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Post  eddie Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:44 am

Harry Potter course to be offered at Durham University

Module will focus on 'social, cultural and educational context', but no word on whether Expelliarmus will be applied to students with poor grades

Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 August 2010 12.21 BST

JK Rowling Harry-Potter-006
A potted history … 70 Durham students have already signed up for the new course.

There'll be no flying lessons, potions or defence-against-the-dark-arts classes, but Harry Potter fans at Durham University have the option of a course on the adventures of the boy wizard.

Around 70 of Durham's undergraduates have already signed up to the module Harry Potter and the Age of Illusion, which will be offered for the first time this autumn as part of the university's Education Studies BA degree.

Thought to be the first course in the UK focusing on the works of JK Rowling, the module will require undergraduates to set the series "in its social, cultural and educational context and understand some of the reasons for its popularity", and to consider Harry Potter's relevance to today's education system.

The registrar of Durham University, Carolyn Fowler, called it a "serious but innovative" academic module. "A huge amount of work has gone into developing it, and we are extremely excited to be offering it as a study option to our undergraduate students, who have already expressed a high level of interest," she said.

Rowling published the first Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in 1997. The seven-book series about the adventures of the boy wizard has gone on to sell more than 400m copies around the world, and has been the subject of PhDs and academic conferences. Fowler, however, believes the Durham course is "the first, or among the first, module of its kind in a UK university".

Exploring issues such as "prejudice and intolerance, peer pressure, good citizenship and ideals of adulthood, [as well as] ways in which the Harry Potter series has helped to rebrand Britain", the course has been reviewed and approved by the faculty's teaching and learning committee.

"Harry Potter is a culturally iconic phenomenon and has already been the subject of many well-regarded academic studies over recent years, so it is only fitting that a leading university like Durham responds to new developments in our academic and wider social and cultural environment in developing new modules like this," said Fowler.

There is no word yet about whether Durham will be joining the International Quidditch Association, which counts more than 400 colleges and 300 high schools among its members, the vast majority of which are from the US.

The game differs from the fictional version in that its participants are unable to fly; instead they run with their broomsticks held between their legs. With a fourth annual world cup set to be held in New York this November, perhaps Durham's undergraduates are in with a chance.
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Post  eddie Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:11 pm

Anyone for Quidditch? Harry Potter game kicks off at Oxford

The game that enthralled students at Hogwarts is starting to stir an interest at Oxford University

Lizzy Davies

The Guardian, Monday 23 January 2012 08.00 GMT

JK Rowling University-of-Oxford-stud-007
University of Oxford students play Quidditch, the fictional game from the Harry Potter books. Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian

Huddled together in the chill January wind, the players listened as a PPE fresher in a black cape read the rules of the game: a Quaffle through a hoop would score 10 points, capturing the Snitch would yield a bountiful 30, and under no circumstances was there to be any "grabbing of broomsticks". With that, they were off: two teams, with seven players each, racing round a playing field and trying to shoot a basketball through hula-hoops.

To onlookers it may have seemed outlandish and bizarre, but to these mostly teenage Oxford students it was the realisation of a dream. For Quidditch, the game they grew up reading about in the pages of Harry Potter books, is no longer a fictional activity played by witches and wizards in the air. It is a fast-paced and disconcertingly rough team sport that is played firmly on the ground and results in very real cuts and bruises.

"It's fantastic," said Amy Wipfler, a 20-year-old Californian and passionate Harry Potter fan studying at Oxford on her junior year abroad. "All of a sudden you meet these people equally as enamoured with [Harry Potter]," she said. "That, in a way, is what's magical because all of a sudden you all have that same drive to want to be part of Hogwarts ... Everyone secretly wishes it was real."

Not everyone playing in Saturday's mini-tournament – which, with four college teams and plenty of extras, was the biggest that the university has seen since the sport's arrival in November – shares her love of JK Rowling, however. Angus Barry, founder of the first college team at Oxford, said that although a fan he had made an effort to make people "see Quidditch as a sport in its own right".

He added: "Some people really do love Harry Potter and that's why they're here. Other people just like the game."

