Sarah said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be receiving an Honorary Fellowship from Queen Mary. I have many happy memories of my time as a postgraduate student at the university, and the academic work I did there was very much the starting-point of my career as a novelist. This award therefore feels very special to me. It's a huge treat and honour.”

Sarah Waters studied English Literature at the Universities of Kent and Lancaster and received her PhD from Queen Mary with a thesis titled Wolfskins and Togas: Lesbian and Gay Historical Fictions, 1870 to the present.

Read the full story on the Queen Mary University website.

The Freedom of the City is an important traditional event in London’s history that can trace its roots to the 13th century, and it is typically presented to individuals associated with London who have made a significant impact in their field of work.

A number of ancient privileges are associated with the Freedom – although they are more a product of collective memory than of documented evidence. They include the right to herd sheep over London bridge, to go about the City with a drawn sword, and if convicted of a capital offence, to be hung with a silken rope.

The book is called Vieras kartanossa in Finnish. It was published by Tammi Publishers and translated by Helene Bützow.

With only 90 minutes of screen time to portray a 480 page book, it was always going to be a tough job. But with an incredible cast, spectacular cinematography and an adapted screenplay by Paula Milne, the result was mesmerising, with Anna Maxwell Martin, Jodie Whittaker and Claire Foy all delivering memorable performances.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, and ending back at the beginning in 1941, The Night Watch offered tantalising glimpses of clandestine worlds. And clearly, we weren’t the only ones that were impressed. The Night Watch received an array of incredible responses, some of which are below:

"Insanely tender… Maxwell Martin plays [Kay] brilliantly. Every performance was perfectly weighted – and it looked ravishing”  The Times

“Fans of Sarah Waters’ novel will not be disappointed by this beautifully shot adaptation by Paula Milne” Observer 

“An intriguing, atmospheric tale of forbidden love”  Daily Mail    

“Absorbing” The Telegraph

“Gorgeous adaptation of the Sarah Waters novel… the performances are involving and beautifully understated against the backdrop of the London blitz and its horrors” Guardian

“The cast is strong and its portrayal of 1940s sexual nonconformists as spy-like is vividly intact”  Sunday Times, Pick of the Week

Starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Jodie Whittaker, Claire Foy and Harry Treadaway, the 90-minute adaptation is already shaping up to be one of the TV events of the year. There has already been a huge amount of coverage, including this set report from the Telegraph which features interviews with Sarah and some of the cast.

Hilary Salmon, Executive Producer, said: "We are very proud to be making this ambitious film for BBC Two, bringing to our audience the untold stories of ordinary people as they struggle to find love and tenderness during the uncertain nights of the London Blitz. Paula's beautiful script has vividly brought to life Sarah Waters' astonishing and revelatory novel. We are delighted with the outstanding cast we've assembled who represent some of the best young talent in the UK today."

The supporting cast includes: Julia Standing played by Anna Wilson-Jones (Hotel Babylon), Reggie played by Liam Garrigan (Holby City), Nancy played by Claudie Blakley (Lark Rise To Candleford) and Mr Mundy played by Kenneth Cranham (Tess Of The D'Urbervilles.)

The TV tie-in edition is out now.

Starring Jodie Whittaker, Claire Foy and Anna Maxwell Martin, the series is already generating a huge amount of coverage with interviews with the cast confirmed in Time Out, The Daily Mail, Express on Saturday, The Observer, Independent on Saturday, The Sun, The Mirror and almost all weekly TV listings magazines. Sarah herself will be interviewed by The Telegraph as well as writing a piece for the Radio Times.

The tie-in edition to the series is out now.

As part of the festival programme, there will be a screening of the BBC TV adaptation of Tipping the Velvet on 1st June at 8.30pm which Sarah will be introducing , as well as taking part in a Q&A session afterwards.

And she will be doing the same for a screening of Fingersmith the following night, 2nd June also at 8.30pm.

For more information see here: www.outview.gr.

The 20,000 givers and members of the public took take part in events, parties and celebrations across the UK and Ireland, with many libraries and bookshops extending their opening times.

One of the book's being given away was Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, and Sarah was at the launch event at Trafalgar Square, where book lovers gatherered in their thousands to listen many of the authors on the list read aloud from their work and those of other writers.

 A long list of high-profile figures from publishing, media and the arts leant their support to this ambitious initiative by becoming Patrons of World Book Night including Damon Albarn, Dave Eggers, Colin Firth, David Gilmour, Antony Gormley, Seamus Heaney, Damien Hirst, Nigella Lawson, Mary Portas, J.K. Rowling and Tilda Swinton.

