Cuba were building a fleet of super-subs.

 You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

In the confines of the story, being queer isn’t that big a deal. That’s not historically accurate in larger society, but a lot of women flew under the radar this way—Consuelo’s an inventor and engineer, she’s probably a spinster being single and over 40, and nothing more is said. Consuelo knows what’s up, and that’s all that matters. I just wanted to set a story where being a lesbian is normalized, even if it isn’t in society.

 What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

The submarines! I went a bit overboard with the Jules Verne-y fantastical elements but that’s the sort of universe I was hoping to evoke: a little more science-flavored magic than science itself. Can the machine work? Probably not. Do I care? No. It’s pretty in my head, just like the Nautilus. I mostly relied on my knowledge with sailboats to write it, and some reading up on historical submarines, which were mostly pedal or diesel-powered.

 A random ramble? 

My grandmother studied medicine during the Cuban revolution. She has stories about fights she’d have with the guard at a US hospital she worked at because “only doctors can park here” and seeing as she was a woman, she couldn’t possibly be a doctor. Whereas, in Cuba, her father’s class in medical school graduated three women (in the 1920s). According to my grandmother, a lot of women didn’t go into medicine, but there were really no institutional barriers to stop her from doing so if she wanted to like there were in the US. I found the disparity interesting, given how often I’m told that I come from a culture brimming with machismo and sexism by fellow Americans. I used to take it for granted that a given patriarchal society (especially in the West) behaves in similar ways to others—but the nuances that come up in the differences have been really interesting to me. So that colored my decision to set the story in Cuba, too, and how I wanted to frame some political relationships.

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As an aside, gender norms re: occupations varies so much in different countries! In Malaysia, we're fairly evenly split in the IT field, so I was really surprised when I got to North America and found that there're so few women in IT. Mind-boggling. 

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! C.S.E. Cooney

C.S.E. Cooney, also Claire Cooney, lives at LiveJournal, and brings to us a piece reminding us of the source of steam power in C.S.E. Cooney on “The Canary of Candletown.”

A two-sentence summary: 

A burnt-out revolutionary’s kindness awakens the passionate devotion of a young mining laborer. But the Candletown Company is careful to stomp out any flame ignited underground. 

How did your characters come to be? 

It started with the name Kanarien, which is the German for canary. I’ve always been haunted by the idea of sending a singing thing into the dark, then waiting for it to stop singing. And I really like the name Dagomar. I didn’t necessarily want two German characters, so I played with the idea of a girl growing up in the mines without a name, and also what it would mean, suddenly, to be given one by the first person to care about her.

Why this setting? 

I share my morning commute with a very clever Belgian named Thomas. One day, we had this conversation:

Thomas: What are you reading?
Me: Steampunk’d. I have to write this story, and I'm trying to get a feel for the genre.
Thomas: What is steampunk?
Me: Still figuring it out, myself.
Thomas: (looking up the definition on his smart phone) Ah. I dislike the literature of the aristocracy. Where does steam come from?
Me: (getting goosebumps) Coal.
Thomas: Where does coal come from? Earth. Who digs it? The people. Children. This is the era when Dickens was writing Oliver Twist. Zola's Germinal...

It was at that moment I had an idea for a story that might have to do, rather than with the great inventions of air and industry that were possible because of coal, with the coal mines themselves.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting?

 These characters are the lowest of the low. They’re so far down the social ladder, they’re underground. Nobody cares about them, or what they do, so long as they get their work done and don’t raise dust. They have no one and nothing else to care about than each other. They’re best friends and lovers and family—and none of that matters in a world where they are already invisible. 

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

I wrote mine at the same time, and in the same room, where Patty Templeton wrote her “Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues.” She was letting me sleep on her couch for the month of April, and she’d bring home these huge bags full of research material from the library. We were writing in sort of the same time period, in a generally similar geographical location, and we’d each discover these interesting (or sickening) things in our research and say to each other, “AAUGGH!!! If you don’t use that, girl, I’m gonna!” 