Known as Muggle Quidditch to those for whom JK Rowling's lexicon is as familiar as any entry in the dictionary, the game was adapted for non-wizards around seven years ago in the US, where it has since caught on and become a familiar pastime for students at some of the country's best-known institutions, including Yale, Harvard and Tufts (Wipfler's college). Instead of flying, players run with broomsticks between their legs, and instead of a golden ball with wings attached, the Snitch is a person dressed in yellow. Although tackling is frequent and being hit by a volleyball, or "bludger", is likely, the "spirit of Quidditch" is encouraged. As one player for the University college team put it: "If you're massive and there's a little person, don't run into them."

Despite its success in the States and Canada, Muggle Quidditch has been slow to catch on in the home of the Harry Potter stories, although it has been attempted by students at universities including Nottingham and Warwick and there has been talk of setting up a British league.

Barry and his fellow players hope that its time has finally come. "The word is spreading," he said. "I think each time we've played we've pretty much doubled our numbers. We started off with 20, then 40, then 80." Many of the players would like to see Quidditch recognised as an official university sport, a step that would open the way to a Varsity match against Cambridge and a Half Blue, such as Ultimate Frisbee and Eton Fives.

But that, said Barry, remains a "long-term plan". For now, the sport is happily unrecognised and unregulated. Elbows are grazed; spray-painted broomsticks are broken. But the mood remains defiantly buoyant: as John Waite, a 19-year-old Material Science fresher, pointed out, it's hard to take yourself too seriously with a broom between your legs. "The comedy element ... gives it a novelty factor which makes it a lot of fun...You don't take it too seriously. It's just a lot of fun to play."

Wipfler, who decorated her broomstick with sequins and named it the Pink Panther, is unsure about the future of the sport. "I think it has potential, but the fact is if you haven't read the books you're not going to have the same love of the sport," she said. But, for the moment, it is only becoming more popular.

Rowena Francis, a Philosophy and German student from Croydon, was one of many first-time players and, to cheers from St Hilda's, she caught the snitch. After 90 minutes, half-a-dozen matches, and one cut lip, the tournament was brought to an end. With balls under arms and brooms in hand, many retreated, happily, to the pub.
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Post  eddie Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:40 pm

Pottermore - what's going on? A Harry Potter fan's quest for answers

Whatever is going on at the much delayed Pottermore? As one of JK Rowling's biggest fans I want some answers

Has Pottermore lived up to your expectations? Email us at childrens.books@guardian.co.uk and we'll put your comments to Pottermore

Shoshana Kessler

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012 14.41 GMT

JK Rowling JK-Rowling-announces-Pott-007
JK Rowling announces Pottermore. It was glitzy and exciting but what now for Harry Potter fans? Photograph: Akira Suemori/AP

Ever since JK Rowling's Harry Potter series ended in July 2007, millions of fans have been waiting for something, anything, to fill the Harry-shaped hole in their lives.

And what could be better than more Harry? JK Rowling's Pottermore seemed to be the answer - an interactive website for fans.

The truly enticing thing about the site was not just the beautiful website and artwork, but the promise of new Potter material. It was stated that JK had written over 18,000 words for the site.

For an indescribably obsessive Harry Potter fan like me, it was the Holy Grail.

Then, disaster struck. I was on holiday, without an internet connection, so couldn't sign up when the offer of trial access was made for a million lucky fans last July!

I was only consoled by one thing, the promise of the general opening in October. Now it is late February, and I, along with millions of other fans, am still waiting.

Pottermore's "beta" period, which has early users testing the website to check the software, has been extended, potentially indefinitely.

The million Potter fans who have been accepted are only a small fraction of the huge fanbase salivating to get inside the website. So what's going on? What could possibly be taking so long? Whispers and doubts are being cast about, with some questioning if it will ever open.

I've tried to get in touch with JK's Pottermore people directly, but they say they you can only contact them via the site. It's not obvious how to do that but I gave it a go, and my request went into a queue to be answered. To their credit, they responded the next day and told me that "we have decided to further extend the beta period so we can improve Pottermore before giving more people access. This means the site will not be opening to new users in the immediate future".

But today, undeterred, after months of waiting and wondering, I'm about to find out the truth. I've been given a username and password by one of the lucky members, and I'm poised and ready to take that magical click into the world of Pottermore.

Once you're in, a purple screen greets you. It's fronted by an intricate design depicting a gate with padlocks on the top. There are seven circles cast within the gate, after each book. I have to admit, it's incredibly exciting.

