Margaret Killjoy | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupations |
|
Writing career | |
Genres | |
Notable works | Danielle Cain series |
Musical career | |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
|
Website | birdsbeforethestorm |
Margaret Killjoy is an American author and musician. She has published fiction novels in the steampunk and folk horror genres, and is best known for her two-book ''Danielle Cain'' series. Killjoy is involved in several musical projects across genres including black metal, neofolk, and electronica. She founded the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl in 2018.
Killjoy is an anarchist, feminist, and anti-fascist. [1] She is a transgender woman. [1] [2] Killjoy spent much of her early adult life as a "squatter and wanderer", then in the late 2010s began building a small cabin in the Appalachian Mountains on an anarchist land project. [3]
Killjoy's fiction writing includes queer anarchist steampunk and folk horror. [2] Killjoy published What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower, a steampunk interactive novel, in 2011. [4] In 2017, Killjoy published the first of two books in the Danielle Cain series, which features a group of genderqueer, anarchist demon hunters in the American heartland. In the first novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, the group is hunted by a demon that appears in the form of a stag. [2] [5] The second book in the series, The Barrow Will Send What It May, follows members of the same group as they run from the events of the first book. [5] The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award in 2017. [6] [7] The Barrow Will Send What It May was nominated in the 31st Lambda Literary Awards in the LGBTQ science fiction and fantasy category. [8] Killjoy contributed the short story "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow" to A Punk Rock Future, a 2019 anthology of speculative science fiction and fantasy. [7]
Killjoy has also edited and written non-fiction works, including the 2009 book Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction, a collection of interviews with anarchist authors including Ursula K. Le Guin and Alan Moore. [9] She also was an editor of SteamPunk Magazine, which was in print from 2007 to 2016. [9] [10]
Killjoy founded the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl in 2018. [1] She released the band's first EP, The Age of Men Is Over, as a solo project the same year. Joined by Laura Beach as lead vocalist and Meredith Yayanos as violinist and theremin player, the band released its first full-length album, No Dawn for Men, in 2020. [2]
Killjoy is involved in several other musical projects: neofolk Alsarath, blackened doom Vulgarite, and electronica Nomadic War Machine. [2]
Killjoy hosts the anarchist survivalist podcast Live Like the World Is Dying [11] and launched her new podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff on May 2, 2022. [12]
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Heavy Metal was an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, published between 1977 and 2023. The magazine was known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction, erotica, and steampunk comics.
Hardcore punk is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk scenes in San Francisco and Southern California which arose as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of the time. It was also inspired by Washington, D.C., and New York punk rock and early proto-punk. Hardcore punk generally disavows commercialism, the established music industry and "anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock" and often addresses social and political topics with "confrontational, politically charged lyrics".
Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards.
The Exploited are a Scottish punk rock band from Edinburgh, formed in 1978 by Stevie Ross and Terry Buchan, with Buchan soon replaced by his brother Wattie Buchan. They signed to Secret Records in March 1981, and their debut EP, Army Life, and debut album, Punks Not Dead, were both released that year. The band maintained a large cult following in the 1980s among a hardcore working class punk and skinhead audience. Originally a street punk band, the Exploited eventually became a crossover thrash band with the release of their album Death Before Dishonour in 1987.
Crust punk is a subgenre of punk rock influenced by the English punk scene as well as extreme metal. The style, which evolved in the early 1980s in England, often has songs with dark and pessimistic lyrics that linger on political and social ills. The term "crust" was coined by Hellbastard on their 1986 Ripper Crust demo.
Anarchists have employed certain symbols for their cause, including most prominently the circle-A and the black flag. Anarchist cultural symbols have been prevalent in popular culture since around the turn of the 21st century, concurrent with the anti-globalization movement. The punk subculture has also had a close association with anarchist symbolism.
My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from Newark, New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way. They are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the latter label.
The Symbol of Chaos originates from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories and their dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern.
Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction. Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level, a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Science fiction is an important genre of modern Japanese literature that has strongly influenced aspects of contemporary Japanese pop culture, including anime, manga, video games, tokusatsu, and cinema.
SteamPunk Magazine was an online and print semi-annual magazine devoted to the steampunk subculture which existed between 2007 and 2016. It was published under a Creative Commons license, and was free for download. In March 2008, SteamPunk Magazine began offering free subscriptions to incarcerated Americans, as a "celebration" of 1% of the US population being eligible.
Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game Children of the Sun, the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is the fourth studio album by the American rock band My Chemical Romance, released on November 22, 2010 by Reprise Records. Its songs are associated with the band's well known sound of alternative rock, pop-punk, and punk rock, along with an introduction of new musical elements, including power pop, pop rock, and electronic rock. The primary musical inspiration for the album came from contemporary rock, psychedelic rock, and protopunk bands of the sixties and seventies. It was the penultimate album released by the band before their six-year disbandment from 2013 to 2019.
The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing are an English punk band from London formed in 2008. Their name is a reference to the chalked graffiti discovered above a section of blood-stained apron thought to have been discarded by Jack the Ripper as he fled the scene of Catherine Eddowes's murder. They describe themselves as "Crusty punk meets cockney sing-songs meets grindcore in the 1880s." Initially associated with the steampunk movement, they have since sought to broaden their sound and distance themselves from the tag, incorporating elements of death metal, hardcore punk, the new wave of British heavy metal, thrash, black metal, goth, stand up comedy and music hall. Their songs are usually set in the Victorian era but can often be read as allegory for the present day.
Incel is a term closely associated with an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. Originally coined as "invcel" around 1997 by a queer Canadian female student known as Alana, the spelling had shifted to "incel" by 1999, and the term later rose to prominence in the 2010s, following the influence of Elliot Rodger.
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial enthusiasm for creating such a future.
Feminazgûl is an American feminist black metal band from North Carolina. Founded by Margaret Killjoy in 2018, Feminazgûl released their debut EP, The Age of Men Is Over, the same year. The band released their first full-length album, No Dawn for Men, in 2020.
The Danielle Cain novels are a two-book series created by author and musician Margaret Killjoy. They concern the eponymous protagonist and her group of friends as they travel America's heartland in pursuit of magic, demons, and other supernatural events. The first novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion, was released in 2017 and was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. The second, and most recent, instalment, The Barrow Will Send What It May, was released the following year and was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award. The series has been praised for its portrayals of anarchism and its diverse cast of characters.