World Book Night  encourages givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

20,000 passionate book lovers will give away 1,000,000 books on the inaugural World Book Night.

The countdown begins. World Book Night will take place on Saturday 5 March 2011 and will be broadcast in partnership with BBC Two. This dynamic and unprecedented industry-wide initiative to celebrate adult books and reading will see one million free books given away on World Book Night by 20,000 passionate readers to other members of the public across the UK and Ireland. World Book Night will take place two days after World Book Day, the established nationwide reading campaign.

From 2 December 2010, members of the public are invited to apply to be one of the 20,000 givers of 48 copies of their favourite book chosen from a carefully selected list of 25 titles. Most givers are expected to be passionate readers who will take pleasure in recommending a book they love to other readers. However, World Book Night will also encourage givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

The 25 titles selected for the inaugural World Book Night are:

• Kate Atkinson – Case Histories (Black Swan)
• Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin (Virago)
• Alan Bennett – A Life Like Other People's (Faber/Profile)
• John Le Carré – The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Penguin)
• Lee Child – Killing Floor (Bantam)
• Carol Ann Duffy – The World's Wife (Picador)
• Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage)
• Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Penguin)
• Seamus Heaney – Selected Poems (Faber)
• Marian Keyes – Rachel's Holiday (Poolbeg/Penguin)
• Ben Macintyre – Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury)
• Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (Penguin)
• Yann Martel – Life of Pi (Canongate)
• Alexander Masters – Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)
• Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance (Faber)
• David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas (Sceptre)
• Toni Morrison – Beloved (Vintage)
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun (Fourth Estate)
• David Nicholls – One Day (Hachette/Hodder)
• Philip Pullman – Northern Lights (Scholastic)
• Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front (Vintage)
• C.J. Sansom – Dissolution (Pan)
• Nigel Slater – Toast (Fourth Estate)
• Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin)
• Sarah Waters – Fingersmith (Virago)

The World Book Night website www.worldbooknight.org will serve as the primary means through which members of the public can apply to be a giver. People will be asked to say in up to 100 words why they want to give away a book chosen from the list and the sort of people they would like to give it to. Information about World Book Night will also be available via libraries and bookshops across the UK and Ireland. The closing date for entries is 4 January 2011.

The 20,000 givers and members of the public will be invited to take part in events, parties and celebrations on World Book Night across the UK and Ireland, with many libraries and bookshops extending their opening times. These events are being organized with the generous support of the Booksellers Association, the Publishers Association, Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, charities and others.

BBC Two will host World Book Night from its inception on December 2 through to the event itself on 5 March. Whether as a giver, recipient or viewer, we hope that BBC audiences will be inspired to get involved with this groundbreaking project.

It is adapted by award winning British writer, Paula Milne (Small Island, Endgame, The Virgin Queen and The Politician’s Wife) and made by BBC Drama Production. The Executive Producer for the BBC is Hilary Salmon, the producer is Annie Tricklebank and the director is Richard Laxton (Accused and Hancock and Joan).

Kate Harwood, Controller of Series And Serials, said: "BBC Drama Production are very happy to be bringing this wonderful Sarah Waters' novel to the BBC following on from productions of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. This surprising, romantic and sexy novel peels away the clichés of the Blitz spirit and shows us Londoners at their most vulnerable and tender."

This news, coupled with the fact that The Little Stranger is now optioned for feature film, means that Sarah Waters is in the almost unique position of having every single one of her novels dramatised for film or television. Virago will be publishing a film tie-in edition to coincide.

'No other novel of mine has inspired such a range of responses in its audience, and that's been a fascinating experience.'

Read on for the full article at www.guardian.co.uk.

Here she is picking up the award from actress Keeley Hawes who appeared in the TV adaptation of Tipping the Velvet (click the picture for a larger version).

Sarah was voted for by readers of Glamour Magazine.

The award is voted for by readers from the city of Santiago de Compostela, and aims to promote both the joy of reading and a pro-European spirit. Any European novel is eligible, and previous winners include Ian McEwan (Atonement) and Zadie Smith (On Beauty).

The Little Stranger has been chosen as the first of one of ten books for this new programme, which begins on Sunday January 17th on More 4. The series is repeated on Channel 4 the next day.

