J.K. Rowling was at the Bath Literature Festival, where she spoke about the possibility of a prequel on the Marauders. She said that it won’t happen.
The Marauders (Sirius, James, Remus, Peter) have been a long-rumored possibility for a prequel, within the Harry Potter fandom. SHe said she wouldn’t write a prequel, because she doesn’t find them (prequels) any good. She also said that she currently doesn’t have any plans to return to the Harry Potter series.
Elsewhere during the evening she said…
- Grindelwald never loved Dumbledore and used him.
- Her own first kiss came when she was 12 years old.
- Her next book will be aimed at 8-year-olds, but she’s still busy writing it.
- Her proudest moment was when she outed Dumbledore (as gay), and following the revelation in New York City a fan came up to her straight afterwords and revealed that he or she too is homosexual.
In honor of the fifteenth anniversary of Harry Potter, Scholastic (the American publisher of the Harry Potter books) has announced that they ill be re-releasing all seven of the Harry Potter books with new covers, designed by Kazu Kibuishi.
They announced that the estimated release date is in September 2013, and will be available in the paperback format.
The cover of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was released and can be seen below.
“When I was asked to submit samples, I initially hesitated because I didn’t want to see them reinterpreted! However, I felt that if I were to handle the project, I could bring something to it that many other designers and illustrators probably couldn’t, and that was that I was also a writer of my own series of middle grade fiction. As an author myself, I tried to answer the question, ‘If I were the author of the books – and they were like my own children – how would I want them to be seen years from now?’ When illustrating the covers, I tried to think of classic perennial paperback editions of famous novels and how those illustrations tend to feel. In a way, the project became a tribute to both Harry Potter and the literary classics.”
-Kazu Kibuishi; Cover artist
The Hardcover and Digital editions of the book will continue to use the classic design from Mary GrandPre.
As planned, December 20th was the release date of the first few chapters of the third Harry Potter book on Pottermore, called Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Pottermore released chapters 1-7 which include,
Owl Post
Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake
The Knight Bus
The Leaky Cauldron
The Dementor
Talons and Tea Leaves
The Boggart in the Wardrobe
Two special pieces of content we’re released by J.K. Rowling including pieces on ‘Aunt’ Marge Dursley, The Knight Bus, Sir Cadogan, and Professor Kettleburn.
There isn’t really anything all that exciting from these seven chapters. What did you think about them?
The Pottermore Insider has confirmed that Pottermore users will get to read the first few chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the Harry Potter series, on December 20th, 2012.
They also released a still, which can be seen on the right from one of the chapters we will get to explore. This particular one is of Harry, Hermione, and Ron at their first Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid.
The Insider also reminds us Pottermore users to make sure that we have all of the supplies from of second-year school list in order to gain access.
As Pottermore picks up speed with their releases (Prisoner of Azkaban is here only two months after releasing Chamber of Secrets), maybe we can hope for Deathly Hallows before 2020! What book are you most looking forward to from Pottermore? Leave a comment below.
Pottermore has been full of secrets lately, but they finally let slip when Chamber of Secrets’ final chapters would be released online.
We can expect them by the end of the month, he said.
Charlie Redmayne also spoke about the Digital Pottermore, and their plans for the future.
“Most publishers see digital publishing as creating e-books or, perhaps, enhanced e-books, but Pottermore looked at every single platform—e-books, browser-based experiences, social network, apps, game consoles, in-flight entertainment, YouTube, and educational platforms—to see if and how it could work for our brand,” said Redmayne. “Publishers have often thought that filmmakers or gaming companies have the rights to the more valuable properties, but we have the rights to the stories and that has immense value.”
-Charlie Redmayne; CEO of Pottermore
Apps? Count me in!
Along with all of this, he also announced that they are working on a “Games hub,” to get the users coming back. That is a big problem with Pottermore right now. They are getting a lot of one-time hits. People come, go through the chapters, read the J.K. Rowling content, and leave. They don’t come back until they hear on Magnae Famae that more chapters have been released.
Some very lucky Americans have a copy of The Casual Vacancy in their hands, and took many pictures of the new novel.
These photos help in guessing the size of the book. Thankfully, there are no pictures of the actual text.
The story opens with the death of a parish councillor in the pretty West Country village of Pagford. Barry had grown up on a nearby council estate, the Fields, a squalid rural ghetto with which the more pious middle classes of Pagford have long lost patience. If they can fill his seat with one more councillor sympathetic to their disgust, they’ll secure a majority vote to reassign responsibility for the Fields to a neighbouring council, and be rid of the wretched place for good.