So that was fabulous. 

But then! Then, later, writer Delia Sherman offered out of the blue to beta-read my early draft. I don’t think I’d ever spent an hour on the phone talking about writing that blew my mind quite so far into the stratosphere. She has a way of making previously nebulous ideas diamond-clear. Her encouragement was incredibly heartening during the mire of the draft process. 

Two fabulous things. Both were the funnest. 

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Whaaaat, a little under two weeks before Steam-Powered II comes out? How exciting! Didja get your order in yet?

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Rebecca Fraimow

Rebecca Fraimow is also one of us dual-denizens of LiveJournal and Dreamwidth, and wrote the Mid-Eastern-inspired piece “Granada’s Library.”

A two-sentence summary: 

In an alternate Emirate of Granada that never fell to Christian Spain, a great mechanized library has for centuries peacefully guarded the wisdom of three faiths. But as the spirit of the Enlightenment starts to reach Al-Andalus, Chief Curator Pilar—a woman who has her own secrets—finds herself at the center of a battle for the library's future.

How did your characters come to be?

I knew that I wanted to write about an established couple who were very secure and comfortable with each other, because that’s something I always want more of in fiction than I get. From that point, I started to develop Pilar and her lover Zainab, older women in positions of authority who know each other very well and can communicate with each other very well, and whose duties and responsibilities play an important role in their relationship.

Why this setting? 

The golden age of al-Andalus provided an incredibly rich and exceptionally tolerant intellectual atmosphere for philosophical and scientific development, with scholars from all over the world taking inspiration from the work being done there—and that was circa the year 1000. Once I started to wonder what would have happened if the Reconquista had played out differently and that culture had lasted through the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment, it seemed to make perfect sense that al-Andalus would have managed to develop sophisticated clockwork technology before our Europe ever did!

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

I wanted my characters to feel comfortable in their sexuality without having to angst about it, so I set up the library as an almost entirely-female space in which the existence of homosexual relationships is a fairly open secret.  Nobody in this context is going to particularly care if two librarians develop a “special friendship,” although it isn’t something they could be public about in the wider city.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

I have a total weakness for stories about THE REVOLUTION, so I had a lot of fun taking the kind of idealistic young revolutionary women that normally I would be all over in fiction, and then showing them from the perspective of older women with completely different priorities who are really uncomfortable with all these excitable teenagers running around trying to pull their world down around their ears!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! A. Tuomala

A. Tuomala has a novel, Erekos, from Candlemark & Gleam. Her Internet home is here, and her story featuring a Moroccan mercenary lady is “Dark Horse”:

A two-sentence summary: 

The evening before her mercenary company departs for the Balkans, Suhailah al-Saghira bint-e-Azzam meets a desperate stranger: Prudence Crewe, who claims to be searching for her runaway husband. Before they’ve exchange three words, Suhailah knows that the steely-eyed Mrs. Crewe is trouble—but Suhailah has a taste for trouble, and she could never resist a woman with a secret.

How did your characters come to be? 

I’ve been looking for a home for Suhailah for some time. I created her ship and crew over a year ago, when I thought I’d be writing a comic book about her captain; unfortunately, that project never panned out, and the Ebony Horse’s crew had to wait for another war. When I saw the call for submissions for Steam-Powered II, I thought, “Yes! Finally, a chance to bring out my Moroccan mercenaries again!” The engineer Suhailah was always my favorite, with her keen mechanical mind and her need to uncover secrets. I put together Prudence Crewe as a foil for Suhailah—someone who would engage her curiosity and make her fierce intelligence work. I got a stunning James Bond of a woman for my trouble, and I couldn’t be happier.

Why this setting? 

