Steampunk POC: Balogun Ojetade (Black)

It's 2013! I surprisingly have not run out of POC in steampunk to interview! How about that. And kicking off this year is Atlanta-based Balogun Ojetade, a strong proponent for Black steampunk like no other steampunk I've ever come across. Balogun has a long history centering blackness in other genres of writing, and he burst onto the steampunk scene with Moses: the Chronicles of Harriet Tubman, a steampunk take on the legend herself.

Since publishing The Chronicles of Harriet, Balogun has gone on to host the Mahogany Masquerade, a Black-centric steampunk event, and co-edit SteamFunk!, a Black-centric steampuk anthology. So I poked him recently to see if he'd be down with an interview, and he was.

Steampunk POC: Beth Aileen Dillon (Anishinaabe)

It's the first Friday of the month! And I have another wonderful interview with a steampunk of colour to share this month after a couple of months of brain-gone-somewhere! 

This month, we head back to the Pacific Northwest to Portland, again, where resides Beth Aileen Dillon, Anishinaabe Mètis, who is currently a PhD student in the Interactive Arts and Technology program at Simon Fraser University, and a transmedia artist. She's been featured here before, when she released her short video The Path Without End, in which she uses everyday objects and materials to create an animated film that re-tells the story of a child that is the offspring between an Anishinaabe and Moon Person. Her latest work is The Nature of the Snake which premiered at the most recent imagiNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. In it, she uses silhouettes and cosmic imagery to tell the story of a snake and a girl. Also, she has given me permission to feature her latest painting, "The River of Star Beings" (to the right!).

Beth Aileen's approach to steampunk is really unique compared to most of us out there; we talk about using everyday objects for creating beautiful things, and she takes it to the nth degree and uses them for storytelling. Steampunks can talk a good game about bringing back old stories of adventure, and she brings forward a storytelling tradition of her people. 

Now, onto questions!

Steampunk: Revolution is now out!

So if you haven't heard the news, which I'm sure you have, the third Steampunk anthology from Tachyon Publications, edited by Ann Vandermeer, titled and themed Revolution, came out December 1st!

There are some big names and small names and new names and old names in this anthology. I'm pleased to have a non-fiction essay sandwiched in between Amal El-Mohtar and Magpie Killjoy. You can find the full TOC here. To buy this illustrious book, check out Tachyon Publications' website. If you are an Amazon sucker, it's available there too, and even Barnes & Noble! Ay-Leen the Peacemaker wrote us a very nice review over at Tor, and I am given to understand that reviewer copies are still available if you are a book reviewer. 

I hope you enjoy my offering, entitled "From Airships of Imagination to Feet on the Ground." I'm also incredibly excited that Paolo Chikiamco's "On Wooden Wings" made it in as well! The Southeast Asian representation in this anthology is stronger than it was in Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories, and that is just as well!