Overbury Ink

“Arthur has made his existence as a vampire bearable for over three hundred years by immersing himself in blood and debauchery. Aboard an airship gala, he meets Avalon, an aspiring vampire slayer who sparks fire into Arthur’s shriveled heart. Together they try to solve the mystery of several horrendous murders. Cultures clash and pressures rise in this sexy Steampunk Romance.”


Steampunk is sexy. It just is. Goggled highwaymen and heroes committing audacious acts of bravado, adventuresome girls in torn lace, are the stuff of great fantasy and epic adventure. Then corsets, ribbed with iron and concealed weapons. And if the corset isn’t hot enough, put a bold woman in it and give her a revolver. The women of steampunk are not interested in parlours and scones: they have inventions to finish, terrain to cross, or men to save.


Arthur is a 350 year old Vampire, who was a 15 year old teenager when he became a vampire. Arthur is lonely, bored and has forgotten much of his humanity. He knows how to charm, and is accepted in the high-society circles of the British elite. He kills without remorse. His morals are long gone. He plots which person will be seduced and killed in advance. He is arrogant and judgmental. When he was mortal, he was the brother of King Henry VIII, and lover of Catherine, before he died and she became Queen. Arthur is still bitter over Catherine’s death. His days seducing older women is just a game to him.


He accepts a gala invitation to ride in a dirigible and meets Avalon, who to him looks like his Catherine reincarnated. She refuses his flirtations, which just makes him want her more. He declares himself in love with Avalon right from his first meeting with her, and is determined to have her. He tries to appeal to her intellectual side and ingratiate himself by appearing to help with her vampire hunting and murder solving.


Grey puts solid effort into blending British society with steampunk styled inventions and gadgets that the vampire slaying team would need, very reminicent of James Bond. The plot was quick moving and its surprises towards the end. The sex scenes are explicit and have some gruesome elements – which you would like to expect from an immoral, jaded vampire. Mystery, suspense, adventure, horror, and romance, appealing to both urban fantasy as well as paranormal romance fans.

About O.M.Grey

“O. M. Grey currently lives in Texas with her husband. She holds both a BA and MA in British Literature. Although she doesn’t have a drop of British blood in her veins, she claims that her entire heart is British. As an amateur Anglophile, her dreams of the dark streets of London have finally found their home on the pages of her books.

She prefers to live in the cobwebbed corners of her dark mind writing paranormal romance with a Steampunk twist.

When she’s not writing, she’s reading or tending the garden or drinking a hot cup of tea.

Just two drops, please.”


You can find Avalon Revisited through O.M. Grey’s blog: Caught in the Cogs and we can stay tuned for a longer, sexier, bloodier version of Avalon Revisited!

Follow her on Twitter: @omgrey
Fan her on Facebook and catch up on her latest contest giveaway for the release of the new short story OF ÆTHER AND ÆON up on KINDLE.

Role Playing Games are something that have not yet been explored on OverburyInk. Recently the link for the free PDF RPG: Lady Blackbird gained popularity. As it is described as Steampunk, it is something that SteamTuesday needs to explore. If you’ve had a change to play this game, we’d love to hear your comments. I felt I needed some more perspective in evaluating this game, as it’s been a long time since I’ve had a change to enjoy some fun RPG. I consulted my Tech Support, who happens to have an extensive GM background, and compared this experience against my own novice impressions.


Released in 2009, Lady Blackbird is, for a tabletop RPG adventure for 2-6 people. It contains a slate of interesting characters, a marvelous world design, and a very workable game system. The rules are simple, easy to grasp and encourage role-playing. Perfect for a ready game of 1-6 sessions or more.


It claims to be a “steampunk adventure,” and although the term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used— often in Victorian era England, this is a sort of air/space fantasy, making the characters a sort of Space travelling Steampunks. There is magic and sorcery involved as well. The Owl itself is described as powered by a “Tri-Valve Reciprocal Steam Drive. It takes place in a “solar system” consisting of small planetoids with air between them. Skyships push through the void, filled with air pirates and monstrous sky squid.


The scenario is that Lady Blackbird (Natasha Syri), a noble of the Imperium has fled an arranged marriage to be with her lover, the pirate king Uriah Flint. She hired the smuggler skyship Owl, but it has been captured by the Imperial cruiser Hand of Sorrow. She, her minions, and the Owl’s crew are now taken captive and held in the cruiser’s brig. The players take the roles of the imprisoned characters.