I’m terribly fascinated by 19th century Balkan warfare; if you check who allied with whom at any point in the drawn-out slugfest between Russia and Turkey, you could get a reasonable idea of European politics in the day. I knew when I started this story that I wanted to play with those shifting alliances in an urban, commercial space—a space as potentially potent in the steampunk imagination as Victorian London (but alas, woefully underused!). For me, Istanbul was that space: a commercial hub mediating between numerous confluent cultures, modern and urban and ready for war.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

“Dark Horse” takes place in a kind of alternate history and culture, like many other steampunk works; in this alternate Istanbul, I’ve treated lesbianism as largely a non-issue when it occurs in private, sex-segregated spaces. Female mercenaries make coarse jokes about it in coffee houses, after they’ve driven out the people who usually drink there, and Suhailah feels comfortable making an advance to a stranger in that enclosed space. Part of what thrills Suhailah about Prudence, though, is how brazen they can be together—kissing in the market, of all places! I wish I’d devoted more time to this aspect in the story, because lesbianism is an important cultural phenomenon as well as an interpersonal one.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

I’m a huge language geek, so I really enjoyed playing with Istanbul as a multilingual space. It was also fantastic devising Mr. and Mrs. Crewe’s coded messages, which was a bit like piecing together a language of my own from mythological and literary references.

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Little over two weeks to Steam-Powered II's release! Get yer orders in!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Nicole Kornher-Stace

Nicole Kornher-Stace, besides having an impossible name, has an actually functioning website complete with bibliography and stuff, as well as LiveJournal. I don't know if this needs saying, but LiveJournal is still cooler than Facebook, ya'll. She wrote “Deal,” another steampunk western.

A two-sentence summary: 

Alt-western silver-mining tall tale. Midwife vs. Pinkertons!

How did your characters come to be? 

I don’t remember when or how I realized I wanted my narrator to be a midwife. I know I wanted her to be a Strong Female Character who specialized in something that’s traditionally very much women's work. I don’t see enough of those so I thought I’d try making my own. As for Deal, she’s a rabble-rouser and a would-be revolutionary because those tend to crop up in almost everything I write. Together they fight crime. Not really. But they’re fantastic at pissing off the Pinks.

Why this setting? 

Well, earlier this year, I wrote a poem in a similarish setting/voice (“The Witch’s Heart” in Issue 21 of Apex) and had an absurd amount of fun with it. I wanted to get back in there and play a bit more. Also, Claire Cooney read my mind and reminded me—though she hadn’t known—that I’d always wanted to write a Western. And then I got to thinking how much fun it would be to write a Western steampunk story using traditional tall tales as a framing device. Somewhere along the line, the story decided it wanted to take place in a failing silver mining camp. After I got all that squared away, the rest pretty much wrote itself.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

The story takes place in an alternative California in the late 1800s, where it seems that what with race, gender, and class issues running high and none-too-subtly, lesbians were probably lumped in with the rest as “secondary” citizens and didn't really stand out as much more or less “inferior.” To write “Deal,” I did a lot of research into the time period in that part of the country and didn’t really come across anything suggesting otherwise. I’ve been meaning to read more into this topic, actually—I’m curious as to what the actual answer for real!California might have been, but I couldn’t find much on it at the time. Now I’m extra-curious.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

Oddly, there was nothing frustrating about writing this one. I loved playing with the narrator’s voice, with the language I picked up in my research of 19th century mining towns, with writing my own tall tales. Really, it was the most fun I’ve probably ever had writing anything ever. I hope it shows!

 

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Shveta Thakrar!

Shveta lives on LiveJournal, and her story is “Not The Moon But The Stars.”

A two-sentence summary: 

What would’ve happened if Buddha had never become Buddha? In its way, it’s a tale of first contact.

How did your characters come to be? 

I was gazing up at the full moon as I drove home from work one night last fall, and the thought struck me how much it looked like a silvery pendulum at rest. Not long after, I typed out that image, and before I knew it, I was writing about a jeweller who loved the moon and wanted to recreate it in her own style. Her lover soon followed, unintentionally bringing the seeds of conflict with her.

Why this setting? 

