Author Bio
• Birth—July 21, 1966
• Where—Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
• Education—B.A., University of Kent; M.A., Lancaster University; Ph.D., University of London
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Sarah Waters grew up in Wales 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.”
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.
After Milford Haven Grammar School, Waters attended university, and earned degrees in English literature. She received a BA from the University of Kent, an MA from Lancaster University, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. The work for her PhD dissertation, ('Wolfskins and togas : lesbian and gay historical fictions, 1870 to the present' i(available as a free download from the British Library's ETHOS service) served as inspiration and material for future books. As part of her research, she read 19th-century pornography, in which she came across the title of her first book, Tipping the Velvet.
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.
Writing
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."
Waters' novels include: Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), Fingersmith (2002), The Night Watch (2006), The Little Stranger (2009), and The Paying Guests (2014).
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. She has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times and Orange Prize twice. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)