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Great LezBritain: Sarah Waters talks inspiration, adaptations at World Book Night

Great LezBritain is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.

Some books are more than just books. Some reveal such vivid, involving worlds that it’s impossible to leave them behind. You become so wrapped up in the characters that their experiences become entangled in your own and their words become a part of your own vocabulary.

Sarah WatersTipping The Velvet is such a book. In all honesty, there is barely a day that goes by without one of us calling the other “An exquisite little tart.” To say we love Tipping The Velvet is silly – it is quite simply the pulpy love of our lives. And although we’ve had affairs along the way – quite passionate, filthy ones with Waters’ other novels Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger it must be said – our true heart’s desire will always be the story of Nancy Astley, the oyster girl.

So we’re still amazed that when Sarah Waters agreed to meet us for a chat at Aye Write, Glasgow’s book festival, we managed to restrain ourselves from dressing up like soldier boys and greeting her with the words “Tommy Atkins at your service,” and talk to her quite calmly about World Book Night, the new TV adaptation of The Night Watch and most excitingly yet another new lease on life for Tipping The Velvet.

AfterEllen.com: You’re here for World Book Night to read from Fingersmith which is one of the selected novels. Why did you want to take part in this initiative?

Sarah Waters: To be honest it wasn’t really a choice. The first I knew about it was from my publisher who called to say Fingersmith had been chosen as one of the 25 books that would be given away as part of World Book Night.

But it’s a great idea, quite a mind-boggling idea to give away a million free books. In London there was a huge event at Trafalgar Square and around 5000 people came and stood in the cold listening to people read. So it’s felt like a real celebration of books, and of reading, and it is lovely to be part of that.

AE: Fingersmith is not only the book that was picked for World Book Night, it’s also the book that crossed you over into the mainstream from being seen as a celebrated “lesbian writer” to just “celebrated writer” – would you agree?

SW: Yes, it came out in 2002 just at the time Tipping The Velvet was on telly and suddenly I was much better known as a writer. And it is a book that seems to appeal to lots of different kinds of people and when they like it they just seem to really, really like it. It’s a book that really enjoys storytelling.

AE: The Night Watch has been adapted by the BBC for television and The Little Stranger is being made into a film, which means that every one of your books has made it onto our screens. How does that feel? Would you be disappointed if the next book wasn’t adapted?

SW:It is amazing really, but I never write with that in mind. I mean, with something like The Night Watch, when I was writing it, I thought no one would ever want to adapt it because it is quite miserable in a way, quite gloomy …

AE: I’ve only read it once so far because it broke my heart.

SW:Yeah, it’s a very sad book and the structure is backward and so I just thought no one would want to do it, and the fact they have is just delightful. It’s great, if only in that, each adaptation brings new readers to the books, gives each of them a bit of extra new life.

AE: How involved are you with the casting or on set?

SW: Not at all, but that’s fine, that’s what you want, to just hand it over and to let them get on with it. I’m included in the process in the sense that I meet the director and I meet the scriptwriter and I see drafts of the script and I do get the opportunity to hive some feedback then. But once it starts I’m just an observer, so it’s exciting to see the finished film for me too.

AE: Do you ever feel a bit frustrated when you see it, like “I wouldn’t have done it like that” or “That’s not how I saw it”?

SW:Sometimes. But you have to let it go because it’s not your book anymore. My book is there, that’s the thing. It doesn’t change the book, it’s just this extra thing that is closely related to mine, but it’s someone else’s project.

AE: In Tipping The Velvet the book, no one could really want Nan to go back to Kitty, but then in the TV adaptation, we disagreed over it and Sarah did want that. What were your thoughts about how that was played out slightly different in the TV adaptation?

SW: I think that has a lot to do with how charming Keeley is. Also in that first part of the adaptation there is a lot of colour and really you know it’s the most exciting time of Nancy’s life. But I really liked Jodhi May as Florence and I never for a minute would have liked Nancy and Kitty to get back together. I always wanted her to be with Flo who was proud to be a lesbian. Kitty is always going to be in the closet.

AE: Poor kitty

SW:Yeah, poor Kitty.

AE: Since the adaptations, do you visualise the stories differently during the writing process?

SW:Well I think I write very visually anyway. I’m part of that generation that grew up watching lots of telly and I think I see a scene before I write it, so I always have a strong sense of the visual of a scene. Although, not always of characters funnily enough. They do exist very strongly for me, but sometimes more as a presence – especially the narrator. So sometimes when I see the characters in the adaptation, I get a real surprise. Rachael Stirling, for example, I thought was wonderful, but she wasn’t as I had imagined Nancy to be. But you very quickly just get used to that and they just become like “other Nancy.”

AE: When you were writing Tipping The Velvet did you doubt that it would ever breakthrough because it is such a lesbian story?