Siddhartha Gautama, the man who didn’t become Buddha, is very much a product of his world. Besides, ancient Nepal seems like it would have been an exciting place to be, especially when you bring in steampunk technology.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

Definitely accepted. I wanted to write a story where sexual orientation wasn’t an issue, so the characters, who were already in a loving relationship, could go on to have rollicking adventures, solve mysteries, save the world, and all that good stuff.

 Also, even if Siddhartha didn’t go on to become Buddha, I imagined he would still be a wise and compassionate man, so his kingdom should reflect that in its acceptance and empathy. (Whether that’s actually the case or not, well, you’ll have to read the story to find out!)

What was the funnest, or most 'hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

I’ll go with option B. Oh, wow, the characters came so naturally, but trying to get the plot together was something else. It sprawled in all directions, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I was seriously close to tearing out my hair; just ask my critique partners! But somehow, after much gnashing of teeth, I eventually found the story’s heart and built it into a more coherent foundation, embellishing from there. (My critique partners could not be more grateful that they don’t have to hear about this anymore.) 

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For your dignity's sake, do NOT confuse her with Shweta Narayan, who was in the first Steam-Powered anthology! To see how different their stories are, you can get the first anthology here, and pre-order the second here.

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Zen Cho

Zen Cho is the other Malaysian writer in this anthology. She's based in the UK, is a loyar (as we say) by trade, and her work's appeared in Strange Horizons and Expanded Horizons. She can be found on LiveJournal, Dreamwidth and Twitter. Her story is “The Terracotta Bride.”

A two-sentence summary: 

Siew Tsin died young and has been trying to avoid surprises ever since. But her hopes for a quiet death are destroyed when her husband brings home a new wife—a beautiful terracotta automaton who comes with secrets that may overturn the order of the universe.

How did your characters come to be? 

They arose naturally from the setting. The viewpoint character being Chinese Malaysian was a bit of a departure from that setting, but I like to include Malaysian characters in my stories where I can.

Why this setting? 

Since I first encountered Eileen Chang's short stories, I've been wanting to write an elegant, tragic story about glamorous Hong Kong women leading miserable lives poisoned by family and love. Plus, robots! I can’t remember how Hong Kong morphed into a version of the Chinese afterlife plucked from TVB series and a Singaporean amusement park, but it probably proves that I’m not very good at being Eileen Chang.

The great thing about working off a vision of the afterlife derived from Hong Kong TV is that it allows for deliberate anachronism, which is very steampunk if you think about it.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

Lesbianism is marginal, but not unacknowledged. I had the idea of a romance between wives before I read Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life, but in it, he describes how his wife seeks to arrange for a singsong girl to be his concubine because she’s in love with the girl herself. The point is made by a reference to “Cherishing the Fragrant Companion,” a Qing era play by Li Yu about a married woman who successfully conspires to have her husband marry her female lover so they can be together. (This is still performed as an opera, the Fragrant Companion.) So it’s obviously a bit of a cliché!

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

Nailing down the terrifying but vague childhood recollections I had of the Chinese hell (thank you, Haw Par Villa) by research. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think conversion might not be such a bad idea. At least the Christian hell only features one pit of flame...

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Patty Templeton

Patty, like so many of us awesome people, can be found on LiveJournal and Tumblr. She contributed the steampunk western “Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues” to the anthology!

A two-sentence summary: 

Balma Walker is plain tired of Cazy Tipple’s cheating, especially now that it’s interfering with business. The moonshine ain’t gonna make itself and who has time to feud with ex-lovers, current sheriffs and make ends meet?

How did your characters come to be? 

Once I name someone, I can think clearly about them. I start to see their personality form on the page. I wanted women who, even for their opposite natures, found solace in one another. Balma Walker became a sturdy, town educated woman and Cazy Tipple, a hard drinking rake. 

Why this setting? 

My father’s from Harlan, Kentucky and it’s a setting that I haven't written much in, but have plenty more to spill about.  

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

This story is set in an alternate 1914 Kentucky. People live and let live. Folks think more on Balma and Cazy’s moonshine than they do on their bedroom. Unfortunately, what is acceptable to most, doesn’t mean acceptable to all. The town sheriff has an idiotic bone to pick with Cazy about his daughter... who is not Balma.

