How to Punk Your Steam: The Book

Ever since I realized that the word Steampunk would turn 30 in 2017, I knew I wanted to do something special to celebrate it. Over the past 18 months, I have been mulling it over and trying to find exactly the right idea and how to make it happen. I’ve had a couple of false starts with an agent and a potential publisher, but this has done nothing to soften my resolve to make this book a reality.

Over the past several years, I have done a lot of research on the “steam era” as well as Steampunk itself. This knowledge has been culminating in a series of articles called How to Punk Your Steam, 10 of which have been published in one form or another here. The point of For Whom The Gear Turns has always been to inspire and inform others, so this is where you come in.

Here’s the deal. I want to recruit 12 authors to write short stories inspired by my non-fiction articles, and compile it all into a single book. These stories will be in dialogue with newly expanded and edited editions of my nonfiction articles, to create a really special and interesting mix of fiction and nonfiction in a single volume.

How to Punk Your Steam: 12 Tales and Truths Learned From 30 Years of Steampunk

Think you might want to submit a story? I don’t have all the details worked out, but I do know that I am looking for stories between 100-5000 words that must have something to do with Steampunk (which we all know has a very broad definition) and one of the topics below. You notice my word count window is broad, and I have huge respect for flash fiction writers as well as those who prefer longer short stories. I will be posting about this again soon, so please follow For Whom The Gear Turns to make sure you don’t miss any announcements or deadlines!

Note- The stories don’t have to take place in the 18th-19th centuries! Set them in whichever when and where strikes your fancy.

I’ll also be looking for an illustrator to do 12 black and white illustrations, one for each story. Interested? Follow the blog!

The submission window will open sometime in 2017, but feel free to reach out before the announcement if one of the topics below gets your gears going. I am hoping for multiple submissions for each topic, and if an individual topic gets enough interest there may be a chance for another dedicated volume in the future.

This project will be funded through Kickstarter in order to pay the authors and artists. More details to come in 2017!