The Fiction

I have thought long and hard about what it means to be HyphenPunk since I started the magazine in February 2021. I first thought I was looking for great action and adventure with some cool tech, whether that was steam or computer powered. As I have moved forward and learned more about what people are writing, and more about new -punks that are coming up, I have realized that the stories I like to read, and the stories that my writers like to contribute, have an old school punk rock ethos, and that ethos is driving the philosophy of HyphenPunk moving forward.

The HyphenPunk philosophy is that a story should be punk first. This means being anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, community focused and DIY. The tech (cyber, steam, etc.) or vibe (hope, or whatever) exists to create the situation for the story to work from.

I’ve published ruralpunk, dinopunk, and other strange -punks without thinking twice because the stories were punk first. Of course there is always more cyberpunk than any other in each mag, but that is because it is more popular.