I am in conversation with a local group of Christian Fiction writers about my giving a series of talks about Rowling’s tool-kit and what they can take-away from it for their own stories.  No contract yet, but I’m very hopeful (I’ve spoken to the group before and they are a speaker’s dream audience). The leader of the group wrote to me with this charge:

The theme for the year for my group is how Christians write the best fiction, because we have direct access to the Greatest Story that is written on the hearts of all people.
 
I will begin the year discussing Campbell’s Hero’s Journey – bringing it back as an echo of the Gospel. I hope to have your talk as a deep dive into how one of the most successful modern authors did so through the Harry Potter series.  I will have speakers later in the year discuss the works of Tolkien and Lewis, and how they imbedded Christianity into their works.  I hope this context can aid you in formulating your talk.

It has! I have the whole day, a Saturday, to deliver eight hours of lectures. For our sanity, I will break up the eight hours into four talks. If you’re interested in learning more about them, join me after the jump! [Read more…]

I have been working on thesis tasks the last six months but that effort is finally at the stage of awaiting judgment from the external and internal readers. My  unforced sabbatical from posting at HogwartsProfessor did not mean that I wasn’t thinking about articles I would be working on except for the need to review and revise work I had already written.

Today I sketched out the ideas that have most been haunting me and tried to figure out where to begin; my preference is with the Troubled Blood subjects but a writer is obliged to think of his audience. Hence the question of this post: What do you want to read?

Let me know by email, contact page, or in the comment boxes below which posts from the following list or about which topics of your own interest you would most be interested in reading. I’ll consider your votes, believe me, as I try to catch up from half a year of neglected posting. [Read more…]

And something extra for the Tom Burke fans out there:

As noted the day before yesterday, The Rowling Library‘s March issue has as its cover story Patricio Tarantino’s article on The Wizarding Almanac to be published this October by Bloomsbury. I’m pretty sure it’s the best coverage of this story done to date; he notes the shortcomings of the volume that are evident from the few pages readers have been shown in publicity materials while admiring the concept and the beautiful illustrations. Read the whole thing at TheRowlingLibrary.com, available to be read online or to download as a pdf.

There’s more to that issue, of course, my favorite being the re-visit to the conversation about a film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Warner Brothers, for obvious reasons, really wants it to happen and to cast the original films’ trio of Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson. The TRL writers explain why that isn’t going to happen, reasons that might not occur to everyone, and I enjoyed it very much. I think you will, too!