There are pockets of resistance to Harry Potter to this day, if, post Deathly Hallows, the equivalent of a surrender at Appomattox seems to have been signed and sealed — despite the absence of, say, Richard Abanes or Michael O’Brien at the ceremony. Here is Mark Shea’s critique of the latest Catholic Harry Hater, a Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, a Catholic priest and author who asserts that reading Harry Potter has helped “educate younger children in the language and symbolism of the occult,” an education that will “inundate” exorcists with work in the coming decades. [Read more…]

Linda McCabe was one of the first Harry Potter mavens at ‘Harry Potter for Grown-Ups’ to read Hidden Key to Harry Potter after its publication back in 2003. She wrote me to let me know where she thought I was right and brilliant, where she thought I was wrong and way off-base, and to make me aware of the many detail mistakes I had made. Linda was a founder of the League of Obsessive Nit-Pickers (L.O.O.N.) and Hidden Key must have been painful reading for her in regard to spelling and Capitalization errors — unless, of course, numerous nits to picks make reading such a book a delight. We have corresponded since that time about ‘shipping, alchemy, Renaissance epic (especially Orlando Furioso), and many other fandom and literary subjects. A writer herself, Ms. McCabe has never failed to stretch my thinking on whatever subject we’re discussing. I’m as grateful to her for this quality of our correspondence as I am for the several times she has prevented my making (another) public gaffe on a Potter subject and for those times she has ‘taken my back’ when fandom critics have said bizarre things about my books.

My high regard for Ms. McCabe’s opinion makes her positive review of Spotlight, posted Sunday at her ‘Musings of a L.O.O.N.’ website, only that much more meaningful to me. As I work to put together my Bree Tanner thoughts for a longish post here, this was a much needed boost!