What was the funnest or hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

The best part of writing for me is always the research. This round I was able to call my dad and jaw for an hour. He told me piles of moonshine tales from when he was a kid in the ‘50s in Kentucky. I still need to write a few stories inspired from that conversation, like the drunken plane crash or the juke joint brawl or the tree-climbing spy.

The next best thing about writing Balma and Cazy's story was that C.S.E. Cooney* was sleeping on my couch while I was writing it. It was wonderful to live with another writer, not only to keep me on task, but to share in each other’s creative processes. Now if only we could actually make time to write the John Henry story we thought up while researching our Steam-Powered stories...

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*C.S.E Cooney is ALSO in this anthology. Keep an eye out for her answers in the upcoming days!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Jeannelle Fereira

Jeannelle Fereira has been published most recently in Not One Of Us #44 and Stone Telling #4, and wrote “A Thousand Mills Lofts Gray” in this anthology.

A two-sentence summary: 

Polly Clarke can buy anything she wants; Rachel Isaacson must work for everything she gets. The abstracts—optimism, hope, romance—they have to create for themselves.

How did your characters come to be? 

Rachel and Polly’s names—and the names of Rachel's parents and siblings, and their neighborhood—came from a 1910 census. I thought about Rachel first: what kind of young woman would live in this building, with her parents and younger siblings, unmarried at about 23? I was fairly sure what sort of job she would have and how she would fill her scant leisure time; then I just needed a love interest who was a near-polar opposite.

Why this setting? 

1910 in New York had very clearly delineated haves and have-nots. Introducing subtly advanced tech to the time period let me play with class issues, immigration, workers' rights, and extremely intricate costuming. 

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

Well, Polly Clarke is from Boston, home of the Boston Marriage! And the lower east side of New York was a strange combination of tradition-bound immigrants with tightly stratified paths in life, and the “anything goes!” world of the populist Yiddish-language theatres. Both of my main characters have been exposed to underground gay culture, and Polly, who’s older, has had a long-term relationship.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing about writing this story? 

The most fun/challenging aspect was deciding what kind of tech would find a home in what parts of Steampunk New York. Everything comes to New York first, right? But what advancements are experienced by a community who can’t really afford them, even when the innovations are taking center stage a few blocks away?

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(If ya'll didn't know what a Boston Marriage was, I didn't either until I read her answers and looked it up. The more you know! See, steampunk can be so educational!)

(Don't forget to pre-order!)

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Stephanie Lai

Stephanie Lai is one of my fellow Malaysians, which kind of psyches me out! In this anthology, she wrote “One Last Interruption Before We Begin.” You can find Stephanie on Dreamwidth or on Tumblr.

A two-sentence summary: 

In post-Merdeka Malaysia, Shu Ping bustles through her life, drawn to a life of adventure but unsure if it’s what she really wants.

How did your characters come to be? 

Shu Ping came first, because I love turning points and Chinese-Malaysian characters. Everyone else came after, a natural flow of people she might have known.

Why this setting? 

I first created this universe in my short story The Last Rickshaw. Malaysian steampunk (and South East Asian steampunk in general) is not super common, and once I encountered it, I was hooked. I love expanding this universe, and every story is like a love letter to the island of Penang. It is a setting I enjoy revisiting.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

Shu Ping herself feels a need to hide her lesbianism, a reflection of older laws and colonial attitudes flowing through the setting. In a way, her story is one of working out which bits of herself she can put forward, and how she chooses to do so is somewhat political, too.

What was the funnest, or most hair-tearingly frustrating thing in writing your piece? 

I loved it all, for reals. My favourite bit was the creation of the MR, a made up building functioning as a stand-in for the building I really wanted to lovingly describe to the world, but which wasn't built until decades after my story was set. I hope other Malaysians will be able to guess the building.

