Interview: Steampowered Globe Editor Maisarah Abu Samah
Silver Goggles | January 18, 2012
A while back, I posted the Table of Contents for the Singaporean steampunk anthology, The Steampowered Globe, and I got to chatting to its editor, Maisarah Abu Samah, about putting it together. And I thought ya’ll might find it interesting, especially any of you in Asia (and I know some of you are from Asia), to read a very frank interview from Maisarah about the anthology and spec fic generally.
Tell us a little bit about yourself! How did you get interested in steampunk?
I’m one of the current municipal liaisons for Nanowrimo in Singapore and I try to make people see that people in Singapore do write fiction. Which means, I try to invade literary events or make our presence known online since locally, the only fiction we see published most is ghost stories, erotic ones or erotic ghost stories. That and sad woe is me literature. Which wouldn’t be bad (they can be well written) but that is all for the fiction published here.
On the subject of steampunk, I got interested in it conventions. There had always been lolitas dressed up at the cosplay conventions I go to but there wasn’t that much people in steampunk fashion. Looking at online pics and shops, I feel like you could make up a back story of a character dressed in what or what kind of situation they’d be in. And past the fashion, there’s always been anime like Full Metal Alchemist or books like Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate…
What was your working definition of steampunk for this anthology? What steampunk works / media did you look towards to inform your own vision of steampunk for your anthology?
Pretty much an alternate history of “what would happen if technology advanced way faster than they would in real life for that era” was my definition.
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