Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters
Sarah Watersis a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 July 1966
budding childhood encouraged freedom great time writer
I was encouraged to be imaginative and read, and it was a great childhood for a budding writer because I had the time and the freedom to go into a world of my own.
council
My story is the story of many postwar British families. Upward mobility. A council house and then new affluence.
nursery people work
My nan was a nursery maid. Most people weren't in big houses. They were maids of all work.
family grammar
My parents were the first in our family to go to grammar school. My grandparents were in service.
goes novel perhaps
When theatre works, it's like nothing else, and when it doesn't, which is often, it's excruciating. It's perhaps not so excruciating when a novel goes wrong, but there is a kind of magic that can and should happen.
local shows usher
I was mad about the theatre growing up, really mad. We had a local theatre, the Torch, and I used to usher there. I would see the shows over and over again.
lots toward waist
The early '20s were like the waist of an hourglass. Lots of things were hurtling toward it and squeezing through it and then hurtling out the other side.
war book character
I've just finished a series of Olivia Manning novels. She's best known for two trilogies: Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy. The six novels are continuous and contain the same set of characters. They are based on Manning's experiences in Eastern Europe and Egypt during the Second World War. Each novel is a wonderful picture of the peculiar British expatriate culture and what was happening during the war. She's one of those brilliant women who write very well about domestic relationships. All the books are slim, and it's easy to gallop through them.
writing mad trying
Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.
wall mind victorian
I wouldnt mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours.
writing i-can can-do
All I can do is write about whatever grabs me.
hate sky flying
I used to hate flying. I would sit there, rigid, convinced that if I relaxed, the plane would drop out of the sky.
reading world paper
I've given up reading the papers. Since the world's so obviously bent on killing itself, I decided months ago to sit back and let it.
heart coins meter
Your heart-as you call it-and hers are alike, after all: they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in.