Comedians Jo Brand and Dave Spikey, stylist Gok Wan and 'Inspector Lynley' actor Nathaniel Parker will present the ten 30-minute episodes.

Potboiler's most recent success was a film adaptation of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener, for which Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for Best Actress. Future projects include John Le Carre's The Mission Song and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun.

Gail Egan set up Potboiler Productions in 2000 and executive produced Mike Leigh's Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky. She was joined recently by producer Andrea Calderwood of Slate Films (The Last King of Scotland).

'Waters writes with a firm, confident hand, deftly building an atmosphere that begins in a still, hot summer and gradually darkens and tightens until we are as gripped by the escalating horror as the Ayres are. She is particularly good at depicting Hundreds, the dilapidated Georgian pile that dazzles … Waters' persistent picking apart of class is fascinating' – Tracy Chevalier, Observer

'By now readers must be confident of her mastery of storytelling … While at one turn, the novel looks to be a ghost story, the next it is a psychological drama … But it is also a brilliantly observed story, verging on the comedy, about Britain on the cusp of modern age … The writing is subtle and poised' – Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday

'Displaying her remarkable flair for period evocation, Waters recreates backwater Britain just after the Second World War with atmospheric immediacy … Acute and absorbing' – Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

'Waters is often described as a brilliant storyteller, and so she is. But she is also an artist compelled to experiment … Waters gives herself a sort of handicap with the dull doctor's narration. This indirectness, which in cruder hands might have led to yawning insurrection in the reader, becomes essential to the novels unsettling power' –
Claudia Fitzherbert, Daily Telegraph

'It would be unfair to reveal very much about The Little Stranger: enough to say that this reader, left along one night in her boxy Seventies ex-council house – about as unspooky a place as you can image – had to stop reading for fright. This is an effective, gripping book. Sarah Waters' ability to evoke the 1940s shows the same mastery she displaying in The Night Watch, and her descriptive powers are nearly unparalleled … Waters has sat herself down in front of a roaring fire and determined to scare the pants off her rightly devoted audience. In that she succeeds unequivocally. You'll want to sleep with the light on' – Erica Wagner, The Times

'Alongside episodes of memorable horror, class is the most interesting element of The Little Stranger … Waters stages a superb depiction of the menace of inanimate objects … Ambitious and original' – Sean O'Brien, TLS

'The horrors are brilliantly orchestrated, and rise effortlessly in scale and explicitness … Waters knows what she is about, and the novels interests are only partly in the supernatural and the ghost story … Waters has used the formal and conventional tactics of fiction – the stiffer, the better – to examine a read human situation …The fascination of The Little Stranger lies in its unnerving evocation of place and time. It is a beautiful and expert divertissement' – Philip Hensher, Spectator

'Water serves up a truly frightening scene in the deserted nursery … As I lay in bed after finishing reading it, running the various elements through my mind, a fox screamed outside my window and I nearly had a heart attack' – Suzi Feay, Literary Review

'Sarah Waters has, quite singlehandedly, at this late date, renewed the whole genre of the spooky gothic novel. Quite a feat' – David Sexton, Evening Standard

'The knowledge that something nasty is around the corner lends the narrative a compelling sense of unease. At the same time, the richness of Waters' writing ensures that the air of thickening dread is very thick indeed … Waters is a brave writer. The Little Stranger is an engrossing, hugely enjoyable read with set  pieces guaranteed to make anyone with a pulse gibber in fright' – John Preston, Sunday Telegraph

'Sarah Waters' masterly novel is a perverse hymn to decay, to the corrosive power of class resentment as well as the damage wrought by war … (Waters has) a perfect understanding of her period … She deploys the vigour and cunning one finds in Margaret Atwood's fiction, the same narrative ease and expansiveness, and the same knack of twisting the tension tighter and tighter within an individual scene … The Little Stranger operates in the queasy borderlands between the supernatural and the psychopathological, and it is territory in which Waters moves with an air of supreme ease … It is gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining … Its allusions, its implications softly gather and fold themselves into the space in the mind that the book has made for itself, falling into place with a soft hiss, a rustle like phantom silks' – Hilary Mantel, Guardian

'A spine-tingler … Waters skilfully ratchets up the suspense as events at Hundreds grow ever more highly charged – even downright chilling' – Amber Pearson, Daily Mail

'This is more than a detective and/or ghost story. It is also a study of post-war Britain … Social document; intriguing detective yarn; chilling ghost story, romance or thriller, The Little Stranger is a marvellous read on so very many levels' – Christine Dwyer Hickey, Irish Times

This is one of the most anthologised of all ghost stories, and its 'be careful what you wish for' message has become one of the clichés of the genre. (I've seen it brilliantly pastiched on The League of Gentlemen and The Simpsons.) But it made a huge impression on me when I first came across it as a child, and I still think it's pretty wonderful. Every time I re-read it, I realise how economical it is: we never see the son who, summoned up by the diabolical power of the monkey's paw, has dragged his mangled body out of its grave and back to his parents' house; we only hear his baleful knocks at their front door. But it's the anticipation that makes the moment so hair-raisingly good.

