http://www.harrypotterrealm.com/mn_quotes_jkr.html
I'm not so naive that I didn't know or didn't suspect that, at some point, someone was going to say "You're writing about the occult." My wizarding world is a world of imagination. I think it is a moral world.
< I am not trying to influence anyone into black magic. That is the very last thing I'd want to do.
< I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.
< We've always watched it happen to every damn thing that got popular. With the people who wanted to accuse me of Satan worship, I was full on for arguing it out with them face to face. But you know you're not going to change their views. The only thing I have argued forcibly is that the idea of censorship deeply offends me. They have the absolute right, of course, to decide what their children read. I think they're misguided, but they have that right. But to prevent other people's children from reading something, at that point, I would be very happy to face them and argue that one out. I think it's completely unjustifiable.
< People die, but do you care when they die? Do you absolutely have a sense of how evil it is to take another person's life? Yes, I think in my book you do. I think you see that is a horrific thing. I have enormous respect for human life. I do not think that you would read either of the deaths in that book and think, yeah, well, he's gone, off we go. Not at all. I think it's very clear where my sympathies lie. And here I'm dealing with a villain who does hold human life incredibly cheap; but you're right, I know where I draw the line. Other people will draw the line in a different place and they will disagree with me.

http://www.expage.com/crazy4potterquotes

"Magic can't bring dead people back to life, so we will not see a live Lily or James Potter."

The moral point becomes clear towards the end of each book. "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities," says Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster, in the denouement of the second book. Rowling admits that the moral drive is important to her, but stresses that it is not contrived. "The morals tend to come quite naturally, often as I approach the end I realise what I've been writing about. But I don't think my books are preachy - Harry breaks rules quite routinely."

As a child herself, growing up in Chepstow, Joanne and her younger sister, Di, read avidly. "My most vivid memory of childhood is my father sitting and reading [Wind in the Willows] to me. I had measles at the time, very badly, but I don't remember that; I just remember the book."

She loved C. S. Lewis and E. Nesbit, but was not such a fan of Roald Dahl. As for the Enid Blyton books, Rowling says she read them all, but was never tempted to go back to them, whereas she would read and re-read Lewis. "Even now, if I was in a room with one of the Narnia books I would pick it up like a shot and re-read it."

Audio interview on NPR’s All Things Considered

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/19981203.atc.16.ram

http://www.nbp.org/harry.html

"The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me," Rowling said. "There's always room for a story that can transport readers to another place in which they can thoroughly enjoy themselves."

Asked why the story appeals to adults as well as children, the author responded, "I think some of the reason is that Harry has to accept adult burdens in his life, although he's a child. There's something very endearing about that to kids and adults as well.

"Harry is also an old-fashioned hero," she said. "What I mean by that is - there's enough human frailty in Harry that people of all ages identify with him, but he's also an honorable, admirable person. Harry can only get to a certain point in an adventure by breaking some rules. His particular role in the group [of three friends] is conscience. He will break the rule if he thinks he's doing for the greater good. But he has a fundamental sense of honor, and he learns that choices show more of who one is than abilities."

Rowling also thinks that writing for herself, not an intended audience, adds to the book's appeal. She quickly adds, "That makes me sound very sure of myself, but I had a lot of trouble getting started; I couldn't get the tone right. Then I decided, OK, I'm not going to dumb-down this book. I'm going to write a book I would like to read now."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3822242,00.html

"Of course it's been done before," she says, "but Harry HAD to be an orphan - so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them? and Hogwarts HAS to be a boarding school - half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry." She does concede, on reflection, that with filthy dungeons, haunted toilets and murderous intruders, the security aspect of Hogwarts is perhaps "not immediately apparent" but, she adds briskly, "there are some very strict rules".

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=69WCMD0H17&mscssid=KKQ9L62NN8XL8GNMADPUPH764K059XXC&isbn=059035342X&displayonly=authorInterview

Thank you for your book. It is complicated and wonderful! What got you interested in magic, wizards, and mystical stuff?
I have always been interested in it, although I don't really believe in magic. I find it in a picturesque world. There is also a lot of potential for humor with magic. And thanks very much for the compliment. I think it is great that people like complicated books. I do!

What were you like as a little girl, Ms. Rowling? I am sure you had a great imagination. Did you believe in fairies and magic?
I don't believe in magic in the sense that I write about it, but I do believe that extraordinary things can happen in the world for which we don't yet have an explanation. I was a little bit like Hermione in the book when I was young. I wasn't as clever, and I really hope I wasn't as annoying. I did consciously base her on me when I was about 11.

How did you decide what to name your characters and places?
I collect unusual names. I have notebooks full of them. Some of the names I made up, like Quidditch, Malfoy. Other names mean something -- Dumbledore, which means "bumblebee" in Old English...seemed to suit the headmaster, because one of his passions is music and I imagined him walking around humming to himself. And so far I have got names from saints, place-names, war memorials, gravestones. I just collect them -- I am so interested in names.

Who are some of your favorite heroes and heroines in children's literature? Why?
My favorite book when I was about 8 was THE LITTLE WHITE HORSE, and the heroine, Maria, because she was a very interesting heroine -- she wasn't beautiful, she was nosy, she had a temper. She was human, in a word, when a lot of girl characters tend not to be. I really like Eustace in THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER by C. S. Lewis (third in the Narnia series). He is a very unlikeable character who turns good. He is one of C. S. Lewis's funniest characters, and I like him a lot.

So many of the most beloved characters in children's literature begin their lives being raised by wicked adults -- James in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, Cinderella. Why is this such a classic fairy tale format? Why do you think it works so well?
All through literature -- and not just children's -- the hero has been removed from the family setting. In Greek myths you have the extreme with Romulus and Remus. It serves the important function of enabling the hero to act without the fear of destroying his family and disappointing people who love him, or -- which is very important -- having to expect frailties in his parents. I think that it serves an important function for readers, particularly child readers, to be able to explore adult cruelty, whether or not they are experiencing it themselves.

We are reading your books as fast as we can get them! Which books did you enjoy when you were a child?
I am sorry I am not writing faster. A book I loved when I was younger was Paul Gallico's MANXMOUSE, which is a funny, magical, very imaginative book. I really loved it. I don't know if it is still in print. I also liked anything by E. Nesbit. Anything by her! Her life and everything just strikes a chord with me.

Are you pleasantly surprised by the success of HARRY or did you realize a void for this book?
I am astounded by the success of Harry. I never thought much past publication. All my energies were concentrated on seeing the book in print. So it has been a very pleasant shock.

My class wanted to know how your daughter was taking all the fame of Harry Potter books, and also if she likes reading them. Thank you.
My daughter is only 5, so I haven't read them to her yet. She has got a very vivid imagination like her mother, and I think they might give her nightmares. I have promised that I will read them to her when she is 7.

Did you think of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY when you were writing HARRY POTTER? I thought of it when I was reading it. (I read it in three days, and my friend who is with me read it in one, and he has read it five times.)
I love your friend and no, I didn't think of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. I think that Charlie and Harry are quite different characters, although I do think that CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY is a wonderful book.

How did you think of all the strange things that wizards do, like the post arriving by owl, or floo powder, or what unicorn blood is used for?
I spent a lot of time inventing the rules for the magical world so that I knew the limits of magic. Then I had to invent the different ways wizards could accomplish certain things. Some of the magic in the books is based on what people used to believe really worked, but most of it is my invention.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/03/cov_31featureb.html

In your books, Hogwarts School is incredibly fantastic, from its forbidden forest and Quidditch fields and endless castle dungeons to its talking portraits and Harry's own snug four-poster bed. Do you see school as a potential sanctuary for children?

I'm often asked whether I went to boarding school and the answer is "no." I went to a "comprehensive" -- a state-run day school. I had no desire whatsoever to go to boarding school (though if it had been Hogwarts, I would have been packed in a moment). School can be a sanctuary for children, but it can also be a scary place; children can be exceptionally cruel to each other.

In this era of very involved parenting, do you think that the notion of boarding school and the autonomy it offers might hold an almost taboo allure for both kids and parents?

I think that's definitely true. Harry's status as orphan gives him a freedom other children can only dream about (guiltily, of course). No child wants to lose their parents, yet the idea of being removed from the expectations of parents is alluring. The orphan in literature is freed from the obligation to satisfy his/her parents, and from the inevitable realization that his/her parents are flawed human beings. There is something liberating, too, about being transported into the kind of surrogate family which boarding school represents, where the relationships are less intense and the boundaries perhaps more clearly defined.

In your first book, the witches and wizards stand out as slightly odd when they're in the "muggle," or normal world -- cloaked in capes with dozens of pockets. Are they meant to remind readers of homeless people?

Not necessarily of homeless people, although that image isn't far off what I was trying to suggest. The wizards represent all that the true "muggle" most fears: They are plainly outcasts and comfortable with being so. Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit!

Did your teaching experience help you write for children?

I taught for about four years, mainly teenagers. It is my own memories of childhood that inform my writing, however; I think I have very vivid recall of what it felt like to be 11 years old. The classics part of my degree at Exeter College did furnish me with a lot of good names for characters -- not exactly the use my lecturers expected me to put it to, however.

What were the most memorable books you read as a child?

My favorite book when I was younger was "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge. My mother gave me a copy when I was 8; it had been one of her childhood favorites. I also loved "Manxmouse" by Paul Gallico and, of course, C.S. Lewis' Narnia books.

In both Harry Potter books, your vocabulary is extraordinarily rich and inventive. How does one encourage children to cultivate a bank of words like this?

I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I'm in good company there.

http://www.ala.org/BookLinks/jkrowling.html

JOM: Were your observations of children and their responses to humor factors in your choice of topics for Harry Potter?
Rowling: I’m often asked if I wrote about this character because I had a daughter or if it came out of my teaching. But I hadn’t had my daughter yet when I started these stories, and I wasn’t teaching at the time. The kid’s point of view comes from my memories of what it was really like to be a kid, rather than a response to what I think that kids might want to read. My sense of humor was called “ruthless” by the English newspaper The British Guardian. That took me aback slightly. Some of the humor in the book really is quite black, but then that is suitable for the subject matter when you’re talking about ghosts and ferocious creatures.

JOM: In this country, we’ve recently seen many novels for young people that have been termed “bleak” in their preoccupation with serious personal and social problems. Did you intentionally take another direction with Harry Potter?
Rowling: Yes, that’s what I’m trying to do with the books in this series. They could be seen as an antidote to all of the grim books. There has been the same trend in publishing in Great Britain. We’ve had a glut of very realistic, gritty, very bleak books. Some of them are brilliantly written and I think it would be a tragedy if they weren’t being written. Having said that, though, I don’t think Harry is an entirely frivolous book. There are difficult things that we see Harry go through—bereavement is a very obvious one—but it’s not an “issues” book in the sense that you would sit down after reading it and think about what this book deals with, what it attempts to explain. You see Harry coming to terms with things in his life, and I hope that all of that is integral to the story. But, it’s not meant to be the main thrust of the story. And, I think that in a badly written realistic, gritty book that feeling of grinding away at a point is stamped on every page.

JOM: The title of the first book was also changed from that of the English publication, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The substitution of Sorcerer’s Stone emphasizes the focus on magic and wizardry. Have you had any reactions from parents or other adults who object to the treatment of occult subjects in your books?
Rowling: I expected that same reaction in Britain, although from what I’ve heard in the American media, I don’t think there is quite the same degree of anxiety about these things in Britian. If this subject offends people, that isn’t what I want to do, but I don’t believe in censorship for any age group, and this is what I wanted to write about. The book is really about the power of the imagination. What Harry is learning to do is to develop his full potential. Wizardry is just the analogy I use. If anyone expects it to be a book that seriously advocates learning magic, they will be disappointed. Not least because the author does not believe in magic in that way. What I’m saying is that children have power and can use it, which may in itself be more threatening to some people than the idea that they would actually learn spells from my book.

JOM: Harry is very subversive in how he gets back at his terrible relatives. He’s a fully developed character, not a victim or saint.
Rowling: Yes, he wants to get back at Dudley. He’s a human boy, and we the readers want him to get back at Dudley. And, in the long term, trust me, he will. But Harry is also innately honorable. He’s not a cruel boy. He’s competitive, and he’s a fighter. He doesn’t just lie down and take abuse. But he does have native integrity, which makes him a hero to me. He’s a normal boy but with those qualities most of us really admire.