The game system itself is a variant of the dice pool used in many “story games”. Dice are rolled only for key conflicts, more dice are added if you use traits, tags, or character “keys”. Although not mentioned in the player’s sheets: it is a 6 sided die.
The gaming structure has removed complicated combat rules and focuses on the storyline instead. Whereas some RPG use elaborate rules to govern confrontation and combat scenarios, this game simplifies fighting down to an action & consequence sequence.


There is lots of room for role playing and character development in this game. It is very open to interpretation, allowing the players and GM to develop the story in all kinds of directions. Very little of the storyline is actually laid out, the GM needs to fill in most of the actions between key events.


Sequels to the story have been developed since it’s original release. John Harper over on “The Mighty Atom” blog has a post that has collected a few of them:
Age of Sail
By Richard Lacy. A re-skinning of LB for the age of tall ships and piracy in the Caribbean.
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ALIEN SURVIVOR
By Will Hindmarch. A survival-horror sci-fi adventure, using the LB system as the core.
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The Bloody Forks of the Ohio
By Jason Morningstar. The kickoff of the French and Indian war.
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Darkening Skies
By Chris Sakkas. A true sequel to Lady Blackbird, this is Chapter Two in the Tales from the Wild Blue Yonder.
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Veronique Chevalier is AKA The “Weird VAL” of Dark Cabaret. Being gonged off the premiere season of America’s Got Talent was irrefutable proof that the mainstream were not yet ready for her gifts.





Veronique is a journalist; social activist; record producer, lyricist; parodist; visual artist; model, former ballet dancer. She is reputed to be the long-lost great-granddaughter of a certain famous Frenchman who was a star of stage and screen… (Maurice Chevalier)





Veronique is a unparalleled Parodist; a Steampunk Chanteuse, and Spooky Polkanista, who has been described as a campy incarnation of Edith Piaf from a parallel universe – the one in which her parents are Jim Morrison, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and her godparents are Lucille Ball and Weird Al.





As a self-proclaimed “Mad Sonictist,” she takes maniacal pleasure in combining previously unrelated musical forms into new, unholy combinations. She vows to leave no genre unadulterated in her quest to create the ultimate Sonic Frankenstein…





“I especially appreciate under-the-radar and/or quirky talents…I am very proud of my benefit project, a recording and live show Cabaret4Choice which highlights the complexity of reproductive freedom…I conceptualized and produced ‘Polka Haunt Us: A Spook-tacular Compilation’ which was an Official Selection on The 51st Annual Grammy Ballot, & is sure to become a perennial Halloween classic, and am currently writing an original Steampunk Opera..(See links to ‘The Many Websites Of Veronique’ in the right-hand sidebar of my blog).”

Album Lyrics


Veronique is proud to be part of Gilded Age Records, the world’s only artist collective focused on musician’s combining old world aesthetics and sounds with current genres of music.
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Steampunk/Cabaret/Swing/Ragtime/Gypsy-Punk/Neo-Classical/Martial-Industrial/Darkwave/Post-Punk/etc.


Chevalier will be appearing July 11th, 2010 at:

* * The Steampunk Bizarre, Hartford, CT,

The “Internet Date” video will premiere on Sunday, July 11th, 2010, at The Second Annual Steampunk Bizarre, at ArtSpace in Hartford, Connecticut, and will be available on YouTube one week after the live premiere. The Steampunk Bizarre, curated by Joey Marsocci, and presented by DrGrymmLaboratories.net, is a week-long exhibition, running July 9th – 16th, exploring various aspects of Steampunk, which is a term that has been coined for “The Scholar’s Science Fiction.”


The Steampunk Bizarre Exhibit will be alive with sights and sounds of ingenious and strange contraptions set in a themed atmosphere. Dr. Grymm’s EXPERIMENT is to bring together 23 international artists, some from the Steampunk community, some professional artists trying their hand at Steampunk for the first time.

Chevalier, is the only performance artist who has been invited to participate in The Steampunk Bizarre, and in addition to screening the “Internet Date” video, she has written two song new parodies and a spoken word piece entitled “I Am Steampunk” that she will perform live.