I click on the shield at the top, which takes me to a homepage of sorts. There are sections for your wand, your house points, notifications, friends and favourites. Most exciting are the sections for Spells and Potions, showing you "how to manage your potions".

I'm told that my owl will take me to my notifications, something I feel every media site should adopt. At the top, I see the Beta sign, and when I click on it, it takes me to a questionnaire asking for my view of the site.

After all this I'm ready to start exploring! In Beta you can't progress further than The Philosopher's Stone, so I choose the circle for the first book. A detailed animated picture of Privet Drive appears, complete with cat. You can move about the picture, and click on objects to find out information.

I learn that number 4 Privet Drive is based on JK's childhood house (I did already know that, but that's only because I'm an über fan.) I move forward, and see pictures of key moments in Chapter 1, each beautiful and exciting but with not much else.

The site crashed after a while, which goes some way to explaining the delay in opening it up to more people. As a member, you lay your own trail, and I didn't want to spoil the fun for my friend, the real member, so I retreat, waving goodbye to my Potter fun.

So...is it worth the wait? Well, yes, I think. It's quite magical, and it gives fans a chance to duel with each other or exchange Potterchat to their hearts content.

But in all honesty, I feel slightly unsatisfied. It does all it promised, and yet, somehow, I expected more. I wanted to get lost in the site in the way that I got lost in the books, but in the end you're just a muggle with a mouse.

And therein lies the problem of Pottermore. The millions waiting won't get bored and move on, not true fans. Even as I was writing this, I found a website full of people urgently asking how to sign up.

But their expectations will get higher and higher and when they're finally allowed in, unless there have been big changes, I expect that there will be a bit of a backlash.

People are expecting a cure for Harry Potter blues, and Pottermore is rather like a plaster. It'll hide the cut, but it won't help you get 'beta'...

Has Pottermore lived up to your expectations? Can you suggest any improvements to the beta site? Email us at childrens.books@guardian.co.uk with 'Pottermore' in the subject line and we'll put your comments to Pottermore

Your thoughts on Pottermore

Chelsea:
I have been on Pottermore since summer and it has been a little disappointing. As a Harry Potter mega fan I expected to become addicted to the site and was looking forward to meeting people who were also big harry Potter fans. It was fun at first finding out new stuff and being sorted into a house and getting a wand and a owl; however, that is about as exciting as it gets and I think the lack of communication between members is because of this. When you are in your house you want to be able to have conversations with other members of the house and it is near impossible to do this with the application they have set up for chat. At one point our house attempted to name our mascot, however, it was very difficult to do and anyone who had not been online at this time would not even know we had named our mascot. I think if this area of the site is improved then it will definitely be worth the wait for all the fans still not on it.

Erin:
As another uber fan, I was super excited to get on the site when the Beta opened. I finished The Philosophers Stone section during a long layover in Atlanta, Georgia and was gutted that I couldn't continue. I occasionally go back to the site (every month or so) to see if it's updated, but nothing more. I was disappointed with the interactivity and think that you should learn spells and potions along with the story, like the characters do. I was certainly hoping for actual classes in some form.

My experience with the potions section has been disappointing and it was extremely frustrating to do in the airport with a laptop touch pad, so I gave up. The duelling and potions section is confusing to navigate and figure out what you're meant to do.

The back-stories of characters were interesting, but not exciting or plot-enlightening and read like a long obituary.

It would be great if they could just continue the story for beta members, because if they can't manage the site now with a handful of users (compared to what it would be if it was available to all) on one story, there is no way they will be able to stabilise it for the general public with all 7 stories.

Since there is no more Harry Potter films or books coming out, the franchise is slowly fading to the back of my brain so while I have all these great memories, Pottermore is slipping from my radar. If and when they update the rest of the books, I will definitely go through them, probably enjoy it and then just read the books to enter the world of Harry Potter.

Porthos:
The most important (or at least, exciting) aspect of the website for Potter Fans is the Sorting Hat. Finally discovering, essentially from JK's own online-mouth, that I was a Hufflepuff was wonderful. I wear the scarf now. Sadly, I've already heard troubling things about my fellow students' behaviour on the site.

