Starting next week, we’ll be rolling out the video and audio files of talks from the St Andrews University Harry Potter Conference along with live webinars and Q&A sessions with speakers at that event and those who responded to those talks in the just published anthology and Greatest Hits Collection, Ravenclaw Reader.  (Read all about that here.) Participants have been emailing me all this week in response to the video and free Severus Snape talk posted here, friends and serious readers in Germany, South Africa, Birmingham (UK and Alabama!), Scotland, China, Canada, and many of the United States.

Want to join us? Here’s what you have to do:

1. Buy the book. It’s available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and you can order it from other outlets. Amazon’s discounting the book an extra 10% which makes a good deal even better.

2. Let me know. Forward the letter confirming your purchase to me at John at HogwartsProfesor dot com or cut and paste it into this site’s Contact page and send it in.

3. Wait for the Owl. I will send you an invitation to the Membership Site where you will have to sign in with your name and email address both to get the link to the site and to sign up for announcements of material being posted and webinars being offered. The first owls in response to the international host that have written me to sign up are going out tomorrow.

4. Welcome Aboard! You can click on the link to the site and watch my very brief welcoming video. Starting this weekend the Unlocking Press house-elves will be posting the first mp4 ‘vimeos’ for your viewing pleasure.

You have until Friday at midnight, then, to run that four point gauntlet! Get the book, let me know you’ve bought it, and then sign in for three weeks of international and in depth Potter conversation around the wonderful talks and responses in Ravenclaw Reader. It promises to be a blast — and it won’t be what it could have been if you don’t come along.

See you on the other side of the fire wall!

 

Visit the Ravenclaw Reader: Seeking the Artistry and Meaning of J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts Saga — Essays from the St Andrews University Harry Potter Conference BookLaunch page for even more about this exciting new title!

Ravenclaw Reader Launch from Mary Granger on Vimeo.

In brief, if you buy the Ravenclaw Reader this week, i.e., before next Thursday, in addition to the book you’ll get access to the Keynote talks from the St Andrews Conference, a live webinar Q&A with Prof Richards and discussion with the editors, and mp3 talks of other lectures and discussion with those speakers. It’s a brave new world of access to the best in Potter scholarship — act now!

Straight from Rachael, Adviser to the Minister of Magic at BookPeople:

Win a complete, illustrated collection of the Harry Potter books from The Book People!

 You’re letter from Hogwarts may have got lost in the post, but you can still win a magical prize with The Book People!

To celebrate the new release of the Harry Potter books at thebookpeople.co.uk we’ve got a special edition, illustrated collection of J.K Rowling’s novels to give away to one lucky Potter super-fan! The complete set, housed in a decorative slip case, have been brought to life with the imaginative drawings of award winning artist Jonny Duddle. They’ll make a spell-binding addition to any muggle’s book shelf – so here’s what you need to do to win them…

Post a picture of yourself, or a link to a picture of yourself, dressed up as your favourite character for the Potter books. Maybe you’re a Hermione Granger look alike, or you’ve always thought you’d look great in Dumbledore’s extravagant robes – you might even make a dashing centaur. Whatever you decide, we want to see your best fancy dress pictures! Then, to really prove you’re a Potter buff, caption your image with a spell or charm.

Post your entry in the comments section below this post, we’ll review them all, and announce the winner at the end of August. Good-luck!

 

Dolores Gordon-Smith, author of the Jack Haldean mysteries and profound Potter Pundit, wrote me this afternoon to say that BBC Radio 4 was re-broadcasting an interview they made in 2000 with J. K. Rowling. The show is called ‘Desert Island Discs’ and the point is chit-chat with celebrities about what songs they would take with them if they knew they were to be marooned, alone, somewhere out on the high seas. It’s up online for 27 more more days; you can listen to the whole thing here. And I highly recommend you do. Listen to the whole thing.

The details included in the interview are fascinating — we have at last the source of the ‘3 cardboard boxes of back story’ legend and we discover that The Presence plays the guitar — but it is the time capsule audio snapshot of Rowling weeks after Goblet of Fire was published that is the delight, at least for this listener. Rowling is only 35 years old, she is still excited about (and exhausted by) her success, and she laughs at herself and tells stories as easily and openly as if she is among friends in a coffee shop. Forgive me, it is hard to imagine her being this at home with a journalist today post Levesden; there is an innocence and charming frankness without the edge she has lost, at least in her public appearances, since the turn of the millenium. Since the movie franchise whelmed the intimacy of the reader and a comfy chair in a book ship.

And the music she chooses! [Read more…]