Highlights of the exhibition will be filmed for a documentary by Neurotic Films, tentatively entitled “I Am Steampunk: The Making Of A Bizarre World,” which will premiere in the Fall of 2010.


More Appearances:
* * The League Of Temporal Adventurers First Society Gala, San Diego, July 24th, 2010
* * Seattle Steamcon II, November 19th-21st, 2010
* * Wild Wild West Con, Tucson, AZ, March 2011 (Opening for Abney Park)
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Find Veronique:
http://WeirdVal.com
http://MySpace.com/VeroniqueChevalier
http://twitter.com/VeroniqueCheVAL
http://www.gildedagerecords.com
http://www.somedaylounge.com/performers/Veronique_Chevalier
http://PolkaHaunt.Us
http://MySpace.com/PolkaHauntUs
http://twitter.com/PolkaHauntUs
http://www.youtube.com/user/VeroniqueChevalier
http://steampunk.ning.com/profile/VeroniqueChevalier

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This week’s Steampunk Blog tour:

O.M.Grey’s Caught in the Cogs Steampunk Spotlight: Lovechild Boudoir
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Join Mike Perschon for his Steampunk discussions on The Steampunk Scholar
July is Canuk Steampunk month – Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
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On Steamed: The Steampunk Novel Diary: Why Steampunk?? by Author Marie-Claude Bourque

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Matthew Delman at Free The Princess.com -Your resource on Steampunk background — history, science, culture, and more:
Locomotives in Steampunk Society

Review by Lee Ann Farruga (aka Countessa Lenora)





Any book that begins with an action scene gets my attention, add in a spunky, no nonsense, intelligent woman as your main character and I’m intrigued and ready to dive in. That is exactly what I did.


It took me only two days to finish Soulless by Gail Carriger. Any moment I could spare from my busy schedule I squeezed in time to read it, and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. I was hooked from the beginning and enthralled to the very end.


Ms. Carriger’s main character, Alexia Tarabotti is a real woman. She is intelligent, beautiful in her own quirky way, resourceful, and she appreciates a good meal. Add in the handsome Lord Maccon and the sparks fly. Secondary characters such as Professor Lyall, Beta of the Woolsey Pack and Alexia’s best friend, Ivy Hisselpenny hold their own and help to give the story a lot of depth and texture…and let’s not forget the vampires, werewolves and other strange creatures that inhabit Soulless.


The story revolves around Miss Tarabotti as she tries to find out why vampires and werewolves are disappearing at an alarming rate, why a mysterious man and his terrifying minion are after her and what are Lord Maccon’s real intentions toward her.
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It was truly a pleasure to read Soulless and I quite look forward to reading the next in the series, Changeless.
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Biography of Gail Carriger
Ms. Carriger began writing in order to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported directly from London. She is fond of teeny tiny hats and tropical fruit. The Parasol Protectorate books are: Soulless (Oct. 2009), Changeless (March 2010), and Blameless (September 2010). Soulless won the ALA’s Alex Award.
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Countessa Lenora is the Founder and organizer of Steampunk Canada, also the organizer for Steampunk Ottawa.

If you would like more information on Steampunk Canada you can contact at steampunkcanada@rogers.com

…and can also be found on Facebook
…and on the Steampunk Canada site
…and on Twitter as Countessa Lenora

I am known as Vespertine Nova Lark, and I am a Merchant as well as a novice geologist. I love rocks and love to spend my time searching the deep cavernous halls within the Earth. I rely on my steam powered jack-hammer to bust away the hard stone, yet I use a fine chisel and brush to excavate the shimmering gems that I stumble upon.

This is the character that I have created, and her story is still in progress. My real name is Sarah, I had the pleasure of being featured on Overbury Ink once before, and asked Nancy if I could have another round to promote the pieces that were once in progress.

I worked like mad to finish them for the World Steam Expo (Dearborn, MI 2010), which was a huge success. I had the best time, and I can not wait for next year!

I began making jewelry around 6 years ago and always liked to stick with wire. It’s stronger and has a classier look to it. When I would take my stuff to a gallery that showcased more contemporary items, I was always told that my stuff was way too traditional looking. Vexed and Annoyed, I set out to find my place in the world of art. The concept behind a lot of my work was using old things and found objects to create something unique and beautiful. This is when I stumbled upon Steampunk, around two and a half years ago on Etsy. I was looking for acceptance of my work and a way to sell it.

