“Register before 8 December for a chance to win a trip to the Grand Opening of the Potter Park in Orlando!”

Anyone want to write a Kafka-esque fan fiction piece in which Mad-Eye Moody visits the Wonderful World of Hogwarts theme park to find a rogue Death Eater in hiding? Please forward it to me here or even just a tease for our amusement here in a break from serious reading.

Who out there is going to the Grand Opening? Why?

I am neck deep in Twilight writing this week, both in getting Spotlight ready for press and in blogging over at Forks High School Professor, but here is a note from our friends over at the Leaky Lounge. Apparently they are putting together small reading groups to read their way through the 4100 pages of the Hogwarts Saga. Here is the invitation: Read More “Leaky Lounge Discussion Groups: A Sorting”

An interview with Mrs. Linda Harvey below the bump (H/T Perelandra). Read More “‘Paganism and Witchcraft in Youth Culture’”

My first thought? I really have to hope the Harry Potter lecture at Cal State University Northridge was better than what is reported in the newspaper account of it online. If this is the future of Potter scholarship, we’re in trouble. Read More “Anthropology Prof: “Potter about Life Lessons””

I kid you not! 11 am to 4 pm on 22 November 2009 at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, all the Potterdelphians in the Mid-Atlantic States will be meeting for a day of fun.

Check it out here. One more demonstration of the remarkable “Shared Text” reach of the Hogwarts Saga: families forsaking the television for a museum trip at $10 a crack to be with other Potter true believers….