JOM: Are you ever surprised by what people find in this book?
Rowling: I’ve had some time to stand back from the first book and I can now talk about it far more objectively than I could when I was writing it. I’ve had various accusations leveled at me. Some people have said that it’s very traditional. Now, there are elements in the story that are undoubtedly very traditional. In many children’s books, you will find the same basic pattern that occurs in fairy tales. There are good reasons why fairy tales endure. They appeal to us on such a subconscious and emotional level. I think you could say many of the same things about Harry. You have the changeling, you have the wicked stepparents (even though one of them is a blood relative, in Harry’s case). You even have an ugly brother, in a way. But I certainly did not sit down and think about incorporating all of those elements. It all came from inside. I sweated blood over that story to make it work, but it really came from my heart. Only later can you start analyzing it. But you can overanalyze, too. I had a woman tell me it was clear to her that Harry was so abused that he becomes schizophrenic, and that everything that happens from the point of the arrival of the letters about Hogswart is his own escape into a sort of torture-fantasy. I tried to be polite and say something like, “Well, that would be one way of looking at it, I guess.” But I was kind of scared. One of the nicest things about writing for children is that you don’t find them deconstructing novels. Either they like it or they don’t like it.

JOM: Is it a bit daunting to have had so much popular success with the first book when you know there are six more that will be compared with it and with each other?
Rowling: Oh, yes. It was terrifying. And people are bound to have favorites. I have my favorite of the Narnia books. And, there’s bound to be one of this series that people like less than the others. I can cope with that. But, I still feel like I stepped through the looking glass. I still can’t believe the book is published, that I’m sitting here talking with you about it. The scariest moment for me was when the deal with Scholastic came through. I was getting a lot of publicity for the first book in Great Britain, as the book just really took off when I won the Smarties Prize, which is probably the most prestigious English children’s book award. So, that gave it a huge jolt, and the profile started being raised. Then, with the sale of the book to Scholastic, too, I just got incredibly scared and was blocked for about a month. I couldn’t write at all then, and I went from having been very happy with book two to thinking it wasn’t good enough, it didn’t match up to the first one. Now, as I stand back from the second book, since it’s a year later and I’ve just finished the third, I think number two is maybe better, in fact, than the first one. It’s done very well in Britain and just came out in America. And, I have to say that the American edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is my favorite. I’ve seen six different editions, and I love them all because they are all my book. But the Scholastic cover looks most like the way I had fantasized that the book would look before it was published. To me, it looks magical. It looks like a spell book because of the colors and the style of the illustration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/club/harrypotter/transcript.shtml

What is it that has produced the excitement about Harry Potter? Because, on the one hand there is the magic, there's the fantasy. On the other hand, there is something that is very real: real people and an ordinary world. Where do these two meet in a way that has produced this fascination?
JK Rowling: I always find it very hard to talk about the books in these terms because I find it very, very difficult to be objective about them. To me, they remain my private little world - I was writing about Harry for five years before anyone else read a word of him and it is still an amazing feeling to me, to be in a room, as we are today, with people whose heads are also populated with these characters, because, as I say, for five years, they were my private secret. From the moment I had the idea for the book, I could just see a lot of comic potential in the idea that wizards walk among us and that we are foolishly blind to the fact that the reason that we keep losing our car keys is that wizards are bewitching them for fun.
James Naughtie: He's a good guy, Harry, isn't he?
JK Rowling: Yeah, he's a very good guy, yeah, definitely.
James Naughtie: He makes the world right and good in the end, doesn't he? Did you write it with a sort of moral purpose, to use a pompous phrase?
JK Rowling: No, I've never at any point sat down and thought, what will be this book's moral? Having said that, a moral normally emerges fairly rapidly as I write, so it's not a conscious thing, it tends to evolve as I do the books.
James Naughtie: And yet, the thing is, although it is full of fun, there is quite a bit of sadness. He is an orphan, or that's how it appears at the beginning of the book. And there's that awful moment where he looks in the mirror and sees his parents. Now that's quite a troubling image. Did you worry about how children would take to that?
JK Rowling: No, which sounds very callous. But I never, at any point writing any of the books, worried whether children would understand or whether they would find it funny or whether I would frighten them too much, ever, because I wrote the books entirely for myself. I just went where I wanted to go and hang the consequences really.

http://slj.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=articleArchive&articleId=CA153024&display=searchResults&stt=001&publication=slj

How did you come up with the idea for Harry?
I had the idea for Harry on a train in the summer of 1990.... I was sitting on the train. I was staring out the window. As far as I can remember, I was staring at some cows. Not the most inspiring subject. [Although cartoonist] Gary Larsen would disagree, now that I think of it. [The idea] just came. I can not tell you why or what triggered it-if indeed anything triggered it. I saw Harry incredibly clearly. The idea basically at that point was wizard school and I saw Harry very, very plainly.

What did you like to read when you were growing up?
I adored E. Nesbit. I think her books are wonderful. My favorite book as a child was called Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. I liked [Noel] Streatfeild, who did those girly books about ballet shoes and things. I was a bit old for Roald Dahl. I did read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was about 11, and I really enjoyed it. But a lot of his later stuff, like Matilda and The Twits, I haven't read.

Some readers compare the two of you.
I'll be honest with you, I take it as a huge compliment because he's very popular.... However, I don't actually think we're that similar. I think that superficially, very superficially-because from what I know about Roald Dahl, he was very good on quirky details-we have something in common. But at a deeper level, we're quite different. This is not at all meaning that I'm better than Roald Dahl. He's an absolute master at what he did. It's just that I think we set out to do quite different things. I think his characters are more cartoon like than mine are. I also think-unfashionable a word as that is-that my books are a lot more "moral."

How have kids responded to your books?
Talking to children about the books is actually just about the most enjoyable thing you could possibly do. They are great.

What are they most curious about?
They are very keen to know whom I'm going to kill. Very, very, very keen. That fascinates me. I think I understand why. They are all really worried about Ron. They've seen so many films where the main character's best friend died [that] I think they have become incredibly wise and know the storyteller's tricks, basically. They know that if Ron died, Harry would have such a grudge, that it would make it very personal.

Are you planning to kill off Ron?
I can't let on too much.

The first two Harry Potter books are very lighthearted. Will the series remain that way?
[The books] are getting darker, and that's inevitable. If you are writing about Good and Evil, there comes a point where you have to get serious. This is something I really have had to think about.

How so?
Early on, I had to consider how to depict an evil being, such as Lord Voldemort [in books one and two]. I could go one of two ways: I could either make him a pantomime villain... [meaning that there is] a lot of sound and thunder and nobody really gets hurt. Or [I could] attempt to do something a little bit more serious-which means you're going to have to show death. And worse than that, you'll have to show the death of characters whom the readers care about. I chose the second route.

What about the strange names you use?
Most of the words came in my head full-formed and I have to kind of trace them back. And I can only try to speculate to where they came from. I think that I derived "Muggle" [the word wizards use to describe humans without magical powers] from the word "mug," which in Britain means a stupid person or a fellow who's easy to dupe.

I read somewhere that you are a collector of weird names.
That's absolutely true. Names have always fascinated me. It is such sheer indulgence to be able to invent names and use strange names in the Harry books. It's going to make it very difficult for [me to work on] the next thing I write. If it's realistic, I'll have to give up all those names. Boy!

How do you pronounce "Quidditch," the name of your invented ball game?
It's KWI-ditch [stress on the first syllable].

Where did that name come from?
I met a British journalist from quite a serious newspaper not very long ago. She said to me: "You obviously got the name `Quidditch' from `quiddity,' which is the word that means the essence of a thing." And I looked at her and thought, "Oh, I really want to say, `Yes.' Because that sounds so much cooler than the truth." But the truth is that I invented the word for a totally whimsical reason. I just wanted a word that began with Q. Don't ask me why. Just pure whim. I still have the notebook in which I invented all these words beginning with Q. On the page, you can see where I wrote Quidditch, and I circled it five times. I just really liked the sound of it.

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/Sept99_BarnesNoble.htm

[Jo, I want to say a big thank you for making me feel 12 again and bringing me so much joy when I read your books. I have a few questions: (1) How do you keep track of all the strange names in the world of Harry Potter that you created from scratch? Do you compile a list of characters as you go along, or did you already have a clear idea from Book 1? (2) Did you do any substantial research on wizardry and witchcraft when you were writing these books? You've quite convinced a lot of us that Hogwarts and the world of wizards and muggles do exist! Thanks again. Michelle, age 23.] It is wonderful to hear that I've knocked 11 years off someone's age. I had nearly all of the characters worked out, including names, for all seven books by the time I finished Book 1, but I do change names sometimes. I like to play around with names, and I collect unusual ones from all sorts of sources, like maps, books of Saints, war memorials, and some names I just invent myself. And, yes, I have done research on witchcraft and wizardry, but I tend only to use things when they fit my plot, and most of the magic in the books is invented by me.

[You have such a phenomenal imagination! Is it a result of a very imaginative childhood?] First of all, I will be using your name in a future book. To answer your question, yes, I lived a lot in a fantasy world when I was younger and spent a lot of time daydreaming -- to my parents frustration.

An audio interview on The Connection

http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/connection/audio/1999/12/con1228a.rm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/features/rowling1020.htm
To such critics, Rowling said she has a "very basic solution: Don't read them."

She continued, "If you ban all books with witchcraft and supernatural, you'll ban three-quarters of children's literature."

"I positively think they are moral books," she said. "Harry, Ron and Hermione are innately good people. I've met thousands of children, but I've never met a single child who has asked me about the occult."

"I don't want to give anyone nightmares," she said.

She admitted that "the books get scarier." But when readers have finished the final installment ? book No. 7 is scheduled to be available in 2003 [or so we thought in 1999] ? "they will understand."

Audio interview with National Press Club

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/exrad/991020.jkrowling.ram

10/21/99

http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9910/21/rowling.intvu/
And what of the controversy raised by some parents who worry the tale of a young wizard promotes witchcraft and the occult? Her answer is direct and unforgiving. "I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft," she says with an uncomfortable chuckle. "I'm laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd."

"I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, 'Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch.' They see it for what it is," she emphasized. "It is a fantasy world and they understand that completely.
"I don't believe in magic, either," she said.

http://de.share.geocities.com/antje_lang/c106.htm

What books and authors did you read as a kid? Which are your biggest influences?
I most admire E. Nesbit, Paul Gallico and C.S. Lewis. My favourite book as a child was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

2000

http://www.geocities.com/hpgirl_site/interview.html
I don't believe in magic in the way I describe it in my books. I mean, I don't believe in the wand waving sort of magic. But I'd like to... I'd love it to be real... And the starting point for the whole of Harry's world is 'what if it WAS real?' And I work from there.

Whom do you consider your influences? How have they affected your writing?
Writers I most admire are: E. Nesbit, Jane Austen, Vladimir Nabokov and Colette. But as for being influenced by them... I think it [may be] more accurate to say that they represent untouchable ideals to me. It is impossible for me to say what my influences are; I don't analyze my own writing in that way.

http://de.share.geocities.com/antje_lang/c101.htm

Was it hard to think of the monsters' names?
Some of the monsters are from folklore, so I didn't invent them. In Book IV you'll see some creatures I did invent, and I had fun making up their names. But I'm not going to say what they are. :-)

You don't really find that out until Book VII, but I can say that the happiest people do not become ghosts. As you might guess, Moaning Myrtle!

It would be Professor Lupin, because he is kind, clever, and gives very interesting lessons.

I invented the names of the Houses on the back of an airplane sick bag! This is true. I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

The closest I've come to putting a real person in my books is with Gilderoy Lockhart, who is an exaggeration of someone I once knew. John Weasley is a little bit like my oldest friend, a man I was at school with, whose name is Sean. But neither of them are accurate portraits.

Harry just sort of strolled into my head, on a train journey. He arrived very fully formed. It was as though I was meeting him for the first time.

Gnomes eat the roots of your plants, and make little heaps of earth, like moles do. They are also a bit of a giveaway that wizards live in a house.

It's the same as two black-haired people producing a redheaded child. Sometimes these things just happen, and no one really knows why! The Ministry of Magic doesn't find out which children are magic. In Hogwarts there's a magical quill which detects the birth of a magical child, and writes his or her name down in a large parchment book. Every year Professor McGonagall checks the book, and sends owls to the people who are turning 11.