I was immediately hooked on Steampunk because I have always been partial to the Victorian aesthetic. At my Grandparents house, I spent many hours gazing in awe at their collections. They collected all things antique, mainly from the Victorian Era. From clocks, to dolls, furniture, clothes, jewelry, paintings, novelty items, and the like, it was there. My grandmother even had the old dolls in the rooms where we used to spend the night. My cousins and I of course thought it was creepy, but I used to suck it up and be brave, knowing that I took kind of a pleasure in being freaked out. We even spent a couple of years re-enacting in Civil War garb, I had my first corset when I was 16!

I spend countless hours searching through endless treasure troves and forgotten piles of untold treasures to bring you what I have made to this day. I hand pick items and search for tiny little bits and gears out of a huge bag I came upon in my travels. My work is very labor intensive, but I enjoy every second I am creating, and it shows. I pride myself on offering high quality One of a Kind Steampunk Jewelry that is extremely different than what I see on ETSY.

I must say that I may have stumbled upon Steampunk sooner had I a computer and wasn’t so busy creating that I could retreat to my other love (that I neglected for a while) which is reading and going to the library. I love to read science fiction literature and have since buried my nose into any Steampunk themed book I could get my hands on (between twisting wire and studying for a job in the healthcare field). I aspire to be a nurse as well as an artist. I have two amazing kids and the coolest, most interesting and charming man that any woman could hope for! We mostly just sit around on our off nights, he plays a little bass, I twist a little wire, and we listen to quite a bit of vinyl. Couldn’t ask for anything else.





Find Spectra Nova on:
TWITTER
–
ETSY
–
BLOG SPOT
–
FLICKR
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email spectranova@gmail.com
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Are you a Steampunk artist or writer? You can be featured on OverburyInk’s SteamTuesdays – Check the SteamTuesday page and contact us with your info. Got a Steampunk Blog? Join the tour!
–
This week’s tour:
O.M.Grey’s Caught in the Cogs Steampunk Spotlight: EJP Creations

Join Mike Perschon for his Steampunk discussions on The Steampunk Scholar

You MUST check out the incredible Masks made by Tom Banwell

For French Steampunk

I’ve been a Steampunk fan for a long time without realising it. My first encounter was via the Myst computer games. They’re kinda dated now, but the Myst games were wonderfully inventive point-and-click adventures full of cogworks and weird machinery. Those games, plus an obsession with the steam train time machine from the last Back to the Future film got me hooked and I’ve loved the aesthetic every since.

There’s always been a sci-fi fantasy focus to my music, particularly with my duo Comrade Robot and our album Songs for the End of the World. Things went all steampunk musically in October 2009 when the muse decided to hand me a set of songs and ideas with a distinctly steamy theme. So in January this year I finished my first solo album, Spinning the Compass – nine self produced songs about love, flying machines, nightmares involving cable cars and steam engine related body horror. If I had to put a genre to the music I’d use words like steampunk, acoustic, progressive, indie. My favourite quote about the album is:


Mr. Slatterís music evokes images of ill-lit workshops, dark libraries in mansions where spirits are contacted, cabaret in run-down theaters and the taste of absinthe. (article)


Lots of steampunk music comes from a goth rock/metal perspective. That’s something I’m a big fan of, but that isn’t what my music sounds like. Neither is it a historical exercise, trying to meld victorian music with modern sounds. Instead I’ve gone more for feel and theme. It’s crackly and contains barely functioning electronics and feels like I think steampunk should sound.


The album had a long gestation. It includes songs that began their life ten years ago or more, as well as some that were written in the studio, almost captured improvisations rather than compositions.


The opening track ‘Mechanism‘ is one of my favourites [listen here] – the groove has a music hall feel and the lyrics share a theme with much of the album. They’re about real lives hampered by the introduction of dehumanizing machinery. The goggles that are so ubiquitous in steampunk are attractive, but I’ve always thought there was a slightly creepy element to them too. Steampunk characters are often shown with mechanical replacements and enchancements – steam-powered false limbs, goggles and eyeglasses, jetpacks and wings – and I’ve tried to explore that aspect of the genre with these songs.


