When Mandisa Njeri and Mirabella von Dueling of Airship Ashanti walked up to WordPlay’s doors, the kids in attendance at Midwest BSFA’s steampunk character building workshop shouted, “Pirates! Pirates are coming!” That was the beginning of this awesome program featuring a fun lesson on steam technology and brainstorming steampunk names and back stories.
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Being Black and Female in Steampunk
When I started getting into steampunk a couple of years ago, my first question was “There’s no slavery in this, right?” I was met with a very emphatic “NO!” It’s not like I didn’t have a right to ask. Any hobby that takes bits and pieces from a century that was horrific for at least 95% of the world’s population gets a very strong and lingering side eye. I began to feel more comfortable with steampunk when I stopped thinking about it from the standpoint of what was and started visualizing what never was but could’ve been. That, however, took some work.
Midwest Black Speculative Fiction Alliance 