Why did you choose the lightning bolt as a trademark for Harry Potter?
Just because I decided that it would be an interesting and distinctive mark.

http://www.burrow-jp.com/library/original/05042000.html

UKMC: Our first question/s come from LLevey6890, LAUFRE, Oundjian, DavisPeterWDavis, GA576, MJCINHH, JSEAST217571113, Caz2432, SPLODGE124, HBairu (and many more!) ask where did you get your inspiration and ideas for the Harry Potter Books?
JKR: Aaaaaaaaargh...... the most difficult question because the honest & boring answer is, I don't know. I've got no idea where inspiration comes from it just does. In this case, it came on a train, if that's any help.
UKMC: MeglHopkins asks...Why did you focus on magic?
JKR: It chose me. I never really sat down & thought 'what shall I focus on' and in fact, I don't really read fantasy it's not my favourite genre.
UKMC: Pophamp asks...I'm a big fan of Harry's adventures, and have just finished reading The Prisoner of Azkaban. Besides all the other Harry Potter books this is the best book I have read. Here's my question, do you believe in witches and wizards and magical happenings, which so often Harry finds himself getting stuck in the middle of?
JKR: I don't believe in magic in the way I describe it in my books. I mean, I don't believe in the wand waving sort of magic but I'd like to... I'd love it to be real...and the starting point for the whole of Harry's world is 'what if it WAS real?' and I work from there.
UKMC: Bitzatbrix also asked...Did any writers inspire you to write the books? If so who?
JKR: Well, I read a lot, but I can't think of anyone who directly influenced the Harry Potters perhaps Elizabeth Goudge she wrote 'The Little White Horse' which was my favourite book when I was about eight and which is also a blend of magic with the workaday.
UKMC: To go back to the books, VIKINGCMI asks... Do you think young people like your books because the stories are full of mysterious and inventive people and creatures, and/or is it the basic plot that is intriguing?
JKR: I know it sounds disingenuous, but I never analyse my books in that way I think if you go down that route, you are perilously close to trying to find the 'formula' and I don't think good books are written to a formula judging from their letters, I would say the primary attraction is the characters closely followed by plot.

UKMC: Goldhook is looking to the future... Ms. Rowling, can you discuss the possiblity of a central character dying? AND as Harry mature's does a love interest develop between he and Hermonine? Thank you.
JKR: Well, as I said, there will be deaths, but I am giving nothing away there, as for Harry & Hermione... d'you really think they're suited?
UKMC: Beanie6426 asks... Why did you pick a "lightning bolt" to be the symbol on Harry's forehead?
JKR: It had to be something that suggested the intensity of the pain that Voldemort was trying to inflict upon him but a simple and plausible shape for a scar.

UKMC: Raw3Pete asks...I have read a few articles saying Christians object to the occultic themes weaved into your stories. I was just wondering, what are your spiritual beliefs?
JKR: :::deep sigh::: Well, as it happens, I believe in God, but there's no pleasing some people!

UKMC: Kissa371 asks...Your Harry Potter books remind me of JRR Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings triology. (My niece is borrowing my Tolkien books to keep her busy until your next book.) Are you a Tolkien fan? Did his work influence the Harry Potter series?
JKR: Well, I love the Hobbit, but I think, if you set aside the fact that the books overlap in terms of dragons & wands & wizards, the Harry Potter books are very different, especially in tone. Tolkien created a whole mythology, I don't think anyone could claim that I have done that. On the other hand...he didn't have Dudley ;o)
UKMC: Sishygirl asks...where do you get your most inspiration in writing?
JKR: Let's see... cafes, usually but I can write anywhere. I came up with the names of the Hogwarts houses on an aeroplane. I've still got the sickbag I wrote them on. Empty, I need hardly add.

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/June00_Treneman_Times.htm

"People do want life to be neat. That is undoubtedly true. But you know the four great truths of Buddha: the first one is 'Life is Suffering'. I love that. I LOVE THAT. Because I think YES. Life is not supposed to be neat. And it's a comfort. It's a comfort to all of us who have messed up. And then you find your way back, bizarrely. And I'm sure to mess up again at some point - though, I hope, not on such a grand scale."

People talk about the Harry Potter books as wizard wheezes but they have a pronounced dark side as well. The Dementors, for instance, are prison guards who track people by sensing their emotions. They disable their victims by sucking out all positive thoughts and with a kiss they can take a soul while leaving the body alive.

I do not think that these are just characters. I think they are a description of depression. "Yes. That is exactly what they are," she says. "It was entirely conscious. And entirely from my own experience. Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced."

What does she mean?

"It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different."

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/July00_Jones_Newsweek.htm

[Do you have any sort of target audience when you write these books?] Me. I truly never sat down and thought, What do I think kids will like? I really, really was so inflamed by the idea when it came to me because I thought it would be so much fun to write. In fact, I don't really like fantasy. It's not so much that I don't like it, I really haven't read a lot of it. I have read "Lord of the Rings," though. I read that when I was about 14. I didn't read "The Hobbit" until I was in my 20s-much later. I'd started "Harry Potter" by then, and someone gave it to me, and I thought, Yeah, I really should read this, because people kept saying, "You've read ‘The Hobbit,' obviously?" And I was saying, "Um, no." So I thought, Well, I will, and I did, and it was wonderful. [Sheepish smile ] It didn't occur to me for quite a while that I was writing fantasy when I'd started "Harry Potter," because I'm a bit slow on the uptake about those things. I was so caught up in it. And I was about two thirds of the way through, and I suddenly thought, This has got unicorns in it. I'm writing fantasy!

[Why are the English so good at writing fantasy?] [ Chuckles ] Britain has the most incredible mix of folklore traditions because we were invaded by so many people. A lot of American superstitions were just imported whole from England. Salem gets mentioned in book four.

[Do you actually answer your fan mail?] [ Reluctantly ] Yeah. I have help now. But letters get-I don't know if I should actually say this in NEWSWEEK. I have a set of criteria for letters I want to see personally, so they will get filtered and they will get handwritten replies. I get letters from children addressed to Professor Dumbledore [headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the books' setting], and it's not a joke, begging to be let into Hogwarts, and some of them are really sad. Because they want it to be true so badly they've convinced themselves it's true. So those are some that get pulled.

[How overtly concerned are you with the idea of Harry's growing up in the books?] I do want him to grow up. I want them all to grow up, but not in a way that's unfaithful to the tone of the books, i.e., I feel it would be inappropriate-in these books -were Hermione to have an underage pregnancy or if one of them were to start taking drugs, because it's unfaithful to the tone of the books. It's not at all that I don't think those themes can be explored superbly in children's literature. It's just that in the Harry Potter books there isn't a place for those particular issues. In book four, there is the most evidence so far that they're getting older, in that they start getting interested in boys and girls. Although there's been a hint of that in book three, this time it's out in the open.

[Have you felt any pressure, from librarians or critics or parents, to expurgate these books?] No. Not at all. I've quite strong views on that sort of stuff. I feel no pressure at all. It's an interesting field, children's literature, and only from the inside do you get the full force of it. Children's books aren't textbooks. Their primary purpose isn't supposed to be "Pick up this book and it will teach you this." It's not how literature should be. You probably do learn something from every book you pick up, but it might be simply how to laugh. It doesn't have to be a slap-you-in-the-face moral every time. I do think the Harry Potter books are moral books, but I shudder to think that any child picking one up would get three chapters in and think, Oh, yeah, this is the lesson we're going to learn this time.

[Every time writers get immensely successful, they draw the ire of some reactionary group. In your case it seems to be people accusing you of encouraging Devil worship.] We've always watched it happen to every damn thing that got popular. With the people who wanted to accuse me of Satan worship, I was full on for arguing it out with them face to face. But you know you're not going to change their views. The only thing I have argued forcibly is that the idea of censorship deeply offends me. They have the absolute right, of course, to decide what their children read. I think they're misguided, but they have that right. But to prevent other people's children from reading something, at that point, I would be very happy to face them and argue that one out. I think it's completely unjustifiable.

[But then, there you were, in 1990, on that train stuck between Manchester and London, staring at a field of cows, and an image of Harry popped into your mind. That really is a magical story.] It was. It really was. And I had this physical reaction to it, this huge rush of adrenaline, which is always a sign that you've had a good idea, when you've a physical response, this massive rush, and I'd never felt that before. I'd had ideas I liked, but never quite so powerful. And Harry came first, in this huge rush. Doesn't know he's a wizard, how can he not know? And, very bizarrely, he had the mark on his forehead, but I didn't know why at that point. It was like research. It didn't feel as if I were entirely inventing it.

[One theme that's so powerful in these books is the idea of the powerlessness of kids-ordinary kids, that is.] Yeah, definitely. And I think it's probably a chief attraction for young readers? I think that's why there will always, always, always be books about magic, discovering secret powers, stuff that you're not allowed to do. It exists in adults, too. There's a small part of you that wishes you could alter external things to be the way they ought to be. One of the realities of growing up is realizing how limited your power is as an adult, also. As a kid you have the idea that you just have to grow up and-and then you grow up and you realize it's not that easy to change things from here, either -which doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4037903,00.html

For two hours every week, she'd leave Jessica with a friend and sneak off to a cafe to write. She has never had much time for fantasy, certainly isn't a buff. "I've read The Hobbitt, and I read CS Lewis when I was about eight. But I don't like fantasy as a genre. Today, people seem to think if there's a unicorn in a book I will love it, and they give me the books..." Invariably, they are wrong. She would much rather sit down with a good Roddy Doyle. She may have studied classics, but her frame of reference tends to be populist - Q Magazine, Father Ted, The Royle Family. What she seems to enjoy about Harry's universe is that it is her creation, ruled by her own logic. Whereas many of us may not have a clue whether Harry is exceeding his powers, she knows exactly what he can and can't do. She gets quite exercised if people tell her they think Harry's dead parents are going to come back to life at the end of book seven. "We've had petrified people, and we've had what would have been fatal injuries, but once you're dead you're dead. No magic power can resurrect a truly dead person."

Considering Rowling's own life, it seems surprising that Harry's world is so traditional, so removed from the biting realities of single parents and the dole. It's a very conservative world, I say. She takes a deep, uneasy breath. "So I'm told repeatedly. The two groups of people who are constantly thanking me are wiccans (white witches) and boarding schools. And really, don't thank me. I'm not with either of them. New ageism leaves me completely cold, and Jessie would never go to boarding school. I went to a comprehensive." Did she ever want to be part of that world? No, she says, the first time she met anyone who'd been to boarding school was at university. "I thought it sounded horrible. Not because I was so attached to home - I couldn't wait to leave home - just that the culture was not one I'd enjoy. It staggers me to meet people who want to send their kids away."

She has become edgy. "I do get kind of frustrated with this conservative world thing because..." She explains at length, and somewhat defensively, that the school had to be a boarding school because most of the magic happens in the middle of the night, and if it was a day school you wouldn't get the same sense of community. She also argues that, in a way, Harry does reflect the modern world because he is mixed race - his dad being a wizard, his mum being a muggle (human) witch - which seems to be pushing it a bit.

What limits the books for me is their lack of emotional and psychological depth. One of the few moving, and surprising, moments occurs in the first book, when Harry stares into a magic mirror... and sees his dead parents. He later learns that the mirror offers a reflection of what he most wants in life. Rowling says this is a rare autobiographical element in the novels. "The mirror is almost painfully from my own feelings about my mother's death. She died when I was 25, so I was six months into writing the book when she died. And she was 45." She says if she were looking in the mirror she would see exactly what Harry saw. People search pointlessly for other aspects of her life in the books. As she says, they are works of imagination.

I follow her downstairs to where she's having her picture taken. The photographer asks if she minds having a picture taken with a broom that he's bought. She winces, and obliges. "Let's be honest, I feel a twat about this, let's be straight," she says through another Gatling gun laugh - before, true to form, she turns herself into a resolute misery for the pictures.

http://www.swns.com/vaults/rowling.htm

It seems that the wizards and witches at Hogwarts are able to conjure up many things, such as food for the feasts, chairs and sleeping bags. . .if this is so, why does the wizarding world need money? What are the limitations on the material objects you can conjure up? It seems unnecessary that the Weasleys would be in such need of money. . .
Very good question. There is legislation about what you can conjure and what you can't. Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last. This is a rule I set down for myself early on. I love these logical questions!

Talking about rules. . .I watched this TV programme about the making of The Simpsons ("I LOVE The Simpsons!" she interjects) and Matt Groening was talking about rules - like you never see any of the characters going cross-eyed like you do in other cartoons - the characters show quite normal behaviour, by cartoon standards. When you started all this off, did you have a set of rules?
Yes. Absolutely. The five years I spent on HP and the Philosopher's Stone were spent constructing The Rules. I had to lay down all my parameters. The most important thing to decide when you're creating a fantasy world is what the characters CAN'T do. . .you can tell with The Simpsons. It's a work of genius. You can tell that they've structured it in such a way that they're never at a loss for what their characters can and can't do. That's why they're so believable - even though they're little yellow people.