Lines Overheard at a Seance is another favourite. This one came to me all in one go, I literally sat down at the piano and there it was, fully formed. I’m not entirely sure what the lyrics are about, but later in the year I’ll hopefully be filming a video for it that will show the seance the lyrics refer to.





I’ll make that video with the help of my brother Joe Slatter, who by pure coincidence produced this short steampunk horror film at the same time I was finishing the album. It uses several songs from the album and is called ‘Oldroid’. Joe’s a model maker, sculptor and special effects enthusiast and we’ve collaborated a couple of times before but this is the first thing we’ve done together that could be called steampunk.





Future plans include a 9 minute steamprog epic entitled ‘The Trial of Seven-Bells John’ and an even longer musical tale of conspiracy, imprisonment and vengeful mechanical men called ‘Ironbark’, as well as numerous non-steampunk musical endeavours. I’m also planning on creating handmade, steampunk cd cases later in the year so that a physical version of Spinning the Compass can be produced, but right now it exists only as a free download which can be found at the download page:


Album download (free but I do ask for an Email)



Facebook Fan Page
Twitter: @tomslatter
Website: http://www.tomslatter.co.uk
Comrade Robot: http://www.comraderobot.com
Joe Slatter:

On this week’s SteamTuesday blog tour:
O.M. Grey’s Caught in the Cogs Steampunk Spotlight: Silver Leaf Costumes

I am a newly established photographer but a lifelong lover of both photography and fashion and costuming. I’ve been following all manner of alternative fashion and historical and creative costuming since I did my first search for a corset online in ’96. Everything from goth and lolita to reenactment garb to bellydance costuming to fetish fashion to cosplay peaks my interest. I first heard the term “steampunk” in 2001, when it began to crop up in discussions within the neo-victorian and US elegant gothic aristocrat fashion movements. I’ve been hooked ever since.

In early 2008 I decided to take up photography as a hobby and that December I shot a series of “steamhunk” portraits of author Emmy Jackson at the historic Sloss Furnaces in Alabama.

I became equally hooked on portrait photography, and I’ve spent the last year and some change gaining skills more specific to that trade and creating a body of work as Lex Machina that I hope appeals to fans of the aesthetic.

Fashion photography and steampunk portraiture combines my love of all of these wonderful garments and accessories, my more than 10 years of retouching and graphics experience and making people look and feel cool, which I love almost as much as I love clothes. I enjoy shooting regular everyday steampunks just as much as professional models and performers. Each expects something different from me, as an artist and I enjoy the challenges and rewards each provides.

In ’09 I was able to travel extensively and work with some amazing steampunks, both pillars of community and supporters of it. Some noted steampunk personalities I’ve captured include The League of STEAM, Parliament and Wake, and most recently a set with Evelyn Kriete and G D Falksen, which I’m working on now.

While I frequently style my own shoots and many of the garments and accessories in my images are from my personal wardrobe, I can only shoot and reinvent my own pieces so many times before my viewers are as tired of them as I am. So far I’ve had the pleasure of working with incredible companies and creators like Lastwear Clothing, Clockwork Zero, Atelier Choklit, EJPCreations, TotusMel, and Miss Monster to name a few. I’m a huge fan of handmade garments and accessories and always looking for designers to collaborate with.

I am currently shooting steampunk events, creative portraiture, alternative, and of course steampunk fashion in and around Detroit, MI while traveling for shoots, art shows, and conventions as much as possible throughout 2010.

Lex Machina can be found on

Deviant Art
Facebook

Twitter

Website: Lex Machina Photography



Are you enjoying our SteamTuesday features? Leave a comment! Are you a Steampunk artist / designer / writer / creative who would like to be featured? Let me know!

The Impossible Place is a graphic web novel…. of sorts. We currently publish two (ongoing) narrative storylines which combine illustration and text, either prose or dialogue. It’s a pretty loose format, the rule so far is that there are no rules.


Launched just over a year ago the blog itself is an experiment in creative work in progress using free online publishing mediums.


Ultimately it is about giving my husband (artist and illustrator Chris Worfold) and I (Nikki Curtis, writer amongst other things) the opportunity to collaborate on a project that incorporates the things we love. In this case, stories, art and design.





