FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: sea.steampunk@gmail.com
Maryland—Small publisher Rosarium Publishing will release The SEA Is Ours: Tales of Steampunk
Southeast Asia this fall.
Edited by
Singaporean novelist Joyce Chng and Malaysian writer and critic Jaymee Goh,
this anthology redefines steampunk from a Southeast Asian perspective. Usually
described as Victorian science fiction, steampunk has quickly gained critical
mass from its disparate beginnings as a niche aesthetic into a world-wide
subcultural movement. Multicultural steampunk has always been part of its
development, exemplified by works such as James Ng’s Imperial Steamworks art pieces, Elizabeth LaPensée’s short film
“The Path Without End,” and anthologies like
STEAMFUNK! and Steampunk World. The SEA Is Ours is the first collection
to curate steampunk stories from across Southeast Asia and its diaspora.
Both
editors have long been involved in speculative fiction. Joyce Chng is the
author of several urban fantasy and Young Adult novels written from a
Singaporean perspective. Jaymee Goh, currently a PhD Candidate at the
University of California, Riverside, has published short fiction and poetry,
including a series of short stories set in a re-imagined Malaysia uncolonized
by the West. Both are also consistent critics of the genre’s Eurocentrism. “We
felt unsatisfied by representations of Southeast Asia in most of speculative
fiction,” Goh says in an interview with Asian American Press, “and felt very
strongly that steampunk would be a really great way of talking about the myriad
histories in the region.”
The SEA Is Ours will feature writers
from Southeast Asia and beyond, with steampunk stories set in Singapore,
Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. A blend of previously
published writers and upcoming names, it is Southeast Asian not only in name
but in essence, with 11 of its 12 writers being Southeast Asian or of Southeast
Asian descent. Each story will have an accompanying illustration challenging
common steampunk-associated visuals.
Rosarium
Publishing made a splash in speculative fiction with its 2013 anthology
Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond.
Since then it has published several ongoing comic titles such as
Kid Code by graphic arts professor John
Jennings,
DayBlack by tattoo artist
Keef Cross, and
The Little Red Fish
by designer Bizhan Khodabandeh. Its oeuvre includes young adult comic
Malice in Ovenland by Micheline Hess, adult
graphic memoir
Jennifer’s
Journal by Jennifer Cruté, and satirical novel
Koontown Killing Kaper by founder Bill Campbell. Its most recent
anthology release was
Stories for Chip: A
Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, which received high critical praise.
The SEA Is Ours is set for a November 1,
2015 release. Its fundraising campaign runs September 23 to October 22, 2015.
More information is available at http://igg.me/at/TheSEAisOurs. Further
information and updates can be found at its blog
(http://sea-steampunk.blogspot.com/) and Facebook Page
(https://www.facebook.com/SoutheastAsianSteampunk). The editors can be reached
for further comment through email (sea.steampunk@gmail.com) or through Twitter
at @jolantru (Joyce Chng) and @jhameia (Jaymee Goh).