Do you believe in witchcraft and have you ever done any witchcraft?
No.

What are your feelings towards the people who say your books are to do with cults and telling people to become witches?
Alfie. Over to you. Do you feel a burning desire to become a witch? Alfie: No. I thought not. I think this is a case of people grossly underestimating children. Again.

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/July00_Grice_Telegraph.htm

She says her fictional soul- sucking creatures called The Dementors, who leech the happiness out of people, sprang out of her depression at this time. "They were out of my own experience: that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. That deadened feeling, which is so different from feeling sad."

Within three years, she lost her mother, aged only 45, to multiple sclerosis, and gained a daughter. "They are the two things that have most affected me and my life - including Harry Potter. Nothing compares with them. He would be number three.

"It is no coincidence that Harry Potter's mother exerts a powerful influence through all the books. She has died protecting her son from the evil Lord Voldemort, and he is made aware that "to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection for ever".

Rowling says she felt the truth of this the moment she saw her baby daughter. "From that day in 1993, I fully understood how inevitably and matter-of-factly you would protect your child. The first thing I thought when I looked down at her was that this was the person I would always put before myself. Not the big dramatic thing of laying down your life but putting your own considerations to one side."

"Apart from the obvious mustering of dark forces in Goblet of Fire - and there is a tremendous build-up of nastiness, slime, bloodshed and death - the thing you sense most powerfully under all the frenetic happenings, is anxiety. Potter is an anxious boy, an insecure wizard as well as a brave one, the target of bullies and plotters.

Although Rowling says she was never bullied "with a capital B" at her school near Bristol, she often felt a misfit. "I sounded very south-east, as opposed to south-west. I was a bit too clever for my own good. I understand what it is like to feel a complete fool, to be very confused, to be rubbish at sports, the last person to be picked for a team. I'd hear a groan go up because they had to have me. "Harry excels - and he doesn't. He's really flying by the seat of his pants. He gets by with a combination of nerve and luck, which is fairly autobiographical."

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/071000rowling-interview.html

Her newest book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," is arguably her most ambitious. It is the longest -- 734 pages in the American edition from Scholastic -- and that is longer than even she imagined. She was late delivering the manuscript. She worked 10-hour days to produce it. She had, she said, to start over from midway through when she realized that part of the plot had not been set up to reach the conclusion she wanted. Not only that, the fourth book was designed as the culminating point to which the first three had been leading. (There are supposed to be seven, meaning three more are due.)

For the first time she touches on themes like political involvement, jealousy, fame, romance and the death of a Potter ally: all rites of passage.

"It's the end of an era in the context of the whole series of books," she said. "For Harry his innocence is gone."

She intimated that as the series progresses the mood may darken. The death of one character in the fourth book, she said, is "the beginning of the deaths."

Oddly enough, though, death was not the most difficult theme to handle. "I don't want to disturb children," she said, "but I don't want to write about death as if it's something that doesn't happen." And after all the whole series begins with the death of Harry's parents.

http://www.gradingthemovies.com/html/parent_alerts/bp_harrypotter.shtml
In the wake of this opposition, Rowling, who states she is not a witch (Rowling Thunder, by Jeff Jensen Entertainment Weekly Magazine Aug 4, 2000 Pg. 44-48.) defends Harry's world as an expression of imagination, although she is not entirely satisfied with her work being classed as fantasy.

Says Rowling, "It's all set obviously in a very fantastical context, but some of the characters I think we've all met." (From The dole to Hollywood by Elisabeth Dunn, etcetera / Books, Sat. 2 August 1997.)

http://de.share.geocities.com/antje_lang/c109.htm

[Do you find there's a worry that you can say one thing in a conversation somewhere and something else in an interview and these people will draw conclusions that are close to what you're doing to do in the books?] Mostly, people have put together something I've said, something they'd like to think I'd said, and something that someone else has said which was completely false, and drawn completely the wrong conclusions. That just happens. No one yet has guessed what's going to happen, or come anywhere close.

[Now, Book Four. Very scary ending. How difficult was it to write that?] The first time ever, I cried while writing. I actually cried twice during the ending of Book Four. It's a powerful ending, but there's a reason why - something VERY important happens. I have said all along that if you're writing about evil you should have enough respect for children to show them what means. Not to dress up a pantomine villain and say, isn't it frightening?, when it isn't. It's the ending I planned and I was very happy when I re-read it.

[Book Four explores several themes - some we've seen before like prejudice in Chamber of Secrets. We see more of that with foreign students and people with different parentage. Is that something you've been wanting to explore?] From the beginning of Philosopher's Stone, prejudice is a very strong theme. It is plausible that Harry enters the world wide-eyed: everything will be wonderful and it's the sort of place where injustices don't happen. Then he finds out that it does happen and it's a shock to him. He finds out that he is a half-blood: to a wizard like Lucius Malfoy, he will never be a true wizard, because his mother was of Muggle parentage. It's a very important theme.

[Voldemort's a half-blood too…] Like Hitler! See! I think it's the case that the biggest bully takes their own defects and they put them on someone else, and they try to destroy them. And that's what he [Voldemort] does. That was very conscious - I wanted to create a villain where you could understand the workings of his mind, not just have a 2-D baddie, dressed up in black, and I wanted to explore that and see where that came from. Harry in Book Four is starting to come to terms with what makes a person turn that way. Because they took wrong choices and he [Voldemort] took wrong choices from an early age.

[Was it difficult balancing the light and dark in the book - you've got some dark moments, and some wonderful moments of humour. Mad-Eye Moody who can't tell the difference between a handshake and an attempted murder. And a slightly dodgy joke about one of the planets in solar system.] Yeah, slightly dodgy! I was glad my editor let me get away with that joke, because she really laughed. Is it difficult? No. My experience is that, in a very limited way, even when life is not that bright, people still laugh. In the most tragic situations. The ending of the book is very important to me because Harry says, we're going to need some laughs. That is what so admirable about human beings because even when they're in the direst situations, there's still humour.

[Is this your idea of Hermione lightening up as you've said before. She didn't seem that light to me.] No, she will! She's a good girl. I agree with you - she's not that light in this book. But people made the mistake of assuming that my answers referred to Book Four. There are another three books to go. But in some ways - she's more of a rule breaker now. Where her convictions are concerned, she's prepared to do stuff that she's really not supposed to do. But she will lighten up. I promise you. I did.

[Now we've seen hormones kick in in this book. Are we going to see Harry becoming even MORE like Kevin the teenager, you know, [does Kevin impression] ‘Sirius, huh, I hate you, I wish you were back in Azkaban'?] I think Ron's more like that isn't he? Ron's more Kevinish. Harry's got so many worries, he needs his friends - he can't afford to alienate them.

[He's delicate isn't he?] He is. He's more your sensitive hero. And more of that stuff happens.

[Now, can I ask you: are there any special wizarding powers in your world that depend on the wizard using their eyes to do something? Bit like…] Why do you want to know this?

[I just vaguely wondered.] Why?

[Well because everyone always goes on about how Harry's got Lilly Potter's eyes?] Aren't you smart? There is something, maybe, coming about that. I'm going to say no more. Very clever.

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/Fall00_Scholastic_Interview.htm

Q: How did you get the idea for Harry Potter?
A: I was taking a long train journey from Manchester to London in England and the idea for Harry just fell into my head. At that point it was essentially the idea for a boy who didn't know he was a wizard, and the wizard school he ended up going to.
Q: Any hints you could share about what to expect in future Harry Potter books?
A: The theme running through all seven books is the fight between good and evil, and I'm afraid there will be casualties! Children usually beg me not to kill Ron whenever I tell them this; they seem to think he is most vulnerable, probably because he is the hero's best friend!
Q: How do you come up with all the unique names, places and things that help make Harry Potter so intriguing?
A: Many of the names are invented, for example 'Quidditch' and 'Muggle'. I also collect unusual names, and I take them from all sorts of different places. 'Hedwig' was a saint, 'Dumbledore' is an old English word for 'bumble bee' and 'Snape' is the name of a place in England.
Q: What do you think it is about Harry Potter that connects with so many people?
A: It's very hard to think about my work in those terms, because I really wrote it entirely for myself; it is my sense of humour in the books, not what I think children will find funny, and I suppose that would explain some of the appeal to adults. On the other hand, I think that I have very vivid memories of how it felt to be Harry's age, and children seem to identify strongly with Harry and his friends.
Q: What books and authors did you read as a kid? Which are your biggest influences?
A: I most admire E. Nesbit, Paul Gallico and C.S.Lewis. My favourite book as a child was THE LITTLE WHITE HORSE by Elizabeth Goudge.
Q: What are your hobbies? Favorite holidays (and how do you celebrate them)?
A: I was embarrassed the other day to discover that I didn't have much to say to the question 'what are your hobbies?' (asked by a nine year old boy). The truth is that if I'm not looking after my daughter, spending time with friends or reading, I am writing. The boy who'd asked seemed quite frustrated by this answer, but the truth of the matter is that even if writing is now my full-time profession, it is also my greatest pleasure.
I doubt if it will come as a surprise to anybody that I love Hallowe'en. Although I missed last year, because I was in the U.S., I usually hold a big Hallowe'en party for my friends and their children.
Q: What does your daughter think of your work? What books do you want and like to read with her? And her to read on her own?
A: She is still too young for me to read the Harry Potter books to her, but I am really looking forward to a time when I can share them with her. She loves the Beatrix Potter books and I recently read her THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

http://de.share.geocities.com/antje_lang/c108.htm

One of "Goblet"'s biggest themes is bigotry. It's always been in your books, with the Hitlerlike Lord Voldemort and his followers prejudiced against Muggles (nonmagical people). In book 4, Hermione tries to liberate the school's worker elves, who've been indentured servants so long they lack desire for anything else. Why did you want to explore these themes?
Because bigotry is probably the thing I detest most. All forms of intolerance, the whole idea of "that which is different from me is necessary evil." I really like to explore the idea that difference is equal and good. But there's another idea that I like to explore, too. Oppressed groups are not, generally speaking, people who stand firmly together -- no, sadly, they kind of subdivide among themselves and fight like hell. That's human nature, so that's what you see here. This world of wizards and witches, they're already ostracized, and then within themselves, they've formed a loathsome pecking order.

You don't think this a little heavy for kids?
These are things that a huge number of children at that age start to think about. It's really fun to write about it, but in a very allegorical way.

Do the books reflect your own political sensibilities? In America, some might say you're a bit left-wing.
It's absolutely the reverse to the British press; I was told yesterday that I'm a Euroskeptic, which is a big buzzword in Britain. I actually woke up at 2 a.m. this morning, went into the kitchen to get some water, and thought, "I know why they said that -- they haven't finished the book." Right at the end, Dumbledore says, "Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open." That is my view. It is very inclusive, and yes, you are right: I am left-wing.

But are you baking your political beliefs into these books, or are we just reading stuff into them?
There is a certain amount of political stuff in there. But I also feel that every reader will bring his own agenda to the book. People who send their children to boarding schools seem to feel that I'm on their side. I'm not. Practicing wiccans think I'm also a witch. I'm not.

You referred to the darkness in your books, and there's been a lot of talk and even concern over that.
You have a choice when you're going to introduce a very evil character. You can dress a guy up with loads of ammunition, put a black Stetson on him, and say, "Bad guy. Shoot him." I'm writing about shades of evil. You have Voldemort, a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering, and there ARE people like that in the world. But then you have Wormtail, who out of cowardice will stand in the shadow of the strongest person. What's very important for me is when Dumbledore says that you have to choose between what is right and what is easy. This is the setup for the next three books. All of them are going to have to choose, because what is easy is often not right.

There's some other horrific violence, too, like when Wormtail cuts up Harry's arm to get the blood to bring Voldemort back to life. Very disturbing.
Yeah, that wasn't good, I agree with you.

Have you ever thought "Maybe I should tone it down"?
No. I know that sounds kind of brutal but no, I haven't. The bottom line is, I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8 year olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it. I don't at all relish the idea of children in tears, and I absolutely don't deny it's frightening. But it's supposed to be frightening! And if you don't show how scary that is, you cannot show how incredibly brave Harry is. He's really brave, and he does, I think, one of his bravest things in this book: He can't save Cedric, but he wants to save Cedric's parents additional pain. He wants to bring back the body and treat it with respect.

