Dionne Charlet Poetry Reading

Dionne Charlet, one of the contributing poets to New Orleans By Gaslight, will be giving a reading Saturday the 17th at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble at 3414 Highway 190 Suite 10, Premier Center II, in Mandeville, Louisiana as part of the Celebration of Words put on by the Northshore Literary Society. Congratulations to Dionne and success to her in all her endeavors!

Update

It’s a pretty exciting time to be a steampunk here in New Orleans.

Just ordered another batch of the anthology books and so I’ll be able to send out the contributor copies as soon as they arrive. I’ll be sending out review copies to local bookstores and newspapers as well.

Gary Bourgeois, author of the steampunk short story “Kilkarney’s Map” is writing a sequel entitled “Carlotta’s Ring.” I’ve had the pleasure of reading the first part of the story and let me say that so far it’s an excellent read.

The Confabulation of Gentry is holding a jazz funeral for the mad scientist Dr. Milo T. Pinkerton III, Saturday, August 3rd, at Siberia 2227 St. Claude Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana. (Let’s hope this time he stays dead, right folks?)

https://www.facebook.com/events/594603777228392/

The Heist of the Century is Friday, August 2nd at 8 pm. It’s a musical event involving the Marquis of Vaudeville and no less than three steampunk bands traveling cross country by train. Friday August 2nd is when they’re playing in New Orleans, the Steampunk Capitol of the South! It’s at the Prytania Bar 3445 Prytania Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.

http://theheistofthecentury.eventbrite.com/

If you’d like a little taste of what you can expect, try the following links:

http://www.marquisofvaudeville.com/

http://www.frenchyandthepunk.com

http://www.johnmondelliproductions.com/thecogisdead

That’s all that’s going on in New Orleans at the moment. (That’s enough, eh?)

See you among the clouds, steampunks!

Cheers,
BB

Proof and Mobicon

I’m holding the Proof copy of the anthology and it is gorgeous! Just need to make a few minor changes and it will be ready for publication.

Speaking of which, we’ll be bringing the first paper copies with us (although you’ll still be able to acquire copies via Amazon.com) to Mobicon in Mobile, Alabama on May 17-19, 2013. David Ducorbier and I will be giving a panel on the Aesthetics of Steampunk on Saturday, May 18th, at the convention, so if you’re in the area, come down and see us!

http://www.mobicon.org/

Cheers,

BB

Latest

Back from CoastCon XXXVI! The latest on the anthology is that the contributors have been chosen and notified and will soon receive a contract to sign permitting their work to be printed in the anthology. If you haven’t received notification that your submission has been included by today’s date, your work was not selected for inclusion in the anthology.

Congratulations to those authors whose work was selected and my profound thanks to all those who submitted!

I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers!

BB

Update

Greetings!

I know many of you are eager to know where we are with this process and so I thought to update you. I’ve received the reviews and assessments of half the readers and hope to have those of the other half very soon now. So it’s my hope that we’ll be able to make our decision as to who will and who won’t be included in the anthology very soon.

I had hopes of having books printed and available for sale at CoastCon in March but it doesn’t appear that that’s going to be the case. I do believe we will certainly be able to have them on hand and ready for sale at Mobicon in May.

Cheers,

BB

One week to deadline!

Only one week left before the deadline. October 31st, 2012 is almost here!

This will be the first locally produced steampunk anthology in New Orleans’ history. If you want to be a part of that, you need to send in your submission before November 1st!

Check out our facebook page while you’re at it! Every like helps!

Cheers!

BB

Two weeks out…

It’s October 17th and we’re two weeks out from the deadline for submissions. I have to say that I’m really excited! We’ve already received some great submissions and I’m looking forward to seeing what shows up in the inbox between now and the 31st.

What else can I tell you? Keep those pens flowing–keep those keyboards going! Let’s make this the best anthology about New Orleans that’s ever been! Let’s make it the best steampunk anthology that’s ever been!

Oh. I do have one thing more to say. Trust yourself. We’ve given you the freedom to tell your story the way you feel you best need to. Make use of it. Don’t hold back. Push the envelope. Try new things. Tell the stories other editors said no one would dare to print. Go places other editors wouldn’t dare to let you go. We can handle it. Send us your very best.

Cheers,

BB

Update

It’s September 21st and we’re forty days out from the deadline! We’ve started to receive submissions of fiction and poetry for the anthology–but we need more–much more! So let’s get those pens and keyboards moving and I’ll see you over the skies of New Orleans!

Cheers!

BB

A note of clarification

I had a conversation at Mobicon with Rob Cerio (yes, THE Rob Cerio) about the following paragraph in the New Orleans By Gaslight call for submissions:

A note of warning about the American Civil War. The American Civil War was a decidedly grim time in American history and should not be “whitewashed” with the Victorian optimism characteristic of the typical steampunk work. If one wished to submit a “dark and gritty” story of the Civil War-era battlefield complete with steampunk elements, that would be permissible. However, in no way should the Confederacy’s cause be presented as moral or heroic. While not required as a mandatory inclusion of publication, making New Orleans a free and neutral city is a means to provide authors an easy way of largely ignoring the war if they so wish.

Mr. Cerio’s concern, a very legitimate one, is that it would be unfair and inappropriate that no story would be found favorable to the anthology if one of its protagonists fought on the side of the Confederacy and so I have chosen to make a point of clarification.

I am a fan of Jonah Hex. Regardless of how you feel about how the film turned out, as I know that too is a point of contention, I would not and did not ask that he not be shown wearing his Confederate uniform. While I would have something to say to Jonah himself about that, and would most likely be ignored, I would be disappointed if a filmmaker took it upon himself to change that detail about the character.

I am likewise a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and would have been disappointed if, for John Carter of Mars, they disassociated him from his history as a soldier of Virginia.

I had hoped my statement would be clear but it wasn’t. So let me be clear: you are free to submit stories with Confederate protagonists and if the readers and editors find them to be good, well-written stories, they WILL go in the anthology.

My statement was made to attempt to dissuade white supremacists from submitting propaganda stories wherein the Confederates win the war and the negroes cheerfully sing on the plantations surrounded by fluttering bluebirds saying things like “Lordy–isn’t it great that we’re all slaves and can you imagine how terrible things would be if we were free?” “Free? Why that’s a ludicrous suggestion Mary Belle–why would we want that? Whatever in the world would we do?”

That’s what my statement was intended to prevent. Nothing more.

It is the philosophy of this editor that proscriptions do not lead to good literature. And it is the aim of this anthology to further the development and influence of the Steampunk genre as Literature.

To that end, we have placed as few restrictions on submissions as possible. Submission of erotica is acceptable. Submission of stories containing profanity is as well. We have no specific limits on short story length–if you want to submit a short-short or a novella, just make it good enough to justify that length. We have no specific limits on story subject matter. If you want to submit a love story, a war story, a tale of sordid misery and revenge, an action-adventure story, or a slice-of-life vignette, please feel free.

Just make it a steampunk story and set it, at least in part, in New Orleans.

And if anyone has any concerns about what will be included or not included in the anthology, please feel free to contact me.

Cheers!

BB

New Orleans Steampunk Anthology

About the anthology:

This blog is being established for the purposes of supporting the upcoming steampunk anthology New Orleans By Gaslight.

New Orleans By Gaslight will be an anthology of steampunk stories and poems set in a fictional Victorian steampunk New Orleans.

New Orleans By Gaslight is currently accepting submissions and will be through October 31st, 2012.

You can find the submission guidelines at: https://neworleansbygaslight.wordpress.com/call-for-submissions/

You may also find this to be useful!

Cheers!

BB