Bio

My name is Margaret Killjoy, AKA Magpie. I’m in my 20s somewhere. I’m an itinerant creator and activist, rarely spending more than a few months in one place at a time. Essentially, I’m a hobo. (a hobo travels and works, a tramp just travels.)
My email address is magpie@birdsbeforethestorm.net. I occasionally say things @magpiekilljoy on twitter. I’m on facebook, too: facebook.com/margaretkilljoy.

Politics

I’m an anarchist. Which is to say, I believe that society would be better organized without hierarchically imposed authority, whether through this thing called “the State” or through capitalism. Note that capitalism refers not to market economies, but a specific sort of market economy in which it’s possible to make your income by doing nothing (investing, property speculation, absentee landlordism, etc.).

There are a lot of little sub-sections of anarchist. I would say that I’m best described by post-civilized theory, which is a branch of green anarchism. But I’m also a “big tent” anarchist, which is to say I’m excited by pretty much all branches of anarchism and think we need to focus more on our similarities than our differences.

I’m also vegan, but hate self-righteous veganism. It’s a dietary choice. We all make compromises in this life.

Projects

I am a member of Combustion Books, an collectively-run fiction publisher.

I founded and am now a contributing editor to Graceless: A Journal of the Radical Gothic.

I founded and once again edit SteamPunk Magazine.

I am part of Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, an anarchist publishing collective.

Music

Nomadic War Machine

My current musical project is Nomadic War Machine, an industrial/gothic/breakcore project. The first album, I Have A Gun. Give Me All The Money In The Register. is out now.

Acoustic

I perform as an accordion player under the name Magpie Killjoy. By and large, I play for either goth or anarcho-folk audiences. Some of my favorite bands I’ve shared the stage with include Jill Tracy, The Ghosts Project, Old Horsey Slideshow Review, and Dark Dark Dark.

I’ve got a demo CD out, which you are free to download and burn yourself.

I also busk extensively.

Attack Attack Attack

I’ve released two albums as Attack Attack Attack, an anarchist industrial project. The first is “No Gods, No DJs” from 2006, the second is “We Are Not In The Least Afraid Of Ruins” from 2008. Both can be downloaded in their entirety from Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness.

Wingzar!

Under the heteronym Wingzar, an anti-civilization robot, I released an EP “What We Lack In Subtlety We Compensate For In Number Crunching, released in 2007. The first single, “Robot Army” appeared on Warren Ellis’ podcast The 4am. The EP can be downloaded for free from Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness.

The Illawen

I played keytar for the green-and-black synth-metal outfit The Illawen, a few tracks of whose can be downloaded, once again, from Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness.

I Awoke

I Awoke was a short-lived darkwave band I programmed synths and drums for back in 2001-02. We recorded but never released an EP, but one track, “gone”, ended up on the 2002 compilation Emotional Overdrive, from Angelfall Studios and now available from Projekt.

Drummer

I’ve toured as a drummer for the post-goth rock band Ego Likeness.

Photography

I studied photography at Pratt Institute from 2000-2002 before I dropped out to hop trains and try to overthrow the government. After awhile, trains were just kind of cold and dangerous and the state didn’t seem to be smashing overnight, so I now shoot a Pentax K10-D and attempt to document the beautiful earth, assholes trying to destroy said beautiful earth, folks in the process of resisting said destruction, and the interesting lifestyles of above-mentioned folks.

You can see some of my photos on my Flickr, as well as more that are hosted here as photo essays.

Photo Books

2009 …And Into Autumn, a print-on-demand photo memoir of deserts, mountains, caves, protests, and waterfalls. Available from Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness and for free download.
2009 – Being The Explorations of One Fine Summer, a photo book / personal zine that covers mountaintop-removal, roadkill butchering, haymarket square, and Earth First! free-states. Available from Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness.

Exhibitions

February 2010 – Featured artist at Starfish Studios in Seattle, Washington.

September 2008 – Anachrotechnofetishism: artifacts by pioneers of american steampunk at Suite 100 in Seattle, Washington. The pieces I had on display can be seen here.

Print Credits

September 2009 – The Earth First! Journal, front cover as well as four interior photos.

Others that I’m forgetting.

Writing

Books

I edited (and wrote much of) the book Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: anarchist writers on fiction, which was released in 2009 by AK Press. This book is a series of interviews with anarchist fiction writers, as well as appendices that include short bios of every anarchist fiction writer, living and dead, I was able to drum up in two years of research. I also give talks on this subject.

My first novel, What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower, is a 2011 Combustion Books release.

The first bound book I’ve ever had published is actually an Italian translation of my zine A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalyse, which is titled Guida steampunk all’apocalisse and was translated by my friend Reginazabo.

Zines

In 2007, SteamPunk Magazine released my A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse.

I contributed the title story to the steampunk post-apocalyptic collection White is the Color of Death.

I’ve written a good deal of zines, anonymously, for Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, about politics and such.

Articles

I write a regular column in Alan Moore’s countercultural magazine Dodgem Logic. I started with issue number two, and write about post-civilization theory and practice.

I have written a number of articles for The Earth First! Journal

I have written extensively for SteamPunk Magazine on subjects such as regicide, pyrophones, coal, facial hair, and more.

“In Defense of Chaotic Good,” a brief piece about, well, the dungeons & dragons alignment Chaotic Good and how it is an excellent way to live one’s life, appeared on episode 102 of geek-life podcast Geek Fu Action Grip.

Short Fiction

“Space Pirates With Mohawks And Shit” is a serial I am working on. The first episode, Life On Other Planets Is Difficult, appears as a standalone zine released by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness.

“Yena of Angeline” is a piece of serial fiction that appears in issues one, two, three, and six of SteamPunk Magazine.

“A Man of the Wastes” and “A Pirate of Both Day & Night” are erotica pieces set in the same world as “Yena of Angeline” and appear on Steamypunk.net and can be as well.

Design

Books

2011 – The cover of Marshall Law.
2011 – The interior of Property Is Theft!.
2011 – The cover of After The Future.
2011 – The cover of Mountain Justice.
2010 – The interior of Paradoxes of Utopia.
2010 – The interior of Uses of a Whirlwind.
2010 – The cover and interior of Come Hell or High Water.
2009 – I designed my own book for AK Press, Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: anarchist writers on fiction.

Magazines

2007 to 2009 – I was the layout editor of SteamPunk Magazine for issues 1-6.

2011 – Layout of Graceless.

Newspapers

2009 – I helped design one issue of the Earth First Journal.

2009 – I designed issue #13 of Baltimore’s Indypendent Reader.

Zines

I have been designing zines for years, and enjoy it greatly. My current favorites are Herland and Ever & Anon.

Press

My work has been mentioned in such awesome blogs and projects as Boing Boing, MAKE blog, MAKE Magazine, The Nor’Easter, and Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, as well as WIRED.com and the lamentable Newsweek. I’ve been interviewed about steampunk by Small WORLD podcast, Steampunk Spectacular, CBC Radio, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, and a handful of other publications from the US and overseas.

I once even did an interview with The Wall Street Journal Online. It was pretty funny: I said something like “well, obviously, our current oil-driven infrastructure can’t go on forever” and the man stopped me to ask, quite confused, “what do you mean?” (and that, by the way, is the problem.)