Saving Cedric's body reminded me of the Hector Patroclus Achilles triangle in the "Iliad."
That's where it came from. That really, really, REALLY moved me when I read that when I was 19. The idea of the desecration of a body, a very ancient idea... I was thinking of that when Harry saved Cedric's body.

And then you go and emotionally decimate your readers with that scene where Harry's murdered parents are drawn out of Voldemort's wand. I was in tears.
Me too. It was the first time I cried writing a Harry Potter book. I got pretty upset.

As your fan base is growing larger, and maybe even younger, do you feel any sense of social responsibility, any sense of responsibilities to their sensibilities?
I cannot write to please other people. I can't. When I finish book 7, I want to be able to look in the mirror and think, I did it the way I meant to do it. If I lose readers in the process, I'm not going to throw a party about it. But I would feel far worse if I knew that I had allowed myself to write something different. Yet, I do have parents coming up to me and saying "He's 6 and he loved your book!" And I've always kind of been, "Well, that's great, but I know what's coming, and I think 6 is a tiny bit too young." I've always felt that. With my daughter and "Goblet of Fire," I'm reading it to her. Her reading age is pretty advanced, but I said, "I'm gonna read that one to you. It's scary, and I want to be there with you, and then we can talk about it." That would be my feeling if parents feel that.

What does your daughter [Jessica, 7] think of Harry Potter?
I always said I'd never read her the books until she was 7, and I think even 7 is pushing it. But I broke the rules. I actually read to her when she was 6. She started school, see, and kids were asking her about Quidditch and things. She didn't have an idea what they were all about, and I just thought, "I'm excluding her from this huge part of my life, and it's making her an outsider." So I read them to her, and she became completely Harry Potter obsessed!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/944728.stm

She told BBC Radio Gloucestershire's Nigel Ballard: "I do think that, on occasion, the material is not suitable for six-year-olds. But you can't stop them reading it.

"I read things when I was very young that disturbed me but I don't think that was a terribly bad thing.

"My parents never censored what I read so I wouldn't say don't read them to a six-year-old, just be aware some of it does get uncomfortable."

Harry is young wizard who finds he has magical powers after his parents are killed by a "dark wizard" called Voldemort.

She added: "I am dealing with evil - I am trying to examine what happens to this community when a maniac tries to take over".

Her books also deal with the "reality of how evil it is to take a human life".

She said: "If you are going to write about those kinds of things you have a moral obligation to show what that involves, not to prettify it or to minimise it."

Rowling, who grew up in Tutshill, Forest of Dean, plans seven Potter books in total and then wants to write something completely different.

"Maybe I'll write something about an obscure medieval monk," she said.

http://history.250x.com/vaults/c122.htm

"I feel that the ending of book four is frightening, but there are reasons for that. I was dealing with an evil character," Rowling explained. "I do not see, in five, six and seven, that I have to, kind of, up the stakes with every book at all. I wouldn't necessarily say that five is going to be darker. But I couldn't promise that there isn't more sad stuff coming."

"It's a short-sighted thing. It is very hard to portray goodness without showing what the reverse is. That's always been my feeling about literature," Rowling said. "You find magic, witchcraft and all those things throughout children's literature. Are you going to stop The Wizard of Oz? Are you going to stop C.S. Lewis? At what point are you going to say these are dangerous and damaging?"

"I personally think they're very mistaken," Rowling said of the proposal. "What scares me is these people are trying to protect children from their own imagination."

http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2.htm

Not secret messages of that type, but if you read carefully, you'll get hints about what's coming. And that's all I'm saying!

My impression is that the Harry books are getting "darker" somehow. Is this because he is growing up, and his readers have to do the same?
It's really because Voldemort is getting more powerful, but yes, also because Harry is fourteen now. At fourteen, you really do start realising that the world is not a safe and protected place — or not always.

Are there any books you would recommend to your fans to read while they await Book 5?
Loads! Read E. Nesbit, Philip Pullman, Henrietta Branford, Paul Gallico. Just read!

Why did Harry have a pet owl instead of something else?
Because owls are easily the coolest!

How would you like teachers to use your books with students (e.g. discussion, worksheets, book reports, etc.)?
The teachers I have met who have used the books in the classroom have all done so very imaginatively. It's been wonderful to see the work students have produced. I particularly enjoyed reading essays on what students think they would see in the Mirror of Erised. Very revealing!

How did you make the spells? Did you make them up, or are they real names of people and places?
The spells are made up. I have met people who assure me, very seriously, that they are trying to do them, and I can assure them, just as seriously, that they don't work.

When you were a little girl, did you dream or ever think of Harry Potter or someone like him?
Not really, though some of the fantasies I had as a child (like flying) are in the books.

How did you get the idea to send Harry to a wizard school?
The idea as it first came to me was about a boy who didn't know he was a wizard until he got his invitation to wizard school, so there was never a question that Harry would go anywhere else!

What is Bonfire Night?
Good question! We celebrate November 5th in Britain every year. There was a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The ringleader of the plot was called Guy Fawkes (spot any Harry Potter connection?!), and we burn him in effigy and set off fireworks to celebrate not losing our government.

Did you ever make a study of herbs and other Hogwarts subjects, or did you create all those classes from inspiration?
Most of the magic is made up. Occasionally I will use something that people used to believe was true — for example, the "Hand of Glory" which Draco gets from Borgin and Burkes in Chamber of Secrets.

Why was a different cover illustration chosen for the books sold in the United States? Why do those books have illustrations at the beginning of each chapter but the British books do not?
Publishers choose to do things differently, and I'm glad about that. It's very exciting for authors to see their work in many different versions. I love the look of the American books, especially the chapter illustrations.

Do you think elementary-age children will be able to read the other three books in the series?
Yes, I do. I personally feel the books are suitable for people aged 8 years and over. Though my daughter, who is seven, has read them all and not been very frightened — but maybe she's tough, like her mother!

Hello, I was wondering how much Tolkien inspired and influenced your writing?
Hard to say. I didn't read The Hobbit until after the first Harry book was written, though I read Lord of the Rings when I was nineteen. I think, setting aside the obvious fact that we both use myth and legend, that the similarities are fairly superficial. Tolkien created a whole new mythology, which I would never claim to have done. On the other hand, I think I have better jokes.

Ms. Rowling, for being fictional books, the Harry Potter books have a great grasp of the Latin language. I have noticed that many, if not most, of the names and incantations are of Latin heritage. How much research does it take to give these books their Latin heritage?
My Latin, such as it is, is self-taught. I enjoy feeling that wizards would continue to use this dead language in their everyday life.

Do any of the things that happen in the Harry Potter books reflect any of your childhood fantasies?
Flying, definitely. And who wouldn't want to be able to use the Jelly-Legs Curse?

Why did you choose the owl as the animal messenger in your books?
Owls are traditionally associated with magic, and I like them.

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/Oct00_LiveChat_AOL.htm

Ms. Rowling, why did you write about witchcraft and wizardry?
I had the idea of a boy who was a wizard and didn't yet know what he was. I never sat down and wondered, "What shall I write about next?" It just came, fully formed.

What do you think of the people who want to ban your books?
I think they are... uh.. what's a good word? Misguided. I think these are very moral books. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but not to impose their views on others!

Ms. Rowling, have you ever been inspired by another author?
The author with whom I identify most is E. Nesbit. She did some great, funny fairy tales.

http://www.wamu.org/ram/1999/r1991020.ram -- start at about 17:00 to get to the main interview.
Diane Rehm said, "Now you have obviously done a lot of research, and there are some very detailed mythologies and folklore in these books."

Rowling says, "Yes, I did a lot of research. About two-thirds of what I have written is my own invention, but about a third of what I incorporated into these stories was from the folklore of Britain—things people used to believe really worked."

http://www.yahooligans.com/content/chat/jkrowlingchat.html

Is Hogwarts a complete fictional creation, or is it based upon a place you've experienced?
It's completely fictional, but I feel like I live there a lot of the time.

I am a 30-year-old woman who fell in love with your books this summer. I believe they contain some real-life lessons for adults as well as children. What do you say to the critics who think that the books deal with the "dark side"?
Thank you very much for the kind words! To the critics I say, "Get out more!" Either they haven't read the books properly or they can't read at all.

As part of an ongoing project we're conducting at Barnes & Noble.com, I'd like to ask what are your favorite books, and why.
Anything written by Jane Austen or Roddy Doyle. I love Nabokov and Colette, too. Children's books -- E. Nesbit, Paul Gallico.

I'm a big fan of yours, and I hope you can answer this question: Why would you use most of the names in the book written in Latin?
I like to think that the wizards use this dead language as a living language, and it also gives readers a chance to work out clues along the way!

Ms. Rowling, did you have to do any research with real witches, or is all of your material from your imagination?
No, the material is almost all from my imagination. Occasionally I will use a nice, picturesque piece of folklore, which interests me. But real witches...I don't know any!

I noticed each book gets a little more graphic than the last. Where do you draw the line on how graphic or scary to make each book?
When the plot demands scary, I make it scary! I am led by the story, not by artificial considerations about how graphic each book should or shouldn't be.

Where do you come up with the words that you use, the names of the classes and spells and games, etc.? For example, the Patronus Expectumous, was it?
Expecto Patronum -- you were close! That's Latin. Go and look it up -- a little investigation is good for a person! Mostly I invent spells, but some of them have particular meanings. Like "avada kedavra" -- I bet someone out there knows what that means.

It's not fair! I know of a school that has Harry Potter as a literature book! We get stuck with Anne of Green Gables!!!
[laughs] What's wrong with Anne of Green Gables?! I suppose she is a bit perky. Well, at least you don't have to read the Harry books, they can just be for fun. Probably the best way to enjoy a book.

Are you going to get more mature themes as your books age, or are you going to keep it geared toward younger kids?
I think an eight- or nine-year-old will be able to read all seven books. That's my intention. However, Harry is growing up, so obviously he will face certain issues an eight-year-old won't. I don't think, however, that that will be uninteresting for an eight-year-old.

I am a 57-year-old clergyman and loved the series. How do you answer fundamentalist clergy objections?
I am sending you a hug across cyberspace. I think you understand that these books are fundamentally moral (that is how I see them, in any case). I'm afraid there are some people who object to seeing magic in a book, per se. And therefore a debate isn't really viable.

I'm taking a class at the U of I now, called the Literature of Fantasy, and we are going to read your first book. I have not read it, but I'm an avid fantasy fan. How do you feel about what has been stirred up by your novels? I personally feel it's probably hogwash, but I want to know how you feel.
Define "stirred up." Are we talking about the religious right again? If so, I'd say "hogwash" was a pretty good description!

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0010/20/lkl.00.html

VIEWER: I'd like to know how you come up with the spells and if you have to research those, if that's something that you come up entirely on your own out of your imagination or whether it's something that you researched and had to find out about magical spells and potions?

ROWLING: I'd say at least 95 percent of it is made up by me just out of nowhere. And then I meet people at book signings who whisper to me, "We are trying the spells." And I think: Well, don't bother, because I know I just made them up. They don't work.

But there's a small percentage of the stuff in books that is my modification of what people used to believe was true. For example, there is an object in the second book, which is the Hand of Glory. This is very macabre, but people used to believe in Europe that, if you cut off the hand of a hanged man, it would make a perpetual torch that gave light only to the holder, which is a creepy, you know -- but a wonderful idea. So I used that. That's a very ancient idea. I didn't invent the Hand of Glory.

VIEWER: I want to know why you -- or where you got the names for certain things like the literary references behind them, like why is Hogwarts called Hogwarts?

ROWLING: I love names, as anyone who has read the book is going to see only too clearly.

KING: You are a name freak.

ROWLING: I am a bit of a name freak. A lot of the names that I didn't invent come from maps. Snape is a place name in Britain. Dumbledore means -- dumbledore is an old English dialect word for bumblebee, because he is a musical person. And I imagine him humming to himself all the time. Hagrid is also an old English word. Hedwig was a saint, a Medieval saint.

I collect them. You know, if I hear a good name, I have got to write it down. And it will probably crop up somewhere.

KING: What do you make of the critique in some elements of the United States, especially in the Christian right, who have said that this book is -- it deals with demons and things?

ROWLING: What it deals with is good and evil. And like a lot of classic children's literature, it deals with good and evil. So my feeling is that their objection is utterly unfounded. I mean, occasionally, I wonder: Have they read the books? I think they're very moral books.

