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
confront dynamic relationship slightly though
The relationship you have with your mother is like nothing else. They do kind of know everything about you, even though they don't confront it. That is often a dynamic from childhood onwards. As a teenager, you want to be independent and do slightly furtive things.
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.
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.
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.
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.
allow books excuse love novels period time watching
I love research. Sometimes I think writing novels is just an excuse to allow myself this leisurely time of getting to know a period and reading its books and watching its films. I see it as a real treat.
great love
I love film and, particularly, shorts. You don't get to see them often, and they're a great little form, like a short story.
stories
I'm interested in stories that aren't getting told: it's where my interests lie.
novelist
I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.
dramas overlap plot relatively sort
I like dramas because there's a big overlap between film and fiction, so I feel relatively qualified to talk about plot and characterisation and that sort of thing.
fonder paying
I've ended up feeling fonder of 'The Paying Guests' than of any of my other novels.
felt freedom great wealthy
It was a great childhood. We weren't especially wealthy or anything, but I felt I had a kind of safety and freedom.