J.K. Rowling's Blog, page 3

Harry Potter’s fifth year at Hogwarts featuring magical locations, iconic story moments and favourite characters, including Tonks and Luna Lovegood are brought to life by award winning illustrators Jim Kay and Neil Packer.

The illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been nearly two years in the making.  As the project unfolded, Jim Kay decided it was time to bring in guest collaborator and dear friend, Neil Packer, to help bring a new dimension to the story.  The book is now available via Bloomsbury in the UK, and Scholastic in the US.

This latest edition in the series will be the last to be illustrated by Jim Kay.  After nearly ten years of extraordinary commitment and five spellbinding books, Jim is ready to pass the illustration baton on to future creative collaborators.

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For children in Ukraine, the future continues to be  uncertain, and the present is terrifying. The war has meant that children have been forced to grow up too quickly and be exposed to experiences no child should have to suffer. Many won’t be returning to school this year. Almost two out of three children have been displaced by the war. Schools have been bombed, classmates are now scattered across Ukraine and abroad, and many children face daunting language barriers to learning as they find themselves in new countries and try to adapt to a new way of life. For all Ukrainian children, life as they knew it has changed.

Lumos, the children’s charity J.K. Rowling founded fifteen years ago, is launching a new fundraising appeal to help the children and families of Ukraine, six months on from the start of the war. With the help of generous supporters, Lumos is working to reach as many families as possible and to provide them with the emergency support they need, including:

Food, medicine and hygiene items such as soap and toothpasteEducational resources to support children with their learningPsychological support for children, parents and other caregivers.

Above all, Lumos is helping families to stay together, even as their lives are turned upside down.

Lumos has been working in Ukraine since 2013 to help transform the care system. Before the war, around 100,000 children lived in the country’s orphanages and other institutions – despite the fact that over 80% of them have parents who want to care for them.

This is a statistic that often shocks people. But the leading causes of family separation are conflict and poverty, and this war risks unravelling the work that Lumos and others have done to ensure that children can grow up where they belong – at home, with their families. Thousands of families are being cast into poverty, and every day unaccompanied children arrive at Ukraine’s borders seeking safety. Other children, including those with disabilities, remain trapped in the country’s orphanages, facing severe neglect because there are not enough people or resources to care for them. All these children are extremely vulnerable, and in desperate need of support.

Most families who’ve fled Ukraine or relocated within the country have been able to bring only a few belongings with them. Many hope that their stay will be short, that they will soon be able to return home. Few are prepared for the grim reality of the harsh winter that looms ahead.

We must not forget the children of Ukraine, who are facing the most horrendous of circumstances. They need our help more than ever.

If you are able to donate to Lumos’ Emergency Ukraine appeal, you can find out more here.

 

[1] https://www.wearelumos.org/resources/...

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The sixth book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Ink Black Heart, is released today in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, with other international markets coming soon. It publishes in hardback, ebook and audio editions, the latter narrated by Robert Glenister.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) follows the No.1 bestseller Troubled Blood (2020), winner of the 2021 British Book of the Year award for Crime and Thriller fiction.

For more information, click here.

 

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‘The Ink Black Heart’, the sixth novel in the popular crime series by Robert Galbraith, publishes on 30th August 2022. In anticipation the author (otherwise known as J.K. Rowling) has recorded a number of answers to questions focused on the new book.

An early excerpt from the Q&A is available here, talking about Private Investigator duo Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, inspiration for the new book, the locations and the creative process. You can watch or read three of Robert’s responses below.

What does The Ink Black Heart explore?

I see this as a novel about disconnection. And people feeling disconnected in real life. And exploring what they find online as a way of connecting. But – it – I don’t want to give too much away. But the central theme of the book is anomie, which is a state of lacking normal social or moral norms.

And – so, yeah, it’s really an exploration of that. It is a very sort of modern malaise. Although the term anomie has been around for a long, long time and it really – the term arose through industrialisation. People losing meaning in their daily lives and – and feeling that they themselves were not really part of society. Not really part of a whole. So, yeah. So, it’s a big theme. But it is explored in a very sort of contemporary way.

How much of the novel is drawn from your own experience?

I have never created a book – and this book certainly isn’t created from my own experience – you know, with a view to talking about my own life. That doesn’t mean, of course, that your own life experience isn’t in the book.

With this book – I had been planning this book for so long and then a couple of the things that happen in this book have since happened to me. And so, I would like to be very clear that I haven’t written this book as an answer to anything that happened to me. Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were – are you clairvoyant? I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like.

But, no, it’s not – this isn’t about my experience of – as being a creator. My experience – if I wrote about my experience as a creator, it would look very different. And I have to say, for example – which I think will be a question readers would ask: the Potter fandom, by and large, has been amazing to me. Incredibly supportive and I still receive tonnes of love from the Potter fandom. So, the fandom in this book is very much not a portrait of the fandom. It is of a very – I think a very different kind of fandom.

What is it that makes Strike and Robin such a good team?

The reason I love writing those two characters so much is I love them both as characters. And I love the friendship. I love writing – and of course I love writing the sexual tension, which I know is – is a big deal for certain readers. But my feeling was always that each of them had quite a lot of changing and growing to do. Even Strike who is 10 years older than Robin.