If we are going to object to depicting magic in books, then we are going to have to reject C.S. Lewis. We're going to have to get rid of the "Wizard of Oz." There are going to be a lot of very -- there are going to be a lot of -- a lot of classic children's literature is not going to be allowed to survive that, so -- and I'm very opposed to censorship.

So, no, I can't agree with what they're doing at all.

http://www.magicalharrypotter.com/TodayShow.html

Katie Couric: I'm not sure if we should bite this off but I'm going to. Tammy in Kansas was wondering: "What would encourage you to write books for children that are supporting the devil, witchcraft and anything that has to do with Satan?" You've heard that before.

J.K. Rowling: Well nothing would encourage me to do that because I haven't done it so far so why would I start doing it now?

Katie Couric: You have heard criticism along those lines ever since the beginning, and I think it also grew since more and more books came out.

J.K. Rowling: A very famous writer once said: "A book is like a mirror. If a fool looks in, you can't expect a genius to look out." People tend to find in books what they want to find and I think my books are very moral. I know they have absolutely nothing to do with what this lady's writing about. So, can't give her much help there.

http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf?/books/00/10/al_11browl22.frame

Are her books too scary? "That's a matter of personal taste. I feel that the ending of Book Four is frightening. But there are reasons for that. It was not done for pure pleasure of thinking I was frightening people. I was dealing with an evil character and there's a moral obligation, I feel, to show what that means. I don't see (Books) Five, Six and Seven as, you know, that I have to up the stakes with every book at all. (Book Four) was a pivotal moment at the heart of the series. I wouldn't necessarily say that Five is darker, but I can't say that there's isn't more dark stuff coming because I know that there is.

"From the very first book, I would meet parents who would say, 'Well, my 5- or 6-year-old loved it.' I always felt reservations about saying that was a great thing because I knew what was coming in the series and even though they might be able to cope with the language perhaps some of the scenes are a little dark for a 5- or a 6-year-old. I would think probably 8 or 9 is the youngest I would recommend as a reading age for the books."

On censorship: (The Harry Potter books have frequently been challenged in public schools and libraries. Some parents feel the books promote witchcraft and are anti-Christian.) "I really hate censorship. I find it objectionable. I personally think that they're very mistaken. I think these are very moral books and I think it's a very short-sighted thing. Short-sighted in the sense that if you try hard to portray goodness without showing that the reverse is evil and without showing how great it is to resist that . . . well, that's always been my feeling about literature.

"You find magic, witchcraft and wizardry in all sorts of classic children's books. Where do you start? Are you going to start with 'The Wizard of Oz?' These people are trying to protect children from their own imagination."

http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/10/23/jk.rowling.lkl/

I meet people at book signings who whisper to me, 'We are trying the spells.' And I think: Well, don't bother, because I know I just made them up. They don't work,' she said. She added that some of the supernatural elements in Potter, such as the Hand of Glory, were derived from ancient legend.

http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/thismorning/sites/books/rowling_001023.html

Lauren: I received an invitation in the mail to attend Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was secretly sent to me by my grandmother, before she died... I was ten years old at the time I received it. I know it wasn't real. I am able to tell the difference between real and imaginary. Is there any harm in allowing a kid to fantasize?

Rowling: I don't think there's any harm at all in allowing a kid to fantasize. In fact, I think to stop people from fantasizing is a very destructive thing indeed. You're very typical of children who absolutely do know the difference between fact and fantasy.

Rogers: There have been some issues, in certain parts of the country, about witchcraft and devil worship and that sort of thing. What do you say to that?

Rowling: I get asked this a lot, as you can imagine. First of all, I would question whether these people have actually read the books. I really would question that. These books are absolutely not about devil worship.

I vacillate between feeling faintly annoyed that I'm being so misrepresented, and finding the whole thing really quite funny. Because it is laughable that someone would say that of these books. I think anyone who has actually read them would agree with that. But there's always the rogue person who can't see what's right under their nose, and there you go.

Lauren: In all your books, the continuing theme is that people are not what they appear to be. Sometimes they seem dangerous, and are good. Sometimes helpful people are bad. It looks like Harry is being taught to overlook first impressions and to be suspicious of people. Do you think that's something kids need to learn more than other generations?

Rowling: You're right, this is a recurring theme in the books. People are endlessly surprising. It's a very jaded person who thinks they've seen every possible nuance of human nature.

Sometimes I get asked 'What would be your recipe for a happier life?' And I've always said 'A bit more tolerance from all of us.'

One way to learn tolerance is to take the time to really understand other people's motives. Yes, you're right. Harry is often given an erroneous first impression of someone and he has to learn to look beneath the surface. When you look beneath the surface he has sometimes found that he is being fooled by people. And on other occasions he has found very nice surprises.

Rogers: Your books have brought sort of a renewed interest in Latin.

Rowling: [laughs] I went back to my old university very recently, I did French and Classics there. I had to give a speech, which was very nerve-wracking because I'm speaking to very studious and learned people, some of whom used to tell me off for cutting lectures. And I said in my speech 'I'm one of the very few who has ever found a practical application for their classics degree.

It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know ... I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.

Lauren: Well, how can one series of books have such an extreme effect on readers and non-readers? And at the same time, school boards are banning them from their curriculum.

Rowling: Hmmmm ... Penetrating question. It is a difficult one. I've found that the series seems to cause very conflicting emotions in people generally. For example, in Britain, the two groups of people who seem to think in Britain that I'm wholeheartedly on their side are people who support the boarding school system and practicing witches - which are not two groups that one would expect to find allied in any way.

In fact, they are both wrong. I don't believe in boarding schools. I don't send my daughter to a boarding school. I didn't go to a boarding school. And I'm neither a practicing witch nor do I believe in magic.

It's just a strange thing. People have presented me with every possible argument. I've been told, on the evidence of the books, that I must be very right wing and I must be very left wing. It's very odd - extreme passions.

Rogers: We had Joan Bodger in, who's one of Canada's best-loved storytellers. She was talking about Harry Potter after we heard from the kids. And she said it took her a while to figure out where the stories had taken her, and eventually she put her finger on it as "TV Land."

Rowling: TV Land? I'm not sure I understand that one.

Rogers: Well, that children really identify with the stories because they're full of action, full of change, full of magic and things happen quickly.

Rowling: It's a theory. I wouldn't say it's a theory I'd particularly endorse, but it's a neat theory. [laughs]

Lauren: Actually, I don't watch a lot of TV at home, and I don't think it's kind of related with TV Land. I think it has reality, everyday life in it, and also medieval times - castles and knights and stuff.

McCormick: This is a question from Bridget from Toronto, and she's 12. Bridget's wondering, "Why did you create a magical society where men and women play such traditional roles? It seems most of the women Wizards pitter and patter around the house while the men do all the dark work."

Rowling: [laughs] That's not entirely true, because if you look at Professor McGonagall, she's a very, very powerful witch, and she's in a position of power. And in fact, if you look at the Hogwarts' staff - I had this discussion with someone the other day - it is exactly 50/50. Although it is true that you do have a headmaster as opposed to a headmistress, but that has not always been the case. As you will find out, there have been equal numbers of headmistresses.

Do Witches patter around the house? No. Mrs. Weasely stays at home, but if you think it's easy raising seven children, including Fred and George Weasely, then I pity… [laughs] Women who've had seven children will not see that as a soft option.

But no, I don't think that's true. I've said this before. I sometimes feel frustrated in that I'm just over halfway through the series. It's like being interrupted halfway through a sentence and someone saying, "I know what you're going to say." No, you don't. When I've finished, then we can have this discussion, because at the end of book seven, then I can talk about everything in a full and frank way. But right at the moment we're only halfway through.

An audio interview on Morning Edition

http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20001027.me.15.ram

http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20001030/potter.html

Is evil attractive? Yes, I think that's very true. Harry has seen the kind of people who are grouped around this very evil character. I think we'd all acknowledge that the bully in the playground is attractive. Because if you can be his friend, you are safe. This is just a pattern. Weaker people, I feel, want that reflected glory. I'm trying to explore that.

http://history.250x.com/vaults/c112.htm

A question also surfaced surrounding Harry Potter’s non-magical relatives, the Muggles who have always tortured or mistreated Harry, because of their fear of magic. For revenge, Harry has magically tortured his cousin Dudley. "I like torturing them," said Rowling. "You should keep an eye on Dudley. It’s probably too late for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. I feel sorry for Dudley. I might joke about him, but I feel truly sorry for him because I see him as just as abused as Harry. Though, in possibly a less obvious way. What they are doing to him is inept, really. I think children recognize that. Poor Dudley. He’s not being prepared for the world at all, in any reasonable or compassionate way, so I feel sorry for him. But there’s something funny about him, also. The pig’s tail was irresistible."

Undated (After book III - 2001)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/6230/thebeat/103-7544620-2661435

Amazon.co.uk: Where did the ideas for the wizard classes and magic spells come from?

Rowling: I decided on the school subjects very early on. Most of the spells are invented, but some of them have a basis in what people used to believe worked. We owe a lot of our scientific knowledge to the alchemists!

Amazon.co.uk: What books do you enjoy reading?

Rowling: My favorite writer is Jane Austen and I've read all her books so many times I've lost count. My favorite living writer is Roddy Doyle, who I think is a genius. I think they do similar things--create fully rounded characters, often without much or indeed any physical description, examine normal human behavior in a very unsentimental and yet touching way--and, of course, they're FUNNY.

Amazon.co.uk: What books did you read as a child? Have these influenced your writing in any way?

Rowling: It is always hard to tell what your influences are. Everything you've seen, experienced, read, or heard gets broken down like compost in your head and then your own ideas grow out of that compost. Three books I read as a child do stand out in my memory, though. One is The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, which was probably my favorite book when I was younger. The second is Manxmouse by Paul Gallico, which is not Gallico's most famous book, but I think it's wonderful. The third is Grimble, by Clement Freud. Grimble is one of funniest books I've ever read, and Grimble himself, who is a small boy, is a fabulous character. I'd love to see a Grimble film. As far as I know, these last two fine pieces of literature are out of print, so if any publishers ever read this, could you please dust them off and put them back in print so other people can read them?

http://www.cliphoto.com/potter/interview.htm

Amazon.co.uk: Where did the ideas for the Harry Potter books come from?
Rowling: I've no idea where ideas come from and I hope I never find out, it would spoil the excitement for me if it turned out I just have a funny little wrinkle on the surface of my brain which makes me think about invisible train platforms.

Amazon.co.uk: How do you come up with the names of your characters?
Rowling: I invented some of the names in the Harry books, but I also collect strange names. I've gotten them from medieval saints, maps, dictionaries, plants, war memorials, and people I've met!

http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript3.htm OR http://history.250x.com/vaults/c129.htm

When you write about Harry, is he based on any boy you know?

No he's not, Harry is entirely imaginary. He just came out of a part of me. Ron was never supposed to be based on anyone but the longer I wrote Ron the more I realised that he was a lot like one of my oldest friends, a man named Sean. The longer I wrote Ron the more I realised he was a bit Sean-ish. Hermione is most consciously based on someone and that person is me when I was younger. She's a bit of an exaggeration of me but that's where she came from.

What would you say is to children that is special about the two books [Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them]?

I would say that you will be doing real magic by buying these books, you will have in your power by parting with £2.50, or whatever it might be in your particular country, to transform other children's lives because the money you hand over, over 80% of it will go to the neediest children in the poorest parts of the world. So there is probably never a better thing to spend your pocket money on.

http://www.comicrelief.com/harrysbooks/pages/transcript.shtml OR http://history.250x.com/vaults/c118.htm

Where did you get your inspiration for the Harry Potter series?

I don't know where inspiration comes from Sarah, I wish I did!

Andreas: What do you think about Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"?

I read it when I was about twenty, I think, and I liked it a lot though I've never re-read it, which is revealing (usually with my favourite books I re-read them endlessly) but he created a whole mythology, an incredible achievement.

How do you choose the names for the creatures in your stories?

I make up most of them but some of them are obscure old English words I like and merrily abuse by applying them to some horrible creature i also get a lot of names from maps. I don't imagine I'm very popular in Dursley.

Why did you chose the name Harry Potter and did you base the character on someone you know?

Harry is completely imaginary. I took his surname from a family I lived near when I was a child, just because I liked the name and 'Harry' has always been one of my favourite Christian names.

Do you need a Wand to do Magic??

You can do unfocused and uncontrolled magic without a wand (for instance when Harry blows up Aunt Marge) but to do really good spells, yes, you need a wand.

