New York Times bestselling author and ex-archaeologist Gail (G.L.) Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in higher learning, a fondness for cephalopods, and a chronic tea habit. She then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag.
Miss Gail’s novels have been published in dozens of languages and have made the New York Times, USA Today, and Locus Bestseller lists multiple times. With over two million books in print, her NYT listings include Mass Market, Hardcover, eBook, Combined Print & eBook, Young Adult, Children’s Series, and #1 in Manga. They have garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and Romantic Times. She has received the Prix Julia Verlanger, the Elbakin Award, the Steampunk Chronicle‘s Reader’s Choice Award, and a Starburner Award.
Her debut novel, Soulless, won the ALA’s Alex Award and was nominated for a Compton Crook and Locus Award, and the Prix des Imaginales. It made Audible.com’s Best List, and was a Publishers Weekly Best Book, IndieBound Notable, Locus Recommended Read, and a Finalist for the 2009 PEARL Award. Gail is still trying to recover from the shock.
Gail’s wildly popular steampunk Parasolverse contains multiple series. The Parasol Protectorate features a proper Victorian spinster who has no soul. It has been turned into a graphic novel and optioned multiple times. Her YA Finishing School series follows a young lady secretly recruited to an all-girls school for spies. Her Delightfully Deadly novellas follow these young ladies grown up. In the Custard Protocol a crack (or possibly cracked) dirigible crew get into trouble around the globe on behalf of friends, family, and tea. The Supernatural Society novellas follow popular LBGTQ+ side characters from her Parasolverse as they strike out on their own. And the Claw & Courtship novellas feature werewolves caught up in Jane Austen-style shenanigans.
As G.L. Carriger, she writes the San Andreas Shifter books depicting a whimsical San Francisco full of adorable queer shapeshifters and adopted pack.
Carriger also has a sci-fi universe, the Tinkered Stars, in which she has written a cozy mystery on a space station, The 5th Gender, a Heinlein-style space adventure first contact story, Crudrat, and a space opera trilogy, Tinkered Starsong, about a barista who is recruited to become an entertainment god… no, literally. These books explore coming of age in an advanced future full of cute and troublesome aliens, less cute alien worlds, and fascinating cultures. But the themes stick close to home and the human condition, including the ramifications of exile and isolation and the importance of found family.
She has also written nonfiction, The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture.
You can find Gail through her agent, Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency or via her website gailcarriger.com. She has a ridiculously silly newsletter, The Monthly Chirrup and a fun podcast about travel, 20 Minute Delay.