You know, his – his past is an unusual one. And it has left him with issues that I don’t think he has ever really fully explored. And I feel that in books five and six, this being book six, you start to see him recognising some of this. He has still got a way to go. Equally, Robin, who’s had, you know, not a particularly typical romantic history because of – she has trauma in her past – in this book really does get to show a quite – what I think readers might find quite an unexpected side of her.

So, I love – I love the fact – to me it is a real friendship, they do – they rub – they can occasionally infuriate each other. But they are very complementary personalities, I think. And they – their shared endeavour is really – is at the absolute root of what they value in each other and what they – I think now in this book, particularly at the end when something quite symbolic happens, you see that they recognise that they couldn’t have done it without each other. And that’s – you know, that’s a wonderful feeling when you – when you have a shared endeavour with someone, and I empathise with that a lot.

The full Q&A will be available on 8th September at 7.30pm BST, on  www.robertgalbraith.com .

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Today marks 25 years since the first publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone! To mark this silver anniversary, Bloomsbury asked fans to share their memories of first reading the book that started millions of magical journeys.

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/oV-huVJTkTg

 

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Opening at the newly refurbished CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, this is the sixth production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to open worldwide. With an all-Canadian cast critics have described the play as ‘jaw-dropping’, ‘dazzling’, ‘heart-felt’, ‘mind-boggling’ and ‘like nothing you have ever seen before’.

The theatre had a full make-over for the show, owner and co-producer David Mirvish said: “I love the intimacy of it. No matter where you’re sitting watching this show, you’re going to be a part of it. You have nothing to hold you back, you feel drawn in. So the designing of creating a theatre inside a theatre was really brilliantly done, and all those people who thought that out really deserve a lot of credit.”

Producer Colin Callender went on to say: “It is the most beautiful theatre. It looks gorgeous and all the work that’s been done in preparation for the show has simply turned it into a magnificent theatre. It always was a magnificent theatre, but now it’s just glorious.”

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child continues to invite fans to return to the magic.  With all seven productions now open, in six countries, on four continents, from Saturday, 25 June 2022, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will have actors performing live on stage somewhere around the globe continuously over a 24-hour period. That’s 288 cast members making 310 spells happen live on stage all in one day.

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Harry has a new look! The global digital publisher of the Wizarding World, Pottermore Publishing, has brought its cover art bang up to date with a dynamic new suite of designs for the Harry Potter eBooks and audiobooks.

Bringing both iconic and lesser-known scenes from these beloved stories alive in thrilling detail for fans and new readers alike, the new cover art invites the next generation of readers and listeners to jump into the action and discover the Harry Potter books on their phones, tablets, e-readers and other devices.

The new covers, as created by design team Studio La Plage, bring to vivid colour scenes from the books, some never before depicted, such as Harry’s Great Lake task in Goblet of Fire, as well as giving new perspectives on iconic moments such as Harry’s first Quidditch match.

Jack Bedford, Associate Creative Director of Studio La Plage, said: ‘We wanted to retain the essence of what readers know and love most about the Wizarding World.  The new covers celebrate the moment before the action, asking the question ‘what happens next’?  We can’t wait to share them.’

The seven cover designs will be adopted in all territories across the digital Harry Potter eBooks and audiobooks from 31st May 2022.  Each cover places the characters at the centre of the action, and incorporate small details from the stories to delight and intrigue.  Take a closer look at the cover artwork for each book and see what you can spot!

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Melbourne has sold over 1 million tickets!

The show has broken the record for the most tickets sold of any stage play in Australia despite being closed for months due to Covid-19 restrictions. Over half the attendees were first time theatre goers, demonstrating how the show has brought the magic of the wizarding world to a whole new audience.

This wonderful milestone is ahead of the opening of the reimagined one-part production scheduled for later this month.

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Last night the cast and filmmakers came together for the world premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore at the Royal Festival Hall in London. They were joined, on the red carpet, by a number of fans and influencers from around the world to celebrate the release of the third Fantastic Beasts film.

Jude Law

 

Eddie Redmayne

 

J.K. Rowling

 

Mads Mikkelsen, William Nadylam, Jessica Williams and Eddie Redmayne.

 

You can watch the livestream from the red carpet here:

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will be released on the 8th of April in the UK and the 15th of April in the US. Visit WizardingWorld.com for more news, updates and details about the upcoming film.

 

(Photos by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Warner Bros.)

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The cover design for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – The Complete Screenplay, written by J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, has been revealed.

On the 19 July, the perfect accompaniment to the third Fantastic Beasts film is set to be published globally. The English language publishers are Little, Brown (U.K.), Scholastic (U.S. and Canada), and Pottermore Publishing (eBook).

The cover features the magnificent Hogwarts castle, framed by the setting sun and gliding over the lake is a majestic and fiery phoenix, signifying Dumbledore himself.

In the official screenplay, readers can explore every scene of the complete original script, and go beyond it with special features including behind-the-scenes content and commentary. Fans can read about director David Yates’ vision for the film in his foreword, and illuminating insights from producer David Heyman and key cast members including Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law.

The book is also enhanced with behind-the-scenes content from the multi-award-winning production design team, including costume designer Colleen Atwood, graphic design studio MinaLima and others.

Visit WizardingWorld.com for all the latest news and updates about Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

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