Waters
was a "completely tomboyish child", but "got into" femininity in her
teenage years. She had always been attracted to boys, and it was not
until university that she first fell in love with a woman.

Sarah Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a British novelist. She is best
known for her novels set in Victorian society, such as Tipping the
Velvet and Fingersmith.

This is the sixty fourth post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

Personal life
Childhood
Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1966.
She grew up in a family that included her father Ron, mother Mary, and
sister. Her mother was a housewife and her father an engineer who worked
on oil refineries.She describes her family as "pretty idyllic, very
safe and nurturing." Her father, "a fantastically creative person,"
encouraged her to build and invent.
Waters said, "When I picture myself as a child, I see myself
constructing something, out of plasticine or papier-mâché or Meccano; I
used to enjoy writing poems and stories, too." She wrote stories and
poems that she describes as "dreadful gothic pastiches," but had not
planned her career.
“    I don’t know if I thought about it much, really. I know that, for a
long time, I wanted to be an archaeologist – like lots of kids. And I
think I knew I was headed for university, even though no one else in my
family had been. I was always bright at school, and really enjoyed
learning. I remember my mother telling me that I might one day go to
university and write a thesis, and explaining what a thesis was; and it
seemed a very exciting prospect. I was clearly a bit of a nerd.    ”

Daily life
Waters
lives in a top-floor Victorian flat in Kennington, south-west London.
The rooms, which have very high ceilings, used to be servant
quarters.Waters lives with her two cats.

Career
Before
writing novels, Waters worked as an academic, earning a doctorate and
teaching.Waters went directly from her doctoral thesis to her first
novel. It was during the process of writing her thesis that she thought
she would write a novel; she began as soon as the thesis was complete.
Her work is very research-intensive, which is an aspect she
enjoys.Waters was a member of the long-running London North Writers
circle, whose members have included the novelists Charles Palliser and
Neil Blackmore, among others.

With
the exception of her most recent book, The Little Stranger, all of her
books contain lesbian themes, and she does not mind being labeled a
lesbian writer. She said, "I'm writing with a clear lesbian agenda in
the novels. It's right there at the heart of the books." She calls it
"incidental," because of her own sexual orientation. "That's how it is
in my life, and that's how it is, really, for most lesbian and gay
people, isn't it? It's sort of just there in your life."
Tipping the Velvet (1998)

Main article: Tipping the Velvet
Her
debut work was the Victorian picaresque Tipping the Velvet, published
by Virago in 1998. The novel took 18 months to write. The book takes its
title from Victorian slang for cunnilingus. Waters describes the novel
as a "very upbeat [...] kind of a romp."
It won a 1999 Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.
In
2002, the novel was adapted into a three-part television serial of the
same name for BBC Two. It has been translated into at least 24
languages, including Chinese, Latvian, Hungarian, Korean and Slovenian
Affinity (1999)
Main article: Affinity (novel)
Waters's
second book, Affinity was published a year after her first, in 1999.
The novel, also set in the Victorian era, centres on the world of
Victorian Spiritualism. While finishing her debut novel, Waters had been
working on an academic paper on spiritualism. She combined her
interests in spiritualism, prisons, and the Victorian era in Affinity,
which tells the story of the relationship between an upper middle-class
woman and an imprisoned spiritualist.
The novel is less light-hearted
than the ones that preceded and followed it. Waters found it less
enjoyable to write."It was a very gloomy world to have to go into every
day," she said.
Affinity won the Stonewall Book Award and Somerset
Maugham Award. Andrew Davies wrote a screenplay adapting Affinity and
the resulting feature film premiered 19 June 2008 at the opening night
of Frameline the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival at the Castro Theater.
Fingersmith (2002)
Main article: Fingersmith (novel)
Fingersmith was published in 2002. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize.
Fingersmith
was made into a serial for BBC One in 2005, starring Sally Hawkins,
Elaine Cassidy and Imelda Staunton. Waters approved of the adaptation,
calling it "especially a really good quality show," and said it was
"very faithful to the book. It was spookily faithful to the book at
times, which was exciting."
The Night Watch (2006)
Main article: The Night Watch (Waters novel)
The
Night Watch took four years for Waters to write. It differs from the
first three novels in its time period and the way it was written.
Although her thesis and previous books focused on the 19th century,
Waters said that "Something about the 1940s called to me."It was also
less tightly plotted than her other books. Waters said,
“    I had
more or less to figure the book out as I went along – a very
time-consuming and unnerving experience for me, as I tried out scenes
and chapters in lots of different ways. I ended up with a pile of
rejected scenes about three feet high. It was satisfying in the end,
realising just what should go where; but a lot of the time it felt like a
wrestling match.    ”


In 2005, Waters received the highest
bid (£1,000) during a charity auction in which the prize was the
opportunity to have the winner's name immortalized in The Night Watch.
The auction featured many notable British novelists, and the name of the
bidder, author Martina Cole, appeared in Waters' novel.
] The Little Stranger (2009)
Main article: The Little Stranger
Also
set in the 1940s, The Little Stranger also diverts from Waters'
previous novels. It is her first with no overtly lesbian characters.
Initially, Waters set out to write a book about the economic changes
brought by socialism in postwar Britain, and reviewers note the
connection with Evelyn Waugh.[ Along the novel's construction, it turned
into a ghost story in the style of Edgar Allan Poe as the story
explores the relationship of a family who owns a grand estate that they
can no longer afford to keep, with their family doctor whose mother was
once a maid in the house. Waters' grandparents were servants in a
country house.
Bibliography
Tipping the Velvet, 1998
Affinity, 1999
Fingersmith, 2002
The Night Watch, 2006
The Little Stranger, 2009
Adaptations
Tipping the Velvet (2002), BBC Two
Fingersmith (2005), BBC One
Affinity (2008 film)
Sarah Waters appeared briefly in both Tipping the Velvet, as an audience member, and Fingersmith, as a maid.[16]
[edit] Awards
Sarah
Waters was named as one of Granta's 20 Best of Young British Writers in
January 2003. The same year, she received the South Bank Award for
Literature. She was named Author of the Year at the 2003 British Book
Awards. In both 2006 and 2009 she won "Writer of the Year" at the annual
Stonewall Awards. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature in 2009.
Each of her novels has received awards as well.
Tipping the Velvet
Betty Trask Award, 1999
Library Journal's Best Book of the Year, 1999
Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, 1999
New York Times Notable Book of the Year Award, 1999
Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction (shortlist), 2000
Lambda Literary Award for Fiction, 2000
Affinity
Stonewall Book Award (American Library Association GLBT Roundtable Book Award), 2000
Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year Award (shortlist), 2000
Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction, 2000
Lambda Literary Award for Fiction (shortlist), 2000
Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (shortlist), 2000
Somerset Maugham Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction, 2000
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, 2000
Fingersmith
British Book Awards Author of the Year, 2002
Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, 2002
Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist), 2002
Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist), 2002
The Night Watch
Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist), 2006
Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist), 2006
Lambda Literary Award, 2007
The Little Stranger
Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist), 2009[18]