The longer term goals of the project include editing and paper publishing the stories as well as small scale manufacturing of designed objects. But The Impossible Place as a blog enables us to float ideas and stories as we create them. In its own tiny little way the work can live, breathe, fail, succeed prior to or regardless of destination. It’s liberating to release draft work and flattering when anyone reads it.

To an extent the stories in The Impossible Place are about this – life in progress. In the Impossible Girl storyline the characters have pretty much exceeded their goal expectations but now their everyday is making them miserable. It’s the choices that they make, or have made, that have created this.


It’s the same for the character of Reece in the Evinrud story. Although he tends not to bang on so much about it. Reece is an action man who is only just beginning to question where the hell he is at and how he got there in the first place.





As a writer (artist, creator) you tend to focus on the things that interest or absorb you most. For me appreciation, love, moral choice and responsibility are those things. I’m an incredibly obstinate creature, you can tell me what to do (and depending on the situation I may do it) but you can’t tell me how to feel. Truth to me can’t be told, it needs to be found. (Although I am happy to accept scientific facts once proven).


Clearly as an artist you need to distance yourself (or your own current beliefs) from your work for it to remain uncontrived. In this sense the characters in The Impossible Place are on their own (I take no moral responsibility). Like in all fiction, judgement and personal opinion belongs individually to the reader.


The stories in The Impossible Place all have some sort of ‘fantasy’ theme. It’s nice to be able to remove the characters from the everyday, to make them less (or more) than normal. And apparently it’s more fun to draw.





Impossible Girl has a ‘vampire’ subtext. A year and a half ago when we started drafting the characters there definitely wasn’t as many nouveau vampire stories/movies/tv shows around as there is now. I’m not sure whether we would have changed it if we had known. There is something very appealing about the blood sucker myth. The whole moral conundrum of feeding from something else in order to survive (and prosper) is very powerful. Impossible Girl (and boyfriend Rowan) were never meant to be Vampires in the traditional sense. They’re not immortal, they have a disease, contracted sexually, which makes them both more potent and more vulnerable. And as I mentioned earlier, it’s apparently fun to draw!

The Evinrud story is pure science fiction/action and the new story we will launch later in the year has a mythological subtext.


The illustrative component of The Impossible Place has given Chris a chance to rediscover his childhood love of drawing. It’s Chris’s love of comic books and graphic novels that really inspired the development of The Impossible Place as a blog and project.


As an artist his exhibitions career (in Australia and Asia) has predominantly revolved around painting. As an arts educator he has taught drawing for many years but rarely had the time to draw for himself. The Impossible Place is Chris’s excuse to draw – a lot.


The drawings for The Impossible Place have been rendered on coated paper, skateboard decks and in sketchbooks. They range in size and medium from behemoth two metre square pieces using ink and paint to A4 sized pen sketches.





As a very hands on textural artist, he is not hugely competent technically but does use Photoshop to crop, frame and occasionally recolour aspects of the illustrations for visual use on the blog.


You can read/view both Impossible Girl and Evinrud by clicking on the individual label in the side bar and scrolling (or clicking) backwards and beginning at post one.


www.theimpossibleplace.blogspot.com


Nikki Curtis is a creative writer (at this stage unprofessional but if someone offered me a job or project that paid enough I’d probably take it) who works for cash as a communications and business development consultant. She has a Bachelor degree in Business Communications and an extensive portfolio in extreme partying and fun management.


Chris Worfold is an artist, illustrator, educator and curator with an extensive exhibition history. He is a graduate from the Queensland College of Art and the Queensland University of Technology in Visual Arts and Education. He has been co-director of a commercial gallery, curated numerous exhibitions, written for catalogues and publications. He has completed public art projects and illustration commissions, served on arts committees and taught Visual Arts for over 10 years in Australia. He is dedicated to arts practice and teaches at the Southbank Institute of Technology. Chris is also a dedicated follower of his wife’s fun management regime.


Together, they live on eight steep (unusable except for plonking a massive studio and party deck on) acres of Australian eucalypt forest about 50km from Brisbane central and 40km from the Gold Coast with their dog Caleb and cat Rada (Muffin, Kitty really, she hasn’t been called Rada in years). They are relocating for a brief stint in New York later in 2010.

