Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are almost done reading the submissions for their second steampunk anthology, which will focus much more on stories from the past decade as opposed to classic tales. And they’re noticing some big changes in the make-up of steampunk lit. Writes Jeff VanderMeer:
The biggest change is that a subgenre in which very few women wrote now features a plethora of women-as Ann and I had suspected, and stated in various interviews at the time-and thus many more female contributors to this second volume. The greater variety of setting and situation, though, is pretty even across gender. This anthology is also situated at the cusp of much more robust participation in this subgenre internationally and multi-culturally… Indeed, Steampunk Version 2.0 seems to have reached its peak–without that infusion of new perspectives, it’s likely to eat itself rather rapidly.
