diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index bdfed79..28c42dd 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -277,8 +277,8 @@ with the id "imagekit:thumbnail" which, by default, is
 Second, we're passing two positional arguments (the dimensions and the source
 image) as opposed to the keyword arguments we used with the generateimage tag.
 
-Like with the generatethumbnail tag, you can also specify additional HTML
-attributes for the thumbnail tag, or use it as an assignment tag:
+Like with the generateimage tag, you can also specify additional HTML attributes
+for the thumbnail tag, or use it as an assignment tag:
 
 .. code-block:: html
 
diff --git a/imagekit/cachefiles/backends.py b/imagekit/cachefiles/backends.py
index b127430..a781dc7 100644
--- a/imagekit/cachefiles/backends.py
+++ b/imagekit/cachefiles/backends.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ def get_default_cachefile_backend():
     """
     from django.conf import settings
     return get_singleton(settings.IMAGEKIT_DEFAULT_CACHEFILE_BACKEND,
-            'file backend')
+                         'file backend')
 
 
 class InvalidFileBackendError(ImproperlyConfigured):
@@ -116,32 +116,78 @@ def _generate_file(backend, file, force=False):
     backend.generate_now(file, force=force)
 
 
-try:
-    import celery
-except ImportError:
-    pass
-else:
-    _generate_file = celery.task(ignore_result=True)(_generate_file)
-
-
-class Async(Simple):
+class BaseAsync(Simple):
     """
-    A backend that uses Celery to generate the images.
+    Base class for cache file backends that generate files asynchronously.
     """
-
-    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
-        try:
-            import celery
-        except ImportError:
-            raise ImproperlyConfigured('You must install celery to use'
-                                       ' imagekit.cachefiles.backend.Async.')
-        super(Async, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
-
     def generate(self, file, force=False):
         # Schedule the file for generation, unless we know for sure we don't
         # need to. If an already-generated file sneaks through, that's okay;
         # ``generate_now`` will catch it. We just want to make sure we don't
         # schedule anything we know is unnecessary--but we also don't want to
         # force a costly existence check.
-        if self.get_state(file, check_if_unknown=False) not in (CacheFileState.GENERATING, CacheFileState.EXISTS):
-            _generate_file.delay(self, file, force=force)
+        state = self.get_state(file, check_if_unknown=False)
+        if state not in (CacheFileState.GENERATING, CacheFileState.EXISTS):
+            self.schedule_generation(file, force=force)
+
+    def schedule_generation(self, file, force=False):
+        # overwrite this to have the file generated in the background,
+        # e. g. in a worker queue.
+        raise NotImplementedError
+
+
+try:
+    from celery import task
+except ImportError:
+    pass
+else:
+    _celery_task = task(ignore_result=True)(_generate_file)
+
+
+class Celery(BaseAsync):
+    """
+    A backend that uses Celery to generate the images.
+    """
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        try:
+            import celery
+        except ImportError:
+            raise ImproperlyConfigured('You must install celery to use'
+                                       ' imagekit.cachefiles.backends.Celery.')
+        super(Celery, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def schedule_generation(self, file, force=False):
+        _celery_task.delay(self, file, force=force)
+
+
+Async = Celery  # backwards compatibility
+
+
+try:
+    import django_rq
+except ImportError:
+    pass
+
+
+class RQ(BaseAsync):
+    """
+    A backend that uses RQ to generate the images.
+    """
+    queue_name = 'default'
+
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        try:
+            import django_rq
+        except ImportError:
+            raise ImproperlyConfigured('You must install django_rq to use'
+                                       ' imagekit.cachefiles.backends.RQ.')
+        super(RQ, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def get_queue(self):
+        # not caching property to avoid "can't pickle instancemethod objects",
+        # see https://github.com/nvie/rq/issues/189
+        return django_rq.get_queue(self.queue_name)
+
+    def schedule_generation(self, file, force=False):
+        self.get_queue().enqueue(_generate_file, args=(self, file),
+                                 kwargs=dict(force=force), result_ttl=0)
diff --git a/imagekit/pkgmeta.py b/imagekit/pkgmeta.py
index c530bc2..caeb043 100644
--- a/imagekit/pkgmeta.py
+++ b/imagekit/pkgmeta.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 __title__ = 'django-imagekit'
-__author__ = 'Justin Driscoll, Bryan Veloso, Greg Newman, Chris Drackett, Matthew Tretter, Eric Eldredge'
-__version__ = '3.0.4'
+__author__ = 'Matthew Tretter, Eric Eldredge, Bryan Veloso, Greg Newman, Chris Drackett, Justin Driscoll'
+__version__ = '3.1'
 __license__ = 'BSD'
 __all__ = ['__title__', '__author__', '__version__', '__license__']