SW: I never thought it would reach beyond the lesbian community but that didn’t bother me at all because that’s what I was aspiring to do. I was so used to reading things published mainly by lesbian or gay press that I just hoped it would appeal to lesbian readers and wasn’t looking beyond that.

So once the idea was raised for it to be made into a mainstream TV show, I just didn’t believe it, I thought it was a great idea but would never happen. And then when it did, it was part of a real “moment.” A moment when things just started opening up in British culture, a relaxation around gayness. It was just the right time.

AE: On that note, we feel like it is the right time for Tipping The Velvet to be made into a stage musical – any chance of that happening?

SW:Well, there is a chance that could happen but I don’t know if I can actually say.

AE: Really? I’ve been saying this for years; I can’t believe it might happen? I thought it was my idea.

SW:There are some tentative plans for it to happen.

AE: Has it been cast? Because we know all of the dialogue. [All laugh]

AE: Isn’t it funny that not long ago lesbian content was considered controversial, but in fact your most controversial book was The Little Stranger because there was no lesbian content in it?

SW: I guess that’s a sign of progress somehow. [Laughs]

AE: Some of your lesbian readers felt a bit bereft by the fact there were no lesbians in the book. How did that criticism make you feel?

SW: They did a bit. I think they felt I was turning my back on them which is not the case at all. It was funny that, but I did suspect there may be a bit of that when I was writing it, if only because I’ve become so known for being a lesbian novelist. But I still wanted to write the book. My books are not just about sexuality, they’re about more than that and, you know there are some little queer things in there.

The book I’m writing now has got lesbian characters, but in the future I can’t say. You’ve got to go where the book takes you.

AE: I guess in The Little Stranger, the story was the story and it would have been odd for you to insert a lesbian that had nothing to do with the plot for the sake of it?

SW:Yes I didn’t want to do that. I do feel a loyalty to my lesbian readers but I also feel a loyalty to my stories.

AE: Can you tell us more about the next book?

SW:I’ve been working on it for a year but it still feels relatively early days and I think it will still be another year or two before it is finished. But it’s set in London in the 1920s and it’s a kind of lesbian affair; I don’t really know what else to say right now.

AE: You’ve got to say more than that

SW:[Laughs] No, I can’t. That’s really all I can say

AE: What sort of interaction do you have with your readers? Do you get a lot of letters telling you that your books have had an impact on their lives?

SW: I do get regular emails, not tons and tons, but i do get a few. And actually not just from lesbians, but also from men, straight women – a real mix really. But I do feel very connected to my lesbian fans when they write because their emails do have an extra emotional element. Sometimes I hear from young women, or just women who’ve read Tipping The Velvet and it’s helped them come out. Sometimes it is just really lovely and poignant.

AE: When I came out someone bought me Tipping The Velvet and said “Here you go, welcome.” And I definitely feel that it is still more than just a book for me, it’s bigger than its pages and the characters kind of go with me through my life, if that makes sense? When you were growing up was there a book like that for you?

SW:There are books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that had a huge impact on me when I was a teenager. But certainly, when I was a young lesbian, reading was a really big part of coming out, not the actual process, more just getting to know my community and what it means to be gay. I found it really exciting and there were a lot of independent gay and feminist press about then, like Pandora, Women’s Press, Only women – most of which are sadly gone now. There was a lot of fiction around, most of it American, some of it brilliant, but a lot of it awful really, sort of romance pulp, but it was just important that it was there. It really made me feel part of something. I could never have written any of my books without that grounding in a sort of literature that was very relaxed about lesbianism, it gave me a confidence.

Then Jeanette Winterson also had a big impact on me because she felt like a really literary writer writing lesbian stories and that felt like a very new and exciting thing.

AE: What are you reading at the moment?

SW: I’m reading lots of Muriel Spark. I’m reading all of her books in chronological order and she’s just fantastic, I’m nearly half way through. I just read Emma Donoghue‘s new novel, Room, and I absolutely loved it. It’s not at all lesbian is it? It’s a real feat that book, I think.

The BBC’s adaptation of The Night Watch will premiere with a special screening at the London BFI on Monday, April 4. Adapted by award-winning British writer Paula Milne and directed by Richard Laxton, the 90-minute adaptation starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Claire Foy, Jodie Whittaker and Harry Treadaway. We’ll be bringing you interviews with the cast and more news soon.

“Great LezBritain” authors Sarah, a Londoner, and Lee, a Glaswegian, met in a gay discotheque one bleak mid winter, eight years ago and have been shacked up together ever since. When not watching Tipping The Velvet, they find time to write, run a PR company, DJ at their own club nights and love a bit of jam on toast. Follow them on Twitter at greatlezbritain.

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