Many people are upset to find that they have been sorted into Slytherin. Or, more arrogantly, annoyed to be sorted into any house other than Gryffindor. Rumours online suggest that these people have simply left the site and plan to re-join and take the test again, and keep taking it until they get into the house they 'want'. How these cretins consider themselves faithful fans I don't know.

I'd like to know whether the site plans on using IP addresses and/or asking for more personal details, to try and stop people cheating the sorting process? All credit to Pottermore, based on the people I know who have been sorted, I think the Hat is pretty spot-on.

Colin:
I understand that many other books are available. There are lots that include wizards and fun at boarding school, and some books even have characters called Harry. You could consider reading some of them.

Laura:
Hi!! I am lucky enough to have got access to Pottermore last year and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed by some of it. I LOVE Harry Potter, so the extra details you find out about the characters etc. are really interesting, but if you want to have a real discussion about the books it is impossible. Comments all come up in one long line regardless of the subject matter, and they often take a few minutes to appear, so if you do want to start a discussion, replies appear haphazardly in between people saying 'yay I'm not a slytherin' and 'please be my friend'!! I appreciate that this is probably done to stop any inappropriate discussions cropping up, but as the comments are all moderated anyway I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to change it into more of a forum-like chat.

As an aspiring illustrator I really like the artwork on the site and the fact that you can add your own, but really as far as interacting with the site goes, the rest does not really appeal to me. Mixing potions and duelling are not particularly exciting (this may be because, at nearly 26, I am not in the target age group, but I'm sure younger people will get bored with it too.) After finishing reading through the philosophers stone I have hardly been back on, and until the next books are up I probably won't bother.
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Post  eddie Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:33 pm

JK Rowling's new book: clues suggest a turn to crime fiction

There's no official word on what her new book will be about, but all the evidence points to a crime story

JK Rowling JK-Rowling-007
JK Rowling ... getting involved in crime? Photograph: Joshua Lott/Reuters

Suspicions that JK Rowling was working on a crime novel have been around for years, though nobody could ever make it stick. Some suggested she could be writing a political fairytale for children or an encyclopaedia of the Potter universe. But yesterday's (detail-free) announcement about her new book for adults gives a vital clue that she's been writing a crime novel. It has the fingerprints all over it of the hugely respected editor David Shelley, a man who counts Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Carl Hiaasen and Mark Billingham amongst his authors and who comes from a background steeped in crime and thriller writing. And now he's going to be editing Rowling's new book.

I met Shelley five years ago when I was writing a profile of him for the Bookseller. He'd already made quite a mark on publishing: he was publishing director of Allison & Busby at just 23. An independent press strong in crime and thriller writing, Shelley dragged A&B back into profit, introducing a line of library hardback crime novels and eventually catching the eye of Little, Brown, which he joined as editorial director for crime and thrillers.

Today, he's publisher. He's created a host of thriller bestsellers: Panic by Jeff Abbott, The Shakespeare Secret by JL Carrell, The Brutal Art by Jesse Kellerman. He's taken over editing major brand-name (crime) authors including Billingham, Nelson DeMille and Duncan Falconer. He's poached some of the biggest names in the genre from rival publishers – McDermid, Lehane, Hiaasen.

Winning Rowling for Little, Brown, though, is his greatest coup yet. All we know at the moment about the new book is that it's "very different to Harry", as Rowling tweeted this morning. (This "cover" on her agent's website gives even less away). Knowing her fondness for crime writing (Dorothy L Sayers is "queen of the genre", she's said in the past), and taking Shelley's background into account, I'm going to stick my neck out and say it's a mystery. Not a slasher thriller sort of a book, more a Poirot-esque detective story.

The crime world is all aflutter at the prospect, in any event. "Wouldn't it be funny if JK Rowling's first novel for adults turned out to be a crime story set in Edinburgh? My word yes," tweeted Ian Rankin. "Might explain why she left the neighbourhood (me, McCall Smith, Atkinson near-neighbours) and moved across town … She's certainly a fan of the traditional whodunit."

"Nice to see that JK Rowling has such good taste in editors. I guess I'm willing to share David Shelley… Do you think her choice of Mr David means she's writing a thriller/crime novel?" wondered McDermid, adding: "If Mr David inspires JKR the way he does me, we're in for something rather tasty."