Leo Huckvale: How do you cope with the aggravation from strongly religious people against witchcraft?

Well, mostly I laugh about it I ignore it... and very occasionally I get annoyed, because they have missed the point so spectacularly. I think the Harry books are very moral but some people just object to witchcraft being mentioned in a children's book unfortunately, that means we'll have to lose a lot of classic children's fiction.

Did you have a real school in mind when you invented Hogwarts?

No, I've never been anywhere like Hogwarts, if only! I went to a very normal Comprehensive..

Did you read the Narnia books when you were a child?

Yes I did and I liked them though all the Christian symbolism utterly escaped me it was only when I re-read them later in life that it struck me forcibly.

Where did you get your idea for the house elves?

House-elves exist in folklore. I didn't invent the tradition that if you present them with clothes they will leave. I thought it would be funny if they thought clothes were a disgrace except, of course, for Dobby.

What gave you the idea of having the Owl postal system?

Pigeon post!

Liz Grimwood-Taylor; What would you say to those people who think that Harry Potter is too scary for children?

Well, I think it's foolish to try and 'protect' children from Harry I can't think of any surer way to make them desperate to read the books! And as I've already said, I think of them as very moral.

http://www.mugglenet.com/hcinterview1.shtml OR http://history.250x.com/vaults/c123.htm

Q: What is the meaning behind Harry's lightning bolt scar?

A: There are some things I can tell you about it and some things I can't. I wanted him to be physically marked by what he has been through. It was an outward expression of what he has been through inside.

I gave him a scar and in a prominent place so other people would recognize him. It is almost like being the chosen one, or the cursed one, in a sense. Someone tried to kill him; that's how he got it.

I chose the lightning bolt because it was the most plausible shape for a distinctive scar. As you know, the scar has certain powers, and it gives Harry warnings. I can't say more than that, but there is more to say.

Q: From what we've read in interviews, you thought of Harry Potter while riding on the train. Did something happen that made you think of the story?

A: It was the weirdest feeling. I was on the train, and it seemed liked the idea was just floating in my head. It was like the idea had been floating around waiting for someone to write it, and it chose me.

It was like an explosion in my head. It was like magic, I know that sounds corny, but it was like pure inspiration.

You can always tell when you have had a good idea when you are writing because you get this physical response to it, a surge of excitement. You can normally tell the good ideas from the bad because of that gut feeling and you get physically excited.

I never felt such excitement. I've been writing for years, and I just felt that this one would be so much fun to write.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,6000,474412,00.html

Part of the appeal of the Harry Potter stories is the way Rowling's fiction engages with the dark stuff. Rowling began work on the first book just six months before her mother died. It is one of those well-known facts that the idea of Harry's world first came to Rowling on a train journey to King's Cross; but it was also on a train from that station that her mother and father first met. "That's obviously why it looms large in my psyche," she comments wryly.

Her mother's death, she says, made the fact that Harry is an orphan and the theme of death and loss "immeasurably more important", and she alludes to the now famous episode in chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when Harry sees his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised (Desire backwards). What, I wonder, would Rowling see in the mirror?

"It would be my mother," she says without hesitation. "You'd want five minutes to say, 'I have a daughter, and she's called Jessica, and she looks like this and she likes this, and I wrote some books - and Mum, guess what happened?'

"I'd gabble on and at the end of five minutes I'd realise I hadn't asked what it's like to be dead. It's the selfishness of the child, isn't it? - at least I'm aware of that. But it couldn't be long enough. That was all in that mirror episode, I think: recognising that it's just not healthy, not good for you to dwell and dwell and dwell.

"It's not about forgetting, but you have got to move on."

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/Sum1999_Renton_SydneyMorningHerald.htm OR http://history.250x.com/vaults/c134.htm

[Q: ]Although the Harry Potter books are children's books, like a lot of other adults I loved reading them. I got really excited by the stories. For me, they work well as mysteries but they're also very funny. You make Harry Potter's world so convincing. Somehow, it has a lot of depth.

[Rowling:] It's nice to hear you say that because I spent so long constructing this world - five years writing about Harry before anyone read a word. It's embarrassing how many trees have died for me. I write everything down ... and lose it promptly. It's all stuffed into boxes.

I loathe books that have inconsistencies and leave questions unanswered. Loopholes bug the hell out of me. I hate getting to the end of a book and thinking, but if so and so had told Mr Y back in chapter three, it need never have happened. And so I try to be meticulous and make sure that everything operates according to laws, however odd, so that everyone understands exactly how and why.

I have a visual imagination. I know this isn't the case with all writers - some hear words as opposed to seeing pictures. But I see things, and then try to describe as faithfully as I can what I'm seeing. I have to imagine something clearly first, and then I write.

The Harry books are supposed to be full of surprises, but I tried to make sure that they unfold in a realistic way. The characters are allowed to act out of character and show hidden facets because that's what people do from time to time.

[Q: ]How did the idea of the Harry books come to you?

[Rowling: ]In a flash. Boy, doesn't know he's a wizard, sent to wizard school. That was the nutshell. I started thinking what wizard school would be like and I got so excited about it.

[Q:]When new pupils arrive at Hogwarts they try on a magic hat to determine which school house they should join: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. Slytherin is associated with warped wizards. When people put the hat on they hear the hat's voice. Harry doesn't like what he hears about himself, he finds it disturbing.

[Rowling: ]What I'm working towards here is the fact that our choices rather than our abilities show us what we truly are. That's brought out in the difference between Harry and his arch enemy, Tom Riddle.

In {Chamber Of Secrets}, Harry is told by the hat that if he goes into Slytherin he will become a powerful wizard. He chooses not to do that. But Tom Riddle, who has been twisted by ambition and lack of love, succumbs to the desire for power. Though he's supposed to have died years before, his malign spirit manipulates events through an enchanted diary.

[Q: ]Do you put images from your dreams into your books?

[Rowling: ]Ideas come from all sorts of places and sometimes I don't realise where I got them from. A friend from London recently asked me if I remembered when we first saw Hogwarts. I had no idea what she was talking about until she recalled the day we went to Kew Gardens and saw those lilies that were called Hogwarts. I'd seen them seven years before and they'd bubbled around in my memory. When Hogwarts occurred to me as a name for the school, I had no idea where it came from.

[ Q: ]I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia [in the CS Lewis series including {The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe}] when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in Kings Cross Station - it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for Hogwarts.

[Rowling: ]Narnia is literally a different world, whereas in the Harry books you go into a world within a world that you can see if you happen to belong.

A lot of the humour comes from collisions between the magic and the everyday worlds. Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy.

Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal at all.

Really, CS Lewis had very different objectives to mine. When I write, I don't intend to make a point or teach philosophy of life. A problem you run into with a series is how the characters grow up ... whether they're allowed to grow up. The characters in Enid Blyton's Famous Five books act in a prepubescent way right through the series. In the Narnia books the children are never allowed to grow up, even though they are growing older.

I want Harry Potter and his friends to grow up as well as older, though I'll keep it all humorous, well within the tone of the books. I want them eventually to be truly 17 and discover girlfriends and boyfriends and have sexual feelings - nothing too gritty. Why not allow them to have those feelings?

[Q: ]What were your favourite books as a child?

[Rowling: ]Noel Streatfield's {Ballet Shoes}. Elizabeth Goudge's {The Little White Horse}. That was my favourite childhood book. I adored that book.

I also loved Paul Gallico, especially {Manx Mouse}. That's a great book. Gallico manages the fine line between magic and reality so skilfully, to the point where the most fantastic events feel plausible.

[Q: ]Who are your favourite writers now?

[Rowling: ]Jane Austen, Nabokov, Colette. Of contemporary writers, I think Roddy Doyle is an absolute genius.

[Q: ]People sometimes compare you to Roald Dahl.

[Rowling: ]I've been compared to him more than anyone else. I take it as a compliment. There are similarities in our humour sometimes. {Charlie And The Chocolate Factory} and {James And The Giant Peach} are brilliant, but he's not one of my favourite children's writers. Our writing is really quite dissimilar. My books are ultimately more moral. An unfashionable word, but there you go. They're not moralistic, but there is often a good-versus-evil subtext.

They're not absolutely black and white, though. Harry breaks a lot of rules. He's not good in the Enid Blyton sense.

[Q: ]Do you read serious books about magic?

[Rowling: ]I'm not a New Age type - not really into crystals. But through reading I know a ridiculous amount about magic. Some of the spells in my books are ones people have genuinely believed in. I find books about magic fascinating, but sometimes it's absolutely hysterical the things people believe.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1004742309646&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492

QUESTION: What do you think makes them appealing to both young and older people in seemingly all languages and cultures from, as I read recently, Albanian to Zulu?

ROWLING: I think - but I don't really know, because I'm not good at being objective about my own work - that as I write primarily for myself, that probably shows in the books. The quirky sense of humour is most definitely mine.

Apart from the adventures, trials and tribulations of Harry himself, my books are, of course, essentially about magic. And magic appeals to kids all over the world. As for myself, I don't believe in magic in the way that I describe in my books, but still being a bit of a kid at heart, I would love, of course, to have magical powers. My Harry Potter books start from the premise: What if magic were real? And I work from there.

QUESTION: How do you cope with the aggravation from strongly religious people who have reacted against the Harry Potter stories, accusing them of witchcraft?

ROWLING: Well, mostly I laugh about it and ignore it. Very occasionally I get annoyed, because these extremist religious folk have missed the point so spectacularly. I think the Harry books are actually very moral, but some people just object to witchcraft being mentioned in a children's book. Unfortunately, if such extremist views were to prevail, we would have to lose a lot of classic children's fiction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/features/2001/11/12/jk.ram

Audio interview with J. K. Rowling.

http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/column/2001/11/21/

Last year, Rowling told a Canadian reporter that she is a Christian and that this "seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. But no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that and, I have to say that does suit me. ... If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader -- whether 10 or 60 -- will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrshow.shtml

“The appeal of magic which can influence the world we live in is enormous which is what appeals to both adults and children. Wizards and Witches are a huge part of Children's stories and I don't think they'll ever go away in 100 or 200 years time.”

Talks about her mother death from Multiple Sclerosis. Her mother was the book lover in the family. “Mum dying was like a depth charge in my life.” The one thing she really would have liked to see was her daughter become a successful author and she's not alive to see it. “it add's a little bit of poison to the knife.” She wrote Harry's parents death without much explanation at the pain he would have to go through and within six months of her writing it, her own mother died and that made an ernomous difference to watch she had written. The Mirror of Erised is based on her own longing to see her mother again. “Please God. Give me five more minutes.” That desire to see them and talk to them and tell them about your life and not remembering to ask them: “So what's death like?”

Death is the most important theme throughout all seven books. “More people are going to die. One death is going to be horrible to write. IT HAS TO BE.” Some parents have questioned whether kids can take the dark themes of the books.

She had a nasty letter from a mother after book two: “This was a very disturbing book and I'm sure a writer of your ability can think of a better way to end the next book.” She wrote back and all she said was:

”Don't read the rest of the books.”
Yours sincerely,
JK Rowling

She cares very deeply about her readers, but she does not believe that they should dictate what she writes. “I should be the one that is in total control and I'm not writing to make anyone's children feel safe.”

Undated (Between III and IV)

http://familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,64-9966-0-2,00.html

Q: How do you come up with names?
A: Some I make up. Some mean something. Dumbledore is olde English for bumblebee. I thought I made up Hogwarts, but recently a friend said, ‘Remember we saw lilies in Kew gardens (a garden in London.)’ Apparently there are lilies there called Hogwarts. I’d forgotten!

Undated (After book IV - 2002)

http://cbc.ca/programs/sites/hottype_rowlingcomplete.html

EVAN: This is the legend: that it all came to you at once.

J.K. ROWLING: No, no, no, no, no. No, Harry came to me. Hogwarts came to me, not in its entirety but many of the characters did come in a kind of…rush.

E: Was it like an epiphany?

JK: It kind of was actually, yes, it really was. So, I had this four-hour train journey. It shouldn't have been four hours; it was delayed. And Harry was there. People like Nearly Headless Nick and Peaves, the inhabitants of the castle, were there. Harry's scar was there and I kind of knew how that had happened. It's a very strange thing, but I know I'm not alone in this among writers. It was as though I was given a piece of information and I just had to find out the rest of the information. It wasn't really as though I were inventing it. I was working backwards and working forwards to see what must have happened.

E: Is this book as suitable for the six- and seven-year-old who loved Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?

