I’ll be in Seattle this weekend, showing some of my recent photo work (like above) as well as hocking tintypes. Come get your portrait taken! Or just come hang out with me and fellow host Libby Bulloff!
The show will be open 2pm till 7 or so on Sunday, September 23.
Margaret Killjoy (SteamPunk Magazine, Mythmakers & Lawbreakers) and Libby Bulloff (The Steampunk Bible, Exoskeleton Cabaret) will be presenting a gallery show of unique portraits and adventure photography.
We will also be offering one-time-only affordable tintype portrait sessions during the art show in which we will be shooting and developing metal photos using an antique camera.
Sittings are free–successful tintypes are $50 and can be taken home 30 minutes after the sitting.
Tintype sessions are first-come, first-serve and materials are limited! Don’t miss out!
Exoskeleton Cabaret
’57 Biscayne Artist Studios, #5
110 Cherry, Seattle, WA
I’m an “attending professional” at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Aug 31 – Sep 3! Dragon*Con is basically the US’s largest genre convention and I’ve been hearing about it for years from my friends in Ego Likeness (who are playing the mainstage this year…)
Some of us from Combustion Books will be presenting from our upcoming book A Steampunk’s Guide to Sex on friday at 11:30pm, and on saturday at 10pm I’ll be doing a reading from What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower. I’ll also be on a whole bunch of other panels.
My schedule:
Title: Steampunk: The Evolution of the Revolution
Description: See the spectacle of some of the leading voices in Steampunk debate and defend their definition of Steampunk and where they see the movement heading!
Time: Fri 07:00 pm Location: Atlanta Ballroom – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
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Title: A Steampunk’s Guide to Sex
Description: Authors with Combustion Books discuss Victorian kink, alternative sexuality, strange devices, and contemporary subculture.
Time: Fri 11:30 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
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Title: Alternate Apocalypse: How Many Ways Can The World End?
Description: Will impending doom come from zombies, asteroids, or Elder Gods? Come discuss these and more fantastical ways it could all end.
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
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Title: Steampunk Interactive Fiction: What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower
Description: Join Steampunk Magazine editor Margaret Killjoy for an interactive reading of What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower.
Time: Sat 10:00 pm Location: International A – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
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Title: The Steampunk Author Roundtable, Part 1
Description: A Q&A with the BEST of Steampunk novels, periodicals, and blogs. Tee Morris, Pip Balentine, Margaret Killjoy, Deliliah Dawson and others!
Time: Sun 10:00 am Location: International A – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
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Title: Working as a Professional Steampunk
Description: Steampunk is more than a hobby for some. Find out who is making a living working and playing in Steampunk. Tips for turning your dream into a career.
Time: Mon 01:00 pm Location: International BC – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
I’ve been to something like 6-7 conventions in the past year, all over the US, but ConnectiCon was the first all-genre convention I’ve attended, and was by far and away the largest. Mostly I’ve been to steampunk conventions, and this was something totally different.
I’ve never spent much time around fandom before. The word itself I only learned maybe a year ago… the culture of people who go beyond simply being isolated fans of pop culture (genre fiction, anime, video games, etc.) by having actually created their own community. Geekdom in its highest form, perhaps. People stopped by my table and spouted off acronyms I’ve never heard before, unique to their own subsection of geekery, like fan-fiction, DIY tabletop RPGs, web comics, internet forums, anime, or fiction. Most of the guests were voice actors for anime and video games (and some of the nicest people I’ve met, for what it’s worth). Jim Cummings was there, who voiced characters in basically every cartoon I grew up watching.
And then there was me. I was invited to the convention as a literary guest of honor, and I did a reading of What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower to one of the largest and most enthusiastic audiences yet. Alongside the rest of Combustion Books, I presented A Steampunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse (finally available in English as a paperback!) and from our upcoming book, A Steampunk’s Guide to Sex. Someone recorded that last panel (NSFW language) and put it up on YouTube. If you feel like spending an hour of your life learning about the crazy sex lives of Victoriania, I’ve embedded the videos at the end of the article.
I shared something like 5 or 6 panels with my fellow literary guest, Michele Lang. She’s awesome, and I can’t wait to start reading her books… she writes a series called Lady Lazarus that sets WWII in an urban fantasy world, set in eastern Europe. Both of Michele’s parents are holocaust survivors, so there’s something personal to the writing most urban fantasy can’t claim.
The convention staff, all volunteer, was amazing. They were incredibly hardworking and committed, and despite the chaos of handling 10,000 people (mostly costumed teenagers), the convention was probably the smoothest-running of any I’ve attended. Everyone I saw was having an amazing time or quite good at faking it. And lord, the costumes. An incredible expanse of DIY. Thank god my brother was there to help us table: he actually recognized what people were dressed up as.
Combustion Books set up in the Artist’s Gallery, pulled out a card table, and started hustling people. At zero risk, of course. We taught people (schooled them at, really) Bunco and Pike, though no one dared to play Professor Calamity at three-card monte. And we set up our Hess Machine and cured people of various ailments such as “I haven’t just been zapped with a 1920 tesla coil quack medicine device.”
And did I mention they hold it at a union venue? I wish more conventions could say that.
I’ll be touring with What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower, my anti-colonial steampunk adventure-of-your-own-choosing book. These are interactive readings in which the audience has to come to consensus on what path to take our absinthe-drunk protagonist through, and they’re a lot of fun. I’m really excited to take this on tour. I’ll also be tabling a lot of Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness and Combustion Books.
I guess the title says it all. I’m teaching a class on publishing and layout at SubRosa in Santa Cruz, tomorrow the 10th and the next week, 3-5 pm. I’ll be teaching everything from zines to the book trade, plus showing book and zine layout basics, InDesign skills, dealing with images, etc… anything you want to know (that I know how to do).
I’ll be tabling at the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair, September 10-11th, 2011. The bookfair runs from 11-6 on the 10th, 11-5 on the 11th. It’s in the gym on the groundfloor of the Fernwood NRG Community Hall, located at 1240 Gladstone Ave, Coast Salish Territories.
Rapid Consensus Decision-Making Workshop and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Reading by Margaret Killjoy
Practice your consensus decision-making skills by way of this interactive reading of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Anarchist fiction writer Margaret Killjoy will be reading from What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower, a story of vice and revolution that thrusts its hapless protagonist into a full-scale anti-imperialist revolution being waged by colonized goblins against the gnomish masters.
I’ll be doing a reading from What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the unceded Coast Salish territories. I’m quite excited to be opening for my friend Unwoman, and the event is at the Prophouse Cafe, 1636 Venables Ave. @ Commercial Drive. Starts at 8, I believe, with Unwoman warming up, then me reading, then a dancer, then Unwoman again. The event is free!
I’ll be presenting this weekend at GearCon, Portland’s steampunk convention. My schedule is:
Friday, July 22nd:
1pm: Steampunk & the Apocalypse
5pm: What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower
Saturday, July 23rd:
10am: Publishing panel
12pm: Authors panel
Sunday, July 24th:
3pm: How to Publish
It’s also likely I’ll stick my head in on some of the more political panels, and of course I’m also doing a free reading of Clock Tower at the anarchist bookfair on Saturday at 5pm.
I’ll be reading from What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower at the 2011 Portland Anarchist Bookfair, July 23rd, 5:15pm. The bookfair is at the Smith Memorial Student Union at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon). Other highlights (from my point of view) of the schedule is the Hackbloc presentation on internet security and Karen Coulter presenting an introduction to ecodefense.