Shelley won't tell me any more, so I guess for now we'll have to wait and see. But I bet you a Harry Potter proof that I'm right. And if I'm wrong, I will, erm, eat my sorting hat.
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Post  eddie Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:30 pm

How Pottermore cast an ebook spell over Amazon

...And why Harry Potter's move into epublishing is digital magic

JK Rowling JK-Rowling-at-the-launch--008
Digital magic ... JK Rowling at the launch of Pottermore, the website created to sell ebook versions of her Harry Potter books. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

Take a look at Amazon's ebook site and do a search for Harry Potter books and you will see something genuinely marvellous. Something that will warm the cockles of every publisher in the land, and perhaps even a few booksellers too.

Well, for a start, you will see that for the first time since the series began in 1997, official ebook versions of all seven titles in the Potter series are being sold.

But something even more remarkable has happened. In bringing these books to the digital marketplace, Pottermore, the business created to sell the ebooks, has forced Amazon into perhaps the biggest climbdown in its corporate history.

Instead of buying the ebooks through the Amazon e-commerce system, the buy link takes the customer off to Pottermore to complete the purchase, with the content seamlessly delivered to their Kindle device. It is the first time I've known Amazon to allow a third party to "own" that customer relationship, while also allowing that content to be delivered to its device. Amazon gets something like an affiliates' fee from this transaction, much less than it would expect to receive selling an ebook through normal conditions. Schadenfreude doesn't even come close.

Other retailers, including Barnes & Noble the giant US bookseller, are having to operate in the same way. As it stands Apple is the only ebookseller who has so far not capitulated, perhaps because it knows that it will be in a stronger negotiating position when Pottermore brings the enhanced ebooks forward. Nevertheless, Amazon was the biggie.

Why is this important? Amazon has a stranglehold over the ebook market both in the UK and in the US (though particularly in the UK where there is no Nook to challenge it). There are good reasons for this – it delivers a smooth customer service and offers ebooks at low prices. It's a great business, and rightly wins many plaudits. The problem is that with its Kindle device it then locks the customer in. Want to buy an ebook from a competing retailer such as Kobo or Anobii and read it on your Kindle? Possible, yes; easy, no. Most customers simply won't bother.

Many in the publishing business worry about this, and rightly so. Amazon seeks to dictate terms that are making many publishers feel uncomfortable: in the US it has recently locked out numerous independent publishers, simply because they cannot agree to its demands.

To achieve this the folk at Pottermore have released the ebooks without digital rights management, meaning that a customer can download one title on to eight different devices: or they can simply receive the basic ePub file, and do with it what they want, even side-loading it on to their Kobo devices. The ebooks will also become available to borrow from libraries – for free.

Harry Potter has always been something of a trailblazer, but now having decided to release ebook versions the author JK Rowling is allowing her creation to innovate in the digital realm. With one flick of his wand Harry Potter is redefining the digital experience for the many, while diverting the mighty Amazon. It's the boy wizard's best trick yet.

At least until Pottermore, the virtual world, launches next week. But that is another story ...
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Post  eddie Fri Sep 28, 2012 3:35 pm

JKP's first post-Potter publication is out shortly. Heard her interviewed by Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row' Arts prog. As ever, she came across as a really nice person.
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JK Rowling: The Casual Vacancy – review

The author's first book for adults features drugs, sex and swearing – things that Harry Potter probably never dreamed of
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Theo Tait

The Guardian, Thursday 27 September 2012

They call it "denial marketing": the process whereby the contents of JK Rowling's books are guarded like the crown jewels until publication day. It made sense with Harry Potter, when the world and his dog wanted to know what had happened to the boy wizard and his dastardly foes. But it creates a slight anti-climax in the case of The Casual Vacancy, a novel concerning a parish council election in a small West Country town.

JK Rowling The-Casual-Vacancy
The Casual Vacancy
by JK Rowling

There are some superficial excitements here, in that the younger characters get up to things that Harry probably never dreamed of: taking drugs, swearing, self-harming, having grimy casual sex, singing along to Rihanna. The new book contains regular outbursts of four-letter words, along with the memorable phrase "that miraculously unguarded vagina" – which, leaked in a pre-publication profile, has caused a flurry of jokes on Twitter about Harry Potter and the Miraculously Unguarded Vagina.

