Explanation about my scarcity here the past couple of weeks: midterms.
I also wrapped up the first giveaway for Beyond Victoriana’s 2nd anniversary, and give a big confetti-laden congrats to our winners:
Maria B. of California, USA
Archee S. of Queensland, Australia
Watch this space for more to come!
In the meantime, between classes, there are a few events that I’m looking forward to attend as winter approaches.
TeslaCon II is just around the corner, happening the weekend of November 18-20th, and I’m thrilled to be able to check them out after missing it last year. For folks unfamiliar with this convention, it’s claim to fame is being the first immersive steampunk con experience in the US. I’m actually quite interested in finally meeting Lord Bobbins after working with him for Tor.com’s Steampunk Week, and doing work that will go towards my current grad school project. I’ll also have the pleasure of panelling with Austin Sirkin on two panels about literary Orientalism — with one panel being “in-character” and one being “out of character.” Austin has given me permission to punch imperialists in the face at either one. ^_~
In December, I’ll also be at Anachronism IV: Dinosaurs! Think Dinotopia, or pterodactyl jet wings. This should be fun.
And, for those in the Midwest planning their cons in advance, I’ve recently been announced as a guest speaker for the Steampunk Empire Symposium, running April 27 – 29th, 2012 in Cincinnati, OH. They even wrote a nice spotlight too. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Aloysius Fox, one of the co-founders of the Empire, during NYCC and I’m quite excited to head out there next year.
In the meantime, over on the blog, we’ll be doing a brief spotlight series for Native American Heritage month, with the theme of “Indigenous Identities.” This series will be feature various accounts from history and today about native identity & NA notables in North America and Latin America. This has been a topic that’s been on Beyond Victoriana before (with guest blogs from Michael RedTurtle and Monique Poirier). I have a few particular posts lined up, but guest bloggers interested can still contact me with proposals.
Beyond Victoriana 