JK: It depends on the kid, but I have to say that from the word 'go', I have never said these books were…you see, I knew what was coming. So I have proud mothers saying to me 'He's six and he loves them,' and I'm thinking, I personally wouldn't have said 'go for it' with a six-year-old. I personally wouldn't, because I knew what was coming, I knew they would get darker. The story is about a world that's getting darker. So it depends on the child. My daughter is coming up to seven. She absolutely adores them.

E: So, are we protecting our kids too often from those kinds of things? Because certainly in North America, there is a sense that we ought to protect our kids from…

JK: On my last tour I was there over Halloween. And I was stunned that on my hotel television…you see, my daughter was in this hotel room, and three programs in a row were concerned with 'how do we stop our children being frightened by Halloween.' Three in a row. These daytime chat shows. 'Well, make sure you watch them putting up the decorations, so they can see it's not real. Explain to them it's all for fun.' And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, you are trying to protect children from their own imaginations, and you can't do that. That's how you turn out frightened children, in my opinion. You turn out frightened children by saying, 'It's not scary. There's nothing there to frighten you.' Kids will get scared and they've got to live through that and then to deal with that. You can't stop them being frightened. A happy child is not one who has never experienced fear or who has never been allowed to experience fear.

E: Fear is a healthy thing?

JK: It is a healthy thing. It's a survival thing. What then happens to the child who has been so protected that their age…I mean how could a child grow to age 14 never having experienced fear, but let's say that were possible? It would be a destroying experience for that boy or girl the first time they felt fear. You have to learn that.

E: What ought we to protect our kids from, then?

JK: We're trying to protect them from our own fears, I think, and that's not healthy. That's not good.

E: What is healthy to protect them from?

JK: Right. Obviously we want them physically safe. That's a very natural instinct. I'm the same with my daughter. My reaction to a scary book or a scary film with my daughter would be to watch it with her and discuss it with her, to be with her as she experienced it. But don't get me wrong. There are things I do not want my nearly seven-year-old daughter exposed to. There are definitely things, such as explicit sex. No, she's too young. That's like giving a seven-year-old child a loaded gun and saying 'play with that.' No, that's another issue. I mean, sex is something we do discuss but I don't want her watching certain films. I don't want her watching films where people blow each other's heads off at random. No, absolutely not. But when it comes to something that is…

E: Because it's hard to draw the line here, isn't it? Because someone could read your book and say 'well, there's murder…'

JK: People die, but do you care when they die? Do you absolutely have a sense of how evil it is to take another person's life? Yes, I think in my book you do. I think you do. I think you see that is a horrific thing. I have enormous respect for human life. I do not think that you would read either of the deaths in that book and think, yeah, well, he's gone, off we go. Not at all. I think it's very clear where my sympathies lie. And here we are dealing with someone, I'm dealing with a villain who does hold human life incredibly cheap. That's how it happens: one squeeze of the trigger. Gone. Forever. That's evil. It's a terrible, terrible thing but you're right, I know where I draw the line. Other people will draw the line in a different place and they will disagree with me.

E: But this is the author with a sense of moral responsibility. Should authors have a sense of moral responsibility?

JK: When it comes to writing the books, I operate to a different set of rules. In fact, I write what I want to write. Because of the nature of the discussion we are having, I have to analyze these rules, but when I'm writing I do not sit down and think of it like, there's my line, and here's the moral lessons we are going to teach our children. None of that ever enters my head. I write what I want to write.

E: But the story has to be written.

JK: Exactly. I write what the story is. Yes. I write what I feel I have to say.

E: It's a hard line, right? Because the story may demand something that may challenge the things, personally, that you hold dear. People have asked, 'Well, Harry's faced death and Harry's an orphan. Now that he's growing up, will he face other challenges?' Sexual challenges? There are, in fact, crushes in this book. What else? Are we going to see drugs? The issues that teens see: drugs, teenage pregnancy. These are real teen issues.

JK: Right. Drugs and teenage pregnancy, should they be discussed in children's literature? Yeah, definitely. I think there's very little that shouldn't be discussed in children's literature. Off the top of my head, actually, I can't think of anything, if it's dealt with properly. I can't think of a single topic. However, in the Harry Potter books, I don't think it's going to be very faithful to the tone of the books if Hermione goes off and finds herself pregnant at age 13. No. Because they're not that kind of books. Frankly, Harry, Ron and Hermione have quite enough to deal with without starting to dabble with illegal substances. You know, they're up against other things.

E: Wiccans, who have said 'Oh, this is fabulous. She's an apologist and she's a champion of white witches…'

JK: No, I'm not.

E: Some of the people that you satirize most in this book, the evil people, the Malfoys, they're very classist, they're racist against the Mudbloods. Is it fair to say that these are neo-Conservative or Thatcherite? (JK nods.) Is there a real political axe you're grinding there?

JK: I think in this book too, you fully understand… With Voldemort, I didn't want to create this cardboard cutout of a baddie, where you put a black hat on him and you say 'Right, now you shoot at that guy because he's bad.'

E: Like the Dursleys are more of a cutout bad people?

JK: Yes and no. You will meet Dursleys, in Britain. You will. I've barely exaggerated them. Yeah, Voldemort. In the second book, Chamber of Secrets, in fact he's exactly what I've said before. He takes what he perceives to be a defect in himself, in other words the non-purity of his blood, and he projects it onto others. It's like Hitler and the Arian ideal, to which he did not conform at all, himself. And so Voldemort is doing this also. He takes his own inferiority, and turns it back on other people and attempts to exterminate in them what he hates in himself.

E: The Dementors, um, they are the personification of depression. (JK - Mmm hmm.) Now, I hate making biographical links between characters and authors but that's (laughing)…

JK: You might as well. (Laughs) Go for it.

E: But there is a biographical link and we've talked about it, about a depression in your life being, not just obviously a horrible time, but something in the end that was important to your life.

JK: Um, I was depressed, um, I'd say - would it be 1994 - I did suffer a spell of what I was told was clinical depression. I don't know, I was told it was. Yeah, I was depressed for a while. I'm not ashamed of that, plenty of people get depressed and I've never suffered from it again and I got through it. But the Dementors, uh, it's so hard to trace the origin of something. I saw these things and I knew what I wanted them to do, but they became, as I really thought about what they did, I realized that's what I was doing. That's normally the way it happens with me. I don't consciously think 'And now, I will create the personification of depression' but as I'm creating them I realize what I'm doing. You know, what unconsciously is going on. So they create an absence of feeling, which is my experience of depression. It is an absence…

E: It seems like almost through your books you miss your mom and you're dealing with that conversation like Harry, just seeing the shadow but it can never come back.

JK: Dealing with bereavement is a strong part of the books. Dealing with loss. Yes. I can't elaborate as much as I'd like to on that because I have three more books to go and this is not a sales pitch, you can get them out of the library and you don't have to buy them, I'm just saying that I will ruin future blocks if I elaborate on that too much. But it's a strong central theme - dealing with death, yeah, and facing up to death.

E: In one of the books Dumbledore says "Death is just the next step to a great mystery, the next great adventure" I think is the quote.

JK: I would like to…I'm not as wise as him. I would like to see it that way. And I do see it that way, in many ways. Death still frightens me, as it frightens most people. Because there's still lots I want to do, and I don't want to leave my daughter early.

E: That's a hard one to accept.

JK: (Nods) Mmm hmm. It's leaving people. I think it's particularly leaving your children. It's a hard thing.

E: When you talk about dealing with death and loss in the books, does this come out of your own - you've had loss with the loss of your mother - did it come out of a personal spirituality? I mean, are you are religious person? Does your spirituality come from a certain place?

JK: I do believe in God. That seems to offend the South Carolinians more than almost anything else. I think they would find it…well that is my limited experience, that they have more of a problem with me believing in God than they would have if I was an unrepentant atheist.

E: You do believe in God.

JK: Yeah. Yeah.

E: In magic and…

JK: Magic in the sense in which it happens in my books, no, I don't believe. I don't believe in that. No. No. This is so frustrating. Again, there is so much I would like to say, and come back when I've written book seven. But then maybe you won't need to even say it 'cause you'll have found it out anyway. You'll have read it.

E: But in your own life, I mean, are you a churchgoer?

JK: (Nods) Mmm hmm. Well I go more than to weddings and christenings. Yes, I do.

E: And in your own life, would the church and that kind of spirituality help you deal with the loss of your mum?

JK: No, actually it didn't at the time. No. (Shakes her head)

E: So you've come back to it.

JK: Yeah, I would say so. I have some problems with conventional organized religion. Some problems. (Long pause) But…but, yes, it's a place I would go to in a time of trouble. It probably is a place I would go to in a time of trouble. I wouldn't expect it to provide all the answers, 'cause I would expect to find some of those within me.

E: Right, but the institutional side of it, you know, the rules…

JK: I have certain problems with some aspects of that. Yes I do.

Undated (After book IV)

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/aww/Books/articles/Feature/article244.asp

Q: How do you cope with strongly religious people who have reacted against Harry Potter stories, accusing them of witchcraft?
JK: Mostly I laugh about it and ignore it. I think the Harry books are actually very moral.
Q: What do you hope your books and these film adaptations will achieve?
JK: To inspire people both young and old to use their imagination. And to drive children back to reading books. If I can credit myself with anything, it has been to make it 'cool' for young people to start reading again. In this day and age, when books have to fight it out with such diversions as Gameboy and Pokemon for children's attention, that alone gives me more pleasure than anything!

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/archive/Nov02_Fraser_Scotsman.htm

[ When did the idea for Harry Potter first enter your head?]

My boyfriend was moving to Manchester and wanted me to move, too. It was during the train journey back from Manchester to London, after a weekend looking for a flat, that Harry Potter made his appearance. I have never felt such a huge rush of excitement. I knew immediately that this was going to be such fun to write.

I didn’t know then that it was going to be a book for children - I just knew that I had this boy. Harry. During that journey I also discovered Ron, Nearly Headless Nick, Hagrid and Peeves. But with the idea of my life careering round my head, I didn’t have a pen that worked! And I never went anywhere without my pen and notebook. So, rather than trying to write it, I had to think it. And I think that was a very good thing. I was besieged by a mass of detail and if it didn’t survive that journey it probably wasn’t worth remembering.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was the first thing I concentrated on. I was thinking of a place of great order but immense danger, with children who had skills with which they could overwhelm their teachers. Logically, it had to be set in a secluded place and pretty soon I settled on Scotland, in my mind. I think it was in subconscious tribute to where my parents had married. People keep saying they know what I based Hogwarts on - but they’re all wrong. I have never seen a castle anywhere that looks the way I imagine Hogwarts.

So, I got back to the flat that night and began to write it all down in a tiny cheap notebook. I wrote lists of all the subjects to be studied - I knew there had to be seven. The characters came first and then I had to find names to fit them. Gilderoy Lockhart is a good example. I knew his name had to have an impressive ring to it. I was looking through the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - a great source for names - and came across Gilderoy, a handsome Scottish highwayman. Exactly what I wanted. And then I found Lockhart on a war memorial to the First World War. The two together said everything I wanted about the character.

[ Can you describe the process of creating the stories?]

It was a question of discovering why Harry was where he was, why his parents were dead. I was inventing it but it felt like research. By the end of that train journey I knew it was going to be a seven-book series. I know that’s extraordinarily arrogant for somebody who had never been published but that’s how it came to me. It took me five years to plan the series out, to plot through each of the seven novels. I know what and who’s coming when, and it can feel like greeting old friends. Professor Lupin, who appears in the third book, is one of my favourite characters. He’s a damaged person, literally and metaphorically. I think it’s important for children to know that adults, too, have their problems, that they struggle. His being a werewolf is a metaphor for people’s reactions to illness and disability. I almost always have complete histories for my characters. If I put all that detail in, each book would be the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but I do have to be careful that I don’t just assume that the reader knows as much as I do. Sirius Black is a good example. I have a whole childhood worked out for him. The readers don’t need to know that but I do. I need to know much more than them because I’m the one moving the characters across the page.

I invented the game of Quidditch after a huge row with the boyfriend I lived with in Manchester. I stormed out of the house, went to the pub - and invented Quidditch.

http://ffmovies.ign.com/filmforce/audio/press_conf_jk.mp3 OR

http://ffmovies.ign.com/harrypotter/video/press_conf_jk.mov

So what does all this mean? Over the past five years Rowling has worked on and perfected her books. Sorting out the “real” story behind the books can be confusing. For some general principles on this I suggest http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/canon.htm.

Home / About Me / Christian Scholarship / Classics / Harry Potter