Gail Carriger introduced readers to her alternate Victorian London — chock-full of steampunk technology and supernatural characters — in 2009 with Soulless, the first volume of her five-book adult series The Parasol Protectorate. The Finishing School series, a YA prequel series set in the same world, soon followed, beginning with Curtsies & Conspiracies. Espionage lessons, a dirigible boarding school, a girl inventor, vampires and werewolves, witty banter: what more could a steampunk fantasy fan ask for? Gail is currently working on another companion YA series, The Custard Protocol, which will kick off with Prudence in spring 2015.

My beloved local Brookline Public Library (hi Robin!) hosted Gail on November 10th for a lovely evening tea party — cucumber sandwiches and all! — and Q&A event to celebrate the release of Waistcoats & Weaponry, the third book in the Finishing School series. I spoke with her over tea just before the event. In addition to being a prolific and (ahem) fantastic author, Gail is also an archaeologist by training, Elissa's college roomie (Oberlin represent!), and a lady of impeccable style — she told me she had a different Waistcoats & Weaponry–cover coordinated ensemble for each stop on the book tour.

The Parasol Protectorate books are adult books and The Finishing School series is YA — although there's been a lot of crossover, with the YA books being read by adults and the adult books being read by teens. Have you found that there are things you can do in adult books that you can't do in YA, or vice versa?

For me, YA has to be — and this is what I like about it — it has to be very clean and sharp. As a writer, it requires me to do a lot more editing because it needs to be very sparse. You don't sacrifice details, but you sacrifice a certain amount of waffling. In adult books you're allowed to put in extra little bits and distract the readers with pretty description for a while. In young adult, you just can't do that. You have to be very structured and paced. Pacing is always really important to me, but I think in YA it's even more important. That's one of the biggest differences. And I allow myself to be a little more racy when I'm writing the adult stuff.

Your Finishing School protagonist Sophoronia Temminnick has quite the name. Do you have other favorite Victorian-era names that you've come across in your research (or that you've come up with yourself)?

I tend to use them if I come across them. I love the name "Euphrenia"; I don't know if I've leaked it into the books yet, but it's one of my favorite ultra-Victorian names. I really like first names that are traditionally Victorian but are not used anymore. That's one of the reasons I chose "Sophronia." It's still a pretty name, and sort of like "Sophia," but just old-fashioned enough for you to know immediately, the minute that you read her name, that she's not of our time. "Dimity" was another actual name from the time period. Alexia [from the Parasol Protectorate books] only got named "Alexia" because she was one of those characters that announced herself as being named that. Sometimes characters just enter your head and they're like, "This is my name!" "Soap" is one of those as well. "Pillover" is another one — it's not a real name; I just made that one up completely. But "Sophronia" and "Dimity" I picked.

Is there a mythological creature that you've been wanting to introduce into this world that you haven't gotten to yet?

I'm pretty strict with myself with world-building. I'm sticking to motifs of vampires, shape-shifters, and ghosts, probably because almost every ancient culture has some version of them, like the kitsune in Japan. But I excavated in Peru for a while and there is a legend in the Peruvian highlands of a creature called a pishtaco (which is fantastically ridiculous-sounding, first of all). It's essentially a fat-sucking vampire rather than a blood-sucking vampire — which is comedy gold. I'm dying to get [Custard Protocol protagonist] Prudence to the New World at some point so that she can meet one of these creatures and I can write all about them.



Are we going to see more mechanimals like Bumbersnoot in the Finishing School books? (Or do you say "mech-animals"?)

I say "mechanimals," like "mechanicals" but with an "animal" at the end. You will see more of them, but you're not going to see a named little friend like Bumbersnoot. There's quite a few in the last book but that's all I'm going to say.

If you were going to have a mechanimal pet yourself, what kind of animal would you pick?

Probably something like a hedgehog. I would like a round, roly-poly, friendly sort of critter. I have a very demanding cat who's svelte and overdramatic, so I think I'd like a calm, rodentia-style, chubby little creature. Something in the porcupine, hedgehog arena. The cat would probably be very upset with it.

What would your dream teatime guest list and menu look like?

Oh, goodness. Do I get to pick fantastic characters? Or historical people?

Sure. Living, dead, fictional — anyone you want.

There's part of me that has to be true to my archaeological roots and pick Nefertiti, Hatshepsut, Boadicea… I'm attracted to super-powerful female historical figures, the queens and mistresses, so I'd probably concoct a party that was all these fantastic women from history. The problem, of course, would be interpretation, but it's my fantasy so everyone would speak English. I'm an adventurous eater, and I'd like to cater to the guests, so I'd have foods from all of the different places and times they came from. One of my favorite things is cooking ancient food, sourcing the ingredients and re-creating it myself. I think if you can taste the flavor of the past, you can get a better impression of it. I'd try to do that so everybody got to try everybody else's dishes.

What's your specialty, your pet era as an archaeologist?

I'm not an era specialist; I'm a materials specialist. My focus was on ceramics. To this day I have a propensity to pick up a piece of pottery and flip it over to look at the back side — which can be terribly embarrassing if I've forgotten that there's food on the front side — to look for the maker's mark.



Are there other historical eras that you'd like to write about?

The series I'm writing now [The Custard Protocol] is set in the 1890s, which is basically the dawn of female emancipation. Mostly because of trousers — women gained a great deal of autonomy due to education and to the bicycle. The two combined started the New Woman movement, these educated young ladies with self-motivation and autonomy. I'm excited to move closer to the turn of the twentieth century and to have a bit more realism behind my super-strong female characters, because they're not quite realistic to their time. There's certainly other time periods I'd love to write in. I'd love to set an ancient story in some of the places I've visited.

What would be the most useful gadget for a Finishing School student to have on her person in the case of an espionage emergency? (This is a very difficultly worded question!)

It sounds like something I've written! The voice-acting talent [for my audiobooks] is always calling and complaining because I love tongue-twisters. I don't even realize I've written them until somebody's like, "Why did you write that?!" "I didn't think about you guys reading it out loud."

"Handiest gadget?" is the short version!

I love Sophronia's fan, but I think it's really handy for her. She becomes comfortable with it and adapts to it, but it's not necessarily something that would be useful for everybody. In the final book, the chatelaine really comes to the fore. The girls keep going to balls, and they keep having to have chatelaines on them. A chatelaine is like the base for a Swiss Army Knife; it hangs off your belt and there's a bunch of little chains and clips so you can hang multiple little things off it. Customarily you'd have a bit of perfume and a dance card, maybe keys or a little sewing kit. But of course Geraldine's girls have a whole different set of things dangling! I love the idea that you could just attach something that has everything useful hanging off of it. Why can't we still do that?

More fabulous photos at the Brookline Public Library Teen Room Tumblr.