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Join NOW!JK Rowling has published rejection letters she received writing under the name Robert Galbraith. Rowling has racked up book sales worth billions for the Harry Potter series, but set out to see if she could sell a novel without Potter’s help. She posted the rejections for “inspiration,” but as Jenny Pierson at Alternet points out, the […]
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If nothing else, it’s the opinion of other women that encroaches on mine. Resemblances spark my joy; differences become character flaws.
...moreSince the Harry Potter series ended, the Potter universe has continued to expand with tie-in books and lore published on the website Pottermore. However, Rowling’s magic-based historical revisionism was challenged this week by Native American activists responding to her latest post. Titled “The History of Magic in North America,” the post provides an explanation for […]
...moreSlate’s Laura Miller details the bizarre tale of the copyright lawsuit between two No. 1 New York Times best-selling fantasy authors, showing the potential messiness of fan fiction going mainstream: If these tropes sound familiar to you, you’re not alone. After the Guardian wrote about the suit, my own social media feeds filled up with […]
...moreBook collecting of antique and rare books remains big business. For example, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the original British version of the first book in the Harry Potter series, could be worth as much as $40,000—only five hundred were printed. The Observer explores the strange and expensive world of book collecting.
...moreFrom Cinderella and Oliver Twist to Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter, Etan Smallman muses on the paradox of why so many of literature’s most celebrated protagonists are orphans: Many of the most powerful characters in our best-loved stories are orphaned, adopted, fostered, or found. At the same time, many of the most powerless […]
...moreOur Shared Shelf looks poised to be ideal for sharing feminist learning, just as Watson aimed for it to be. British actress Emma Watson—best known for playing the role of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies—is starting a feminist book club on Goodreads, and she wants you to join, Bustle reports. “Given the buzz Watson’s […]
...moreA black actress—Noma Dumezweni—has been cast to play the adult Hermione in the upcoming stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and author J.K. Rowling applauded the choice. Some fans were upset or confused about the choice to go from Emma Watson’s white Hermione to an adult Hermione of color, but Rowling pointed out […]
...moreJ.K. Rowling has recently found herself defending her Harry Potter series’ character Voldemort against comparisons to Donald Trump. At Electric Literature, however, Julia Tolo points out the similarities between the two: As Harry Potter fans know, Voldemort’s motis operandi was hinged on deep-set racism and his desire to purify wizard-kind. Voldemort casually murdered and tortured people, […]
...moreAs adapting book series for lucrative movie deals becomes an all-too-common sight these days, it might be easy to simply fall back on the bookworm’s argument that the books are better than their film counterparts. But how do the reviews from the readers, viewers, and critics actually compare? Electric Literature has a handy infographic compiling […]
...moreHarry Potter fans have been leaving notes in the series’ books for future fans to find. Fan site Mugglenet has been encouraging people to leave the notes and hashtag photos of them with #PotterItForward, reports The Independent.
...moreYes, it’s true. A new Harry Potter-themed bar, The Lockhart, is officially open in Toronto. “It’s where would-be-wizards can come drink away their muggle sorrows,” TIME reported.
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Being a teenager sucks. It’s not pretty or nice or sweet or kind.
...moreHarry Potter’s son James has been sorted into Gryffindor, J.K. Rowling revealed on Tuesday afternoon. Rowling also took to Twitter to wish the Potter child a happy first day at Hogwarts, the school for wizards featured prominently in her novels.
...moreOver at The Oyster Review, our very own Rumblr editor Molly McArdle has composed a lovely essay about how rereading old books is a journey back to the past. She writes: The books I revisited were all fantastical and all had reached me in my late childhood. There is certainly pleasure and escape in them, but […]
...moreA Portuguese bookstore popular with tourists plans on charging admission, reports WTVY. The bookstore is not just a stunning architectural monument, but also the inspiration behind the library at Hogwarts. Before writing the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling taught English in Oporto, Portugal where Livraria Lello is located.
...moreBecause…the Internet exists! Because is this really the first time in your two (or, heaven forbid, three) literate decades on this planet that it’s occurred to you to seek out brain padding by AN ENTIRE HALF of the population? Alanna Okun explains why she doesn’t bother with guys who don’t read books by women (and […]
...more(Dan Weiss is out on tour with his band The Yellow Dress. He’ll be back on August 3rd.) In the best news ever for someone yet to be determined, J.K. Rowling has announced an open casting call for her Harry Potter spin-off. The Boy Scouts of America have (finally) unanimously approved a resolution allowing gay adults to […]
...moreJ.K. Rowling announced on Twitter that she is writing a new play to tell portions of Harry’s stories that the books skipped over. The new stage show include Harry’s parents, Lily and James Potter, but Rowling stressed it is not a prequel. The show will open in London in 2016.
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Author Daniel José Older talks about his new novel, Shadowshaper, noir influence in urban fantasy, gentrification, white privilege and the publishing industry, and why we need diverse books, now more than ever.
...moreYou can count on One Story as a sort of literary sieve, distilling story-sized servings of up-and-coming writers we should know, and soon enough will know, if we don’t know them already. Next week, One Story will host its annual Literary Debutante Ball, a party thrown in honor of those who’ve published stories with them and […]
...moreDid Harry Potter turn us into serial readers? Alexander Chee suggests J.K. Rowling and Karl Ove Knausgaard aren’t all that different: We are all after that word-lust, the novel that makes us want to read it as quickly as possible, and when we find it, we experience the paradoxical desire to stay inside the world […]
...moreMuggle-born students of Hogwarts are an underprivileged class, while magic-born students enjoy unquantified privilege, argues Sarah Seltzer over at Flavorwire. Rowling creates a world where privilege and power are coupled together, just as wealth and race have allowed certain classes greater access to power in the real world: Rowling isn’t arguing that a wand is […]
...moreA new bibliography cataloguing the various editions of Harry Potter publications will help readers identify which edition of the books they own. The collection will also reveal secrets of JK Rowling’s edits, reports the Guardian. The 544-page book took Sotheby’s director Philip Errington five years to compile and includes such facts as alternative titles like Harry […]
...moreSubscription website Pottermore, the Harry Potter-themed site run by author J.K. Rowling, is getting twelve days of new content. Widely reported as though Rowling is releasing twelve new stories, the new content is somewhat less elaborate, including such things as Rowling’s thoughts on Draco Malfoy and some new potions. New content will be available to […]
...moreKilliechassie House, the £1.9 million Scottish estate author J.K. Rowling calls home, will gain a new addition: a circular stone hut similar to the hut that Hagrid resides in at Hogwarts. The summer cottage recently received approval from the local council, on the condition that no tree was harmed in its construction, reports the Independent.
...moreThe Quidditch World Cup Final is the pretense for Harry Potter’s latest adventure, a 1,500-word story available to subscribers of Pottermore, Rowling’s fan club website. “Dumbledore’s Army Reunites,” is written like a gossip column from the Daily Prophet, the wizarding world’s newspaper of record. Electric Literature says the story featuring the thirty-something characters is likely […]
...moreIf you are among those who fantasize about secret messages in the public world—love letters in Burger King wrappers and Narnia entrances in gym lockers—then geocaching, or at least an essay about geocaching, might be just for you. Matthew Fishbane writes in The Boston Review on the ways that geogaching makes him see things he otherwise might […]
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A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “Magic.”
...moreReal-estate company Movoto has appraised “the Burrow,” the Weasley family home in the Harry Potter series, and figured out what it would sell for in the muggle world. The calculations are a lesson in the values of close reading, taking into account the size of the eight-person dining table in the kitchen, the difference in square-footage […]
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