As a friendly reminder, Steam-Powered II comes out October 26th! Getcher pre-orders thru JoSelle Vanderhooft!

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Sean Holland

First writer in this series is Sean Holland. He runs the Sea of Stars resource site, an RPG setting which you can find out all about here. His story is “Playing Chess in New Persepolis.”

A two-sentence summary: A young and now broke mechaniker enters her mechanical chess set in the yearly competition hosted by the Persian Shah.  There she finds that chess is only one of the games being played.

How did your characters come to be? 

I wanted a Dutch main character, and so she is.  The supporting cast just sort of appeared, mostly a microcosm of Europe in this reality with a few characters from the Americas and Asia.

Why this particular setting? 

It really just sort of fell out of my head, I needed a story quickly and this is what came out.  Persia/Iran is one of those places that has always been important in the world but often ignored in the West, though, sadly, it is mostly a backdrop to the story.

You’re in an antho of lesbian steampunk stories. Obviously you are writing about lesbians. How does lesbianism fit in your setting? 

Skilled mechaniker are rare and valuable so are given some leeway, but period mores still dominate.

What was the funnest, or hair-tearingly frustrating thing about the writing process? 

Realizing at the end of writing and re-writing the story and multiple revisions, that the main character’s first name is never mentioned.

A random ramble? 

JoSelle keep pushing me to add more and more politics to the story, so now I have a twisting little political map of that world floating around in my head.

Steam-Powered II Roundtable! Editor JoSelle Vanderhooft

So! Remember when I said I'd start a series of Steam-Powered II writers answering a set of questions each about their stories? I thought it would be a fine idea to start this off with the fabulous editor herself, JoSelle Vanderhooft, answering a few questions on this series in general:

So tell us about your feelings for this anthology!

This is such a strong and diverse collection of steampunk stories, with tales set in India, Malaysia, Turkey, China, Persia, Africa, and all over the United States. I'm deeply honored to have been able to assemble it.

So why, specifically, lesbians?

The obvious answer is that I’m a bisexual who is oriented almost entirely towards women--a 5 on the Kinsey Scale, if anyone wants me to be more specific. I love writing and reading about lesbian and bisexual women, and this interest informs my editing. But obvious answers are usually boring and not entirely accurate.

We Interrupt Very Srs Blog Bzns to Bring you Squeez! Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories

I'm very pleased to announce that I'll be sharing a table of contents with some very excellent writers for Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories!

Introduction: Kevin Steil (of Airship Ambassador)

"Journey's End," by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall

"Amphitrite," by S.L. Knapp

"In the Heart of Yellow Mountain," by Jaymee Goh

"Playing Chess in New Persepolis," by Sean Holland

"A Thousand Mill Lofts Gray," by Jeannelle Ferreira 

"Dark Horse," by A.M. Tuomala

"The Return of Cherie," by Nisi Shawl

"One Last Interruption before We Begin," by Stephanie Lai

"Selin That Has Grown in the Desert," by Alex Dally MacFarlane

"Granada's Library," by Rebecca Fraimow

"The Canary of Candletown," by C.S.E. Cooney

"Fruit Jar Drinkin', Cheatin' Heart Blues," by Patty Templeton

"Deal," by Nicole Kornher-Stace

"Not the Moon but the Stars," by Shveta Thakrar

"The Terracotta Bride," by Zen Cho

Article/Afterword: "Winding Down the House: Taking the Steam out of Steampunk," by Amal El-Mohtar

Some other words:

I'm really excited to have Kevin introduce this anthology, since it makes more sense to have a queer person introduce a queer steampunk anthology. 

Nisi Shawl's story is set in the same universe as the one she's developing for her upcoming Belgian Congo steampunk novel.

And I'm just fucking psyched to see three Malaysians (myself, Stephanie and Zen) in a single anthology, which is even more hilarious because we don't all live in Malaysia. 

If you'd like to review Steam-Powered 2, fire me an email and I'll forward you to our wonderful editor, JoSelle Vanderhooft, for an eARC!