Generally, though, The Casual Vacancy is a solid, traditional and determinedly unadventurous English novel. Set in the "pretty little town of Pagford", it is a study of provincial life, with a large cast and multiple, interlocking plots, drawing inspiration from Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot. The only obvious parallel with the Potter books is that, like them, it is animated by a strong dislike of mean, unsympathetic, small-minded folk. The inhabitants of Pagford – shopkeepers, window-twitchers, Daily Mail readers – are mostly hateful Muggles, more realistic versions of the Dursleys, the awful family who keep poor Harry stashed in the cupboard under the stairs. The book seems doomed to be known as Mugglemarch.

Behind its tourist-friendly façade – the hanging baskets, the war memorial, the scrubbed cottages – Pagford is of course a hot-bed of seething antagonism, rampant snobbery, sexual frustration and ill-disguised racism. The plot is set in motion when, on page five, its hero, Barry Fairbrother, falls down dead in the car park of the "smug little golf club". His death creates a "casual vacancy" on the parish council, and the forces of darkness, led by Howard Mollison, the obese delicatessen owner, see their chance to parachute in one of their own.

Barry, a man of "boundless generosity of spirit", had been the main opponent of their plan to reassign the Fields, a run-down sink estate, to the district council of the nearby city, Yarvil – thereby off-loading responsibility for its drug-addled inhabitants, and driving them out of the catchment area for Pagford's nice primary school. The election heats up when scurrilous but accurate accusations, posted by "the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother", start appearing on the council website.

The Casual Vacancy has all the satisfactions and frustrations of this kind of novel. It immerses the reader in a richly peopled, densely imagined world. Rowling has reportedly drawn on her own mildly unhappy West Country childhood, in a village outside Bristol and then later outside Chepstow. The claustrophobic horror is nicely done: everyone knowing everyone; Howard, scheming from behind his hand-baked biscuits and local cheeses. Rowling is good at teenagers, particularly boys, and unhappy couples. The book has a righteous social message, about responsibility for others, and a great big plot that runs like clockwork; like the Potter novels, it is efficiently organised beneath its busy surface.

On the other hand, the novel is very much the prisoner of its conventions. Rowling's underclass characters are not bad, considering they were put together by the richest novelist in history, but it's a pity that they all use a kind of generalised, Dickensian lower-order-speak, that belongs more to literary custom than anything anyone ever says: "I takes Robbie to the nurs'ry"; "Tha's norra fuckin' crime"; "No, shurrup, righ'?". The plot is often predictable; it requires a large helping of artificial contrivance; and it lurches into melodrama in the final act. The rules probably require this, and it all rattles along nicely enough, but it leaves a slight sense of disappointment.

No one, I suspect, reads Rowling for the beauty of her sentences but there is often a sense here that the language is not quite doing what she wants it to do. One character, we are told, "hated sudden death". Who doesn't? The metaphors regularly run away with her. One character's sexual performance was "as predictable as a Masonic handshake". What's predictable about that?

The Casual Vacancy is no masterpiece, but it's not bad at all: intelligent, workmanlike, and often funny. I could imagine it doing well without any association to the Rowling brand, perhaps creeping into the Richard and Judy Book Club, or being made into a three-part TV serial. The fanbase may find it a bit sour, as it lacks the Harry Potter books' warmth and charm; all the characters are fairly horrible or suicidally miserable or dead. But the worst you could say about it, really, is that it doesn't deserve the media frenzy surrounding it. And who nowadays thinks that merit and publicity have anything do with each other?

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. £20, 503pp
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Post  Guest Fri Sep 28, 2012 11:58 pm

I have heard that critics think it may be slightly too long at around 500 plus pages .
She has only allowed the editors to edit one of her books the first. In my opinion the rest should have had some editing too.
But in the end it does not really matter as several thousand advance sales give her a best seller before the release date?

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Post  eddie Wed Oct 03, 2012 2:13 pm

user wrote:JK Rowling is back. BACK WITH ANTI-SIKH HATE SPEECH. This has further enraged an already besieged GOLDEN TEMPLE.


You jest, of course.

In an BBC Radio 4 interiew with Mark Lawson on the "Front Row" Arts prog a week or so ago, JKR described how she once considered converting to Sikhism, attracted by its egalitarian assignment of gender roles. Her huband, anticipating a media storm, talked her out of it and she remains an Episcopalian.
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