As you’ve probably noticed, HogwartsProfessor is ‘under renovation.’ In addition to the retro look, if you’re writing me at john at HogwartsProfessor dot com, I’m not receiving your mail today (try john at zossima dot com). Thank you for your patience while the house-elves work their digital magic.

I don’t know whether I can post during reconstruction but here is something I hope you will enjoy. I get two or three letters a week from serious readers who take the time to tell me they have read my books. Often times, they write to share mistakes they’ve found, which is a great help, thank you very much. Not as often, maybe once or twice a year, I get chewed out; last week a mom wrote me to say she had just read Looking for God in Harry Potter and she was still convinced Harry was evil (cue passages from Leviticus). It turns out she had read Looking and watched the first three movies. Oh, well. Orson Scott Card said, in response to Mark Twain’s comment that the Book of Mormon was “chloroform in print,” that “no book can survive a hostile reading.” Certainly that is true of Looking and Harry Potter.

Every once in a while, though, I get a letter that makes me laugh out loud or blush. Yesterday I received one that made me do both. It was so flattering and humorous that I have to suspect it is a prank; remember when it used to be Ivy League sport to write outrageous, fictional letters about Jerry Springeresque personal situations to Dear Abby to see if she’d answer with advice in print? A testimony like this one, forgive me, made me think the guy was pulling my leg. Anyway, I got his permission to post it. You decide. [Read more…]