Archaeologist turned author Gail Carriger is a lover of all things quaint and eccentric; her steampunk opus, The Finishing School series, is a marvelous extension of her bestselling Parasol Protectorate universe. Here she shares some of her secrets, confessions and outlandish observations…
YOUNG ADULT: What made you decide to start writing?
Gail Carriger: A healthy does of insanity mixed with a reckless disregard for my own survival topped with ingrained escapist tendencies.
YA: Describe the path from archaeologist to author.
GC: I always wanted to be an archaeologist, writing was rather more like breathing, just something I did. It was only with Soulless that I realized I might actually have a career as a writer. I still haven’t recovered from the shock.
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is original about Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School)? How is it different from your bestselling Parasol Protectorate series?
GC: The Finishing School series is set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, only 25 years earlier. Apart from that, a lot is different from the adult series. Etiquette & Espionage features a lady’s seminary located in a giant caterpillar-like dirigible floating over Dartmoor in which young ladies are taught to . . . finish . . . everything . . . and everyone . . . as needed. The steampunk is more etiquette governed. The espionage is far more well-dressed. And a great deal of the food is fake or poisoned. Also, there is a flying mechanical sausage dog named Bumbersnoot.
YA: Can you describe the path to getting this work published? What were the challenges? What was easy about it?
GC: My editor knew I loved YA literature, was a fan of the Soulless books, and approached me to see if I would be interested in doing a YA series. I jumped at the chance. Things moved pretty quickly after that.
From the Book:
YA: What were your specific influences for this book? Films, literature, other stories?
GC: I reread a few classic girl’s boarding school books, like The Little Princess. I also watched Mean Girls and researched girls bullying girls online. I went back and looked at the original St. Trinians, but in the end they weren’t all that useful. I re-watched a guilty pleasure movie, DEBS. But I take more influence from funny books like PG Wodehouse. This series was a little like imagining the Drone’s club, with girls instead of men, at a school for spies. Oh, the chaos.
YA: If you could cast the Dream Film Adaptation of your work, who would you cast?
GC: I tend to prefer unknown British character actresses, so I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. I also believe that when a book switches media it’s another person’s vision that should govern the adaptation, otherwise the result is not cohesive.
YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career have perhaps taken?
GC: I’d probably be teaching a collection of ungrateful undergrads and skittering off to Peru to analyze pottery at the slightest opportunity.
“Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother’s existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea–and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.
But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right–but it’s a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine’s certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.
First in a four book YA series set 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate but in the same universe.”
Gail is on Facebook & Twitter.
Her writing blog is on Blogspot & Livejournal and shadows to her Website.
She also has a fashion blog ~ Retro Rack.
The best place to talk all things Parasol Protectorate is on its Facebook Group.