Sheridan LeFanu, 'Carmilla'

OK, this is about a vampire rather than a ghost. But for unnerving atmosphere and general queerness, this story of a beautiful revenant and her fascination with attractive teenage girls really can't be beaten. As in many early vampire stories, Carmilla gets her violent come-uppance in the end. More memorable, however, is the 'very strange agony' into which her voluptuous wooing plunges the story's unworldly narrator: "Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat…"

Kazuo Ishiguro, A Pale View of Hills

As far as I know, none of Ishiguro's fiction is actively supernatural, but his novels have a brilliant strangeness to them, which makes reading them always a challenging and unnerving experience. In A Pale View of Hills, his Nagasaki-born narrator has become so detached from her own traumatic past, she has effectively turned it into someone else's life. As in many great ghost stories, the result is a tightly controlled narrative surface, with half-glimpsed, terrifying depths.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

This isn't a ghost story exactly; it's a brilliantly economical depiction of a woman's descent into insanity. But the room in which its unnamed protagonist slowly loses her wits is definitely a 'haunted' one: the ghosts are other women, trying furiously but fruitlessly to 'shake the bars' of the claustrophobic patterns in which they are trapped. The story is a classic of nineteenth-century feminism, and still frightening today.

Kelly Link, 'The Specialist's Hat'

All of Link's stories are wonderfully odd and original. Some are also quite scary – and 'The Specialist's Hat', from her collection Stranger Things Happen, is very scary indeed. It's the story of ten-year-old twin girls in a haunted American mansion, being instructed by an enigmatic babysitter just what it means to be 'Dead'… The narrative is all the more unnerving because you don't know exactly what's going on – only that it's something rather unpleasant.

Henry James, 'The Turn of the Screw'

I'm not really much of a Henry James fan, but I think this has to be on my list, if only because its story – of a lonely governess whose infant charges may or may not be being haunted by the ghosts of wicked servants – has been such an influential one. As far as chills go, I actually prefer the two brilliantly spooky films for which it provided the inspiration: the 1961 The Innocents, with a fragile Deborah Kerr, and The Others (2001), with a demented Nicole Kidman.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

The definitive haunted house story, and another novel that inspired a fabulously scary film, the 1963 The Haunting. It has one of the best and creepiest first paragraphs of any book I know, and I love it so much I'm going to quote it here in full:

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

Elizabeth Bowen, 'The Demon Lover'

In many of her novels and stories, Bowen beautifully captures the eerie atmosphere of wartime London, with its blitzed, abandoned houses. In this story, that landscape becomes definitely supernatural, as a middle-aged woman tries to evade an assignation with the sinister soldier fiancé lost to her many years before. Like lots of good ghost stories, the punch is in the chilling final lines, as the woman, being whisked away in a taxi into 'the hinterland of deserted streets', realises to her horror that her date has been kept after all…

Susan Hill, The Woman in Black

Watching the BBC adaptation of this several Christmases ago, I got so frightened, I was sick. Admittedly, I had eaten a lot of Christmas pudding – but Hill's story is at times genuinely terrifying, an absolute classic of the genre. The 'woman with the wasted face', made so ravenous and malevolent by the loss of her own infant that she destroys the children of others, is a fantastic creation; and the scenes in lonely Eel Marsh House, where the hapless narrator wakes to hear the rhythmic creak and bump of a rocking-chair in an empty room, are just magnificent.

Toni Morrison, Beloved

"Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters with some dead Negro's grief," one of Morrison's characters points out, when Sethe, the novel's protagonist, suggests fleeing from the spiteful spirit inhabiting her home. One of the great fictional studies of slavery and its scars, Beloved is also a sublime literary ghost story: a meditation on the ways in which individuals and communities – ultimately, an entire nation – can be haunted by the violence and injustice of the past. A breathtaking book.