mythpunk
mythpunk noun: a subgenre of mythic fiction that starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodernist literary techniques.
Noun
mythpunk (uncountable)
- A subgenre of mythic fiction that starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodernist literary techniques.
- About “To Seek Her Fortune,” she [Nicole Kornher-Stace] rather puckishly elucidates, “This story is the result of my taking the time-honored tradition of expanding a short story into a novel and running it in reverse. The novel in question is underway. (Mythpunk/steampunk/paranormal mashup! Now...2010, “Pinions”, in Mike Allen, editor, Clockwork Phoenix 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, Winnetka, Calif.: Norilana Books, →ISBN, page 312
- Her [Natania Barron’s] first book, a mythpunk, world-hopping novel called Pilgrim of the Sky, was published in 2011; […]2012, Natania Barron, Kathy Ceceri, Corrina Lawson, Jenny Williams, “Meet the Moms”, in Geek Mom: Projects, Tips, and Adventures for Moms and Their 21st-Century Families, New York, N.Y.: Potter...
Origin of mythpunk
From myth + -punk. Coined by American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic Catherynne M. Valente in a 2006 blog post as a joke for describing her own and other works of challenging folklore-based fantasy.
Questions about mythpunk
- What does mythpunk mean?
- Mythpunk means a subgenre of mythic fiction that starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodernist literary techniques.
- What part of speech is mythpunk?
- Mythpunk is a noun.
Words near mythpunk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mythpunk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “mythpunk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mythpunk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.