My name is Kate Lambert but most people know me by my nick-name “Kato”. I was born and raised in Wales, UK and emigrated to California four years ago.

I’ve been drawing and illustrating since I could hold a pencil and began designing clothing when I was about eleven years old but wasn’t satisfied that I was worthy of the title “clothing designer” until I’d wrapped my head around the complexities of the sewing machine in my early twenties.

I decided to house my designs under the name Steampunk Couture in May 2005 after a friend introduced me to the term “Steampunk” when describing the way I dressed and my style of illustration. In just over a year since I began offering custom clothing to people I’d designed and created over 400 items of clothing and accessories.

Before I was able to make a comfortable living from making clothes and selling my art, I served coffee and worked a cash register, cleaned hotels and nursed the elderly for several years. All the while grabbing any free moment I had to myself so that I could sketch out an idea for a dress or write a note about a new design.

Having your creativity locked up is extremely detrimental to one’s health and I could only put up with so much of this until I simply had to take the leap, leave everything behind and begin what I’d wanted to do since I was a child.

As it’s been such a rough, unsupportive journey to get to the point where I adore what I do for a living, I’m happy to spend the rest of my life working the way I do now and have no desperation to carve a name for myself in the industry or grow my business into some big, expensive self-validating brand. I’m something of a workaholic hermit who loves life’s little things and so long as I have my chickens, my garden and my sewing machine I’m a happy bunny. A happy Steam bunny.

Life is about creating and following your dreams. If you ruthlessly pursue that which you feel most passionately about, you’ll find that doors will open for you.

Find Steampunk Couture at Kato’s Website:

Find her designs on Etsy:

Follow on Twitter:

Be a Fan on Facebook:



Are you enjoying our SteamTuesday features? Leave a comment! Are you a Steampunk artist / designer / writer / creative who would like to be featured? Let me know!

I you told me I’d be reading a book about a badass rifle toting action heroine, I’d be game to look into it – but add the fact that she’s a 35year old single mom in 1879 Seattle distorted by a poisonous gas, throw in zombies, airships, gasmasks and goggles – and I’m all over it.



Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker has a simple premise: Briar Wilkes tries to find her teenaged son, Zeke, who entered the walled, zombie-ridden city of Seattle searching for proof to clear his father’s name. It’s a great hook: the steampunk/zombie mash-up has instant appeal. Boneshaker simply pulls you in and doesn’t let go.


The story stems from the North-Western quest for gold during the American Civil War. Seattle inventor Leviticus Blue creates a machine named the Boneshaker, that will drill for gold through Alaskan ice. During testing, the machine fails and Seattle is destroyed as the Boneshaker carves out the ground beneath the city. The digging unleashes a heavy gas that begins to turn people into zombies. A wall is built around the catastophy, keeping the gas and the walking dead contained.


Briar Wilkes is the inventor’s widow, and her son, Zeke, live ostracized on the outskirts of the remaining community. Teenaged Zeke is determined to clear his father’s name, deciding that a secret trip back into the forbidden city will produce the information he needs.


The underlying story of Boneshaker is this mother/son relationship. Events unfold in alternating points of view between Zeke and his mother with each learning their own truths with each encounter. Boneshaker is also at heart an adventure novel with strong supporting characters both generous and villainous. It has the feel of a western opera in a darker America where the War Between the States is a protracted and ongoing, where the weather is brooding and dreary and the hoards of rotters are never far from thought.


The journey through the infected city is filled with danger and suspense as the characters fight their way through zombies, criminal overlords, mercenaries, airship pirates. The underlying steampunk theme is felt through the story without feeling overdone, and keeps the mood by being printed in sepia ink – giving it a semblance of an old Daguerreotype photograph. The pacing is excellent with a gratifying ending that sheds a whole new light on the entire story.


Boneshaker has been nominated for a Hugo Award. You can find Cherie Priest at her BLOG,
website
Twitter @cmpriest



Cherie Priest is the author of seven novels, including Boneshaker — which won a PNBA award, and was nominated for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula award. Her other books include Four and Twenty Blackbirds, plus Fathom, Wings to the Kingdom, and the Endeavour-nominated book Not Flesh Nor Feathers from Tor. Her short novels Dreadful Skin and Those Who Went Remain There Still are published by Subterranean Press. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and a fat black cat.


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