The pompous chairman assumes the seat will go to his son, a solicitor. Pitted against him are a bitterly cold GP and a deputy headmaster crippled by irreconcilable ambivalence towards his son, an unnervingly self-possessed adolescent whose subversion takes the unusual but highly effective form of telling the truth. His preoccupation with “authenticity” develops into a fascination with the Fields and its most notorious family, the Weedons.
Terri Weedon is a prostitute, junkie and lifelong casualty of chilling abuse, struggling to stay clean to stop social services taking her three-year-old son, Robbie, into care. But methadone is a precarious substitute for heroin, and most of what passes for mothering falls to her teenage daughter, Krystal. Spirited and volatile, Krystal has known only one adult ally in her life – Barry – and his sudden death casts her dangerously adrift. When anonymous messages begin appearing on the parish council website, exposing villagers’ secrets, Pagford unravels into a panic of paranoia, rage and tragedy.
We can get our own copies of the book beginning on Thursday (September 27th).
The person who leaked the photos, also explained that the book was dedicated to Neil, who is J.K. Rowling’s husband.
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Are you a quick reader? We need someone who can finish The Casual Vacancy A.S.A.P., for a review! (Our writers are going to be busy on that day). If you can do this, please email editor@magnaefamae.com. Thanks!
J.K. Rowling’s upcoming book for adults will be available in stores around the world in 6 days, on September 27th. The book will be called The Casual Vacancy.
Australia’s ABC did conducted an interview with the famous author, which will be airing on the day of the book’s release. You can see a preview for it below.
Today, The Guardian Weekend, has published an interview with Rowling. The cover of the issue was released, and can be seen below. The piece is being called “Harry who?”. This interview, will be the first full length interview to be released to the public regarding The Casual Vacancy.
“Obviously I need to be in some form of vehicle to have a decent idea,” she laughs. Having dreamed up Potter on a train, “This time I was on a plane. And I thought: local election! And I just knew. I had that totally physical response you get to an idea that you know will work. It’s a rush of adrenaline, it’s chemical. I had it with Harry Potter and I had it with this. So that’s how I know.”
The story opens with the death of a parish councillor in the pretty West Country village of Pagford. Barry had grown up on a nearby council estate, the Fields, a squalid rural ghetto with which the more pious middle classes of Pagford have long lost patience. If they can fill his seat with one more councillor sympathetic to their disgust, they’ll secure a majority vote to reassign responsibility for the Fields to a neighbouring council, and be rid of the wretched place for good.
The pompous chairman assumes the seat will go to his son, a solicitor. Pitted against him are a bitterly cold GP and a deputy headmaster crippled by irreconcilable ambivalence towards his son, an unnervingly self-possessed adolescent whose subversion takes the unusual but highly effective form of telling the truth. His preoccupation with “authenticity” develops into a fascination with the Fields and its most notorious family, the Weedons.
Terri Weedon is a prostitute, junkie and lifelong casualty of chilling abuse, struggling to stay clean to stop social services taking her three-year-old son, Robbie, into care. But methadone is a precarious substitute for heroin, and most of what passes for mothering falls to her teenage daughter, Krystal. Spirited and volatile, Krystal has known only one adult ally in her life – Barry – and his sudden death casts her dangerously adrift. When anonymous messages begin appearing on the parish council website, exposing villagers’ secrets, Pagford unravels into a panic of paranoia, rage and tragedy.
Pagford will be appallingly recognisable to anyone who has ever lived in a West Country village, but its clever comedy can also be read as a parable about national politics. “I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society,” Rowling says. “We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?” But it requires obliviousness to the horrors suffered by a family such as the Weedons, and the book satirises the ignorance of elites who assume to know what’s best for everyone else.
The Pottermore Insider has released more information on upcoming chapters in Chamber of Secrets. Chapter Eight: The Deathday Party involves Harry, Ron and Hermione being invited, and attending Headless Nick’s Deathday Party (as you may know from reading the Harry Potter books).
In Chapter Eight, we will get to unlock content from J.K. Rowling on Peeves (the poltergeist who never made the movies).
No release date has been announced… stay tuned to Magnae Famae for more Pottermore news.
J.K. Rowling was at the Bath Literature Festival, where she spoke about the possibility of a prequel on the Marauders. She said that it won’t happen.
