Cormoran Strike Fan Feeds on Twitter

February 15, 2022 by 2 Comments

I have to assume, though I always neglect the evidence this is true while I write posts, that most of HogwartsProfessor readers are attached cerebrally to their ‘smart’ phones and learn about and even read the long pieces here on those phones. We have almost zero social media following, alas, because I refuse to engage in Facebook, Twitter, etc., lest I wind up in a Twelve Step Program for those addicted to such things (my wife, who has a sober personality and no temptation to the virtual life to be had online, makes the @HogwartsProf twitter entries).

Having said that, even I am aware that much of the Strike fandom breathes in and out on various twitter platforms and threads. If you are really into the teevee adaptations, which do have the advantage of being made by a production company owned by The Presence (can you say ‘Total Control’?), news about ‘C. B. Strike’ can be had through a variety of channels. For your convenience in searching and following, I collect samples below from the Strike tent in the wide campsite of Twitter-dom.

I start with the ones that are the most book oriented because that is where Serious Strikers here live and breathe and continue with all the others I could find in a morning’s search. Please add those I have missed via the comment boxes and include your thoughts on the subject as well. Enjoy!

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Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Twitter

Rowling Tweets Potter Fandom, Ickabog

February 3, 2022 by 1 Comment

I’m pretty sure Rowling, literally married as she is to conventional allopathic medicine, holds diametrically different views than I do on the cause-and-effect realities in play with respect to the “social effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Even without knowing the beliefs and work of the “70 UK and international charities” to whom Volant Charitable Trust has donated just shy of $11 million, however, a gift made by Rowling from proceeds of Ickabog sales, one is obliged to acknowledge The Presence’s generous philanthropy.

Her continued cash-support and concern for “vulnerable groups” and funding charitable “projects” for “the alleviation of social deprivation” shows once again that she puts her money where her mouth is as well as where it counts. The Fund’s determination to fund “the purchase of medical equipment or PPE in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic”? Not so much ‘Volant’ as ‘Murray’ there, I’d guess, but it serves as a reminder that Rowling-Galbraith is a Murray in the end. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, The Ickabog, Twitter

The Christmas Pig: New Rowling Story

April 13, 2021 by 4 Comments

A change to the Rowling Twitter header, followed by a joking retweet that was erased (and then reposted), ended this morning with the announcement of the 12 October publication of a new children’s story by J. K. Rowling, The Christmas Pig. From the Rowling.com website page:

The Christmas Pig is a heartwarming, page-turning adventure about one child’s love for his most treasured toy, and how far he will go to find it.  It’s a standalone story, unrelated to any of J.K. Rowling’s previous work, and is suitable for children 8+: a tale for the whole family to fall in love with.

Jack loves his childhood toy, Dur Pig.  DP has always been there for him, through good and bad.  Until one Christmas Eve something terrible happens – DP is lost.  But Christmas Eve is a night for miracles and lost causes, a night when all things can come to life – even toys…  And Jack’s newest toy – the Christmas Pig (DP’s annoying replacement) – has a daring plan:  Together they’ll embark on a magical journey to seek something lost, and to save the best friend Jack has ever known…

The Presence returned to Twitter after five months of silence with a change to her header and a retweet, that according to friends in the UK and Argentina was posted then taken down only to appear again. Here are the new header and that tweet:

Three Quick Notes:

(1) Perhaps the most encouraging news is that the first fifty comments made by twitter followers to Rowling’s return to posting included only two references to the transgender kerfuffle vis a vis Maya Forstater’s appeal this month and both were supportive of Rowling’s position. The ‘Welcome Back!’ and ‘We Missed You!’ memes were the rule without exception. I expect that will change as word spreads about The Christmas Pig but this opening salvo sans nastiness is a very positive change for the better.

(2) I don’t think this means Rowling has returned to regular tweeting, in fact, I would be astonished and very disappointed if it did mean this. That her response to Mhairi W went out, came down, and was reposted suggests some real hesitance to re-enter the social media game. I’m hopeful that this tweet to her more than 14 million followers was the exception made to serve the obvious marketing expectation from her publishers rather than a joyful reentry into the nether world of the Twitterati and the Ideological Twits. I think all of her fans prefer new stories, screenplays, and novels, the fruit of her focus on her vocation as author, to her endless and unedifying engagement with social media trolls and tweeters.

(3) I have been sitting on a post about the confusing comments Rowling has made about the genesis of The Ickabog through the years, from its being her next project in 2007 and all but done a few years later to an item in the attic she dusted off for the Covid lockdown pande-mania. I hope that Nick Jeffery will explain in a Guest Post or in the comment thread below how the announcement of this new story creates a reasonable alternative to my pet theory, based on Rowling’s contradictory statements about a children’s story for close to fifteen years, that The Ickabog publication was only rowled out (sic) last summer as a fire break to all the negative transgender controversy publicity, a necessary sop to public opinion to smooth the way for Troubled Blood’s publication in September.

A new story by year’s end! Hurrah!

 

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Twitter

Sunday Times Letter: Tide Turning Against ‘Transphobe’ Taunting Tyrants?

September 28, 2020 by 4 Comments

 

What Rowling is tweeting about is a letter denouncing the transgender activists online who declared Rowling dead, #RIPJKRowling, because they believe her new novel is openly “transphobic.” The Sunday Times explains in ‘Literati rally to JK Rowling’s defence in row over Cormoran Strike book:’ [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Twitter

Rowling Writes Trans Views Tell All Post; Fandom Divides ‘Team Jo,’ ‘Team Trans’

June 12, 2020 by

On 6 June, J. K. Rowling tweeted nine separate times on the issue of transgender people and their rights. I think the most important thread is this one:

Though only a reiteration of her #IStandWithMaya Tweet Heard Round the World from last December, one with special emphasis in each part of the thread that the accusation that she hates transgender people is untrue and unfair, the world that believes with former Vice President Joe Biden that transgender rights “are the civil rights issue of our time” have doxxed her thoroughly. Celebrities as closely tied with her as Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, and Evanna Lynch have all gone public to affirm that “transgender women are women.” [To my knowledge, Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger have not yet checked in on this issue.]

On 10 June Rowling responded with an essay which was posted on her website, ‘J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues,’ and she has pinned a link to this post to the top of her twitter page (she has been silent on twitter since 6 June). In this essay she reviews the history of her involvement with the transgender issue, the story of her several fat-finger mistakes at the keyboard that led to her being identified as “transphobic” by trans activists online, and of her decision to return to twitter in December after a long hiatus to support Maya Foraster. She details, too, the fallout thereafter, not only the verbal abuse and threats she endured and expected, but also the unanticipated “avalanche of emails and letters” “the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive.” These notes, she writes, [Read more…]

Filed Under: Casual Vacancy, Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes, Twitter