Vault Entry #11: Near the End, How It All Began

Hello! First, some housekeeping:

I have three - no, seriously, THREE - speaking appearances next week. By the third you may be able to see through me, I'm going to be so weary, considering that right now I'm in London to help the team with coverage of the DH premiere, and by next week the jetlag will be EPIC. But it's all right! I love doing it, and I never have a better chance to get together with Harry Potter fans than in the weeks leading up to some sort of massive event, like the release of the first Deathly Hallows film (which I've just seen, tiny bit about that below).

If you are near Tampa, FL, or Troy, NY, or Catholic University in Washington, DC, I will see you soon! Here are the details:

November 16

University of South Florida (Marshall Student Center, Tampa, FL)
7:00 pm, free!

November 18
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) (Darrin Communication Center 308, Troy, NY)
7:30 pm, free!

November 22
Catholic University of America (Pryzbyla Center, Washington D.C.)
7:00 pm, free!

I can't wait to see some of you there!

ALSO:

We at Leaky and MuggleNet are attempting to plan a fan premiere party in NYC on the 15th. Visit this page for more details.

So, I've just seen Deathly Hallows, and I can't say anything about it except this one thing: It's a very brave, very excellent film. (And Rupert Grint freakin' OWNS it and it makes me so happy. OK, I'll stop. I have to stop saying things now. I can see WB approaching with a pitchfork.)

But, it got me thinking about 2007, and the endings we all were so sure were coming. None of them did: we're still here, we're still celebrating, we're still connecting through Harry Potter. It may never be like it was then, but the fandom didn't curl up and die, either. Cheery! No, what I mean is this: in 2007, back when the book was about to be released, all we heard was how things were ending, the series was done, this extraordinary time was over. And an element of it was, for sure. But we who connected through something so beautiful and so human were never just going to drift apart. There's still plenty we can take from the Boy Who Lived, because this was never a flash in the pan, it was never something that lacked the substance that a piece of pop culture needs if it's going to survive the slashings of time.

We've always known this. We've known as sure as we've known how the series spread, how the series became so beloved. As soon as J.K. Rowling said what I've quoted below, in our interview, I knew it was the ending of my book - and what better time to rehash it and supply the full quote than now, when we are again at the beginning of an end.

Enjoy the first part of Deathly Hallows, everyone. I'll be back here to get your thoughts (promise). And if you're in one of the three places mentioned above, I will see you soon!

MA: So, are you working?

JKR: I am working. And I'm enjoying it, and it's great to be back where I was and no doubt when the royalties come in or the sales figures come in - I've been so spoilt, I'll think, shouldn't there be another coulple of zeroes on there? [laughter.] But that's, you know, I will never write anything as popular again, that's a given. I've known that, quite honestly, and I'm ready for that. I'm okay with that. I was so lucky to have Harry Potter, so you're not going to find me whining in 10 years time. No, you won't.

MA: I'm going to ask the same question I asked at the beginning, at the end: what do you want to make sure people know, reading this book, about this time?

JKR: I've already said it to you but, when all the fuss and the hoopla dies away, and when all the press comment dies away, I think it will be seen that this phenomenon was generated, in the first instance, by kids loving a book. There was no marketing campaign. There was no clever strategy. A book went on the shelves, and a few people loved it.

Luckily for me, one person who loved it was Arthur Levine. Luckily for me, some of the people who loved it were on the panels of children's book prizes. But that's where it grew from, and it's very low-profile people who deserve the credit for what happened, in terms of the phenomenon that was Harry Potter. Booksellers deserve massive credit. I know that booksellers pushed this book when Harry Potter's name had never appeared in any kind of advertisement, on any bus hoarding or poster, or underground campaign. It hadn't happened. But booksellers were leading customers to Harry Potter and saying, "He--"(often 'he'), "He might like this." Specific gender thing - "A boy might like this, I know he doesn't like reading much, try him on this." I know they did that because I've met the booksellers who did that, and I've met the kids who told me that booksellers told them about it.

And I think that's a wonderful thing, that something can come from a totally unknown writer, of a length that was deemed to be uncommercial, with a subject matter that was deemed to be uncommercial, and that it could do what it did - not because it was linked to any commercially-driven sales campaign. It did what it did through sheer love of reading.

I do think that in time people will - when all of the smoke and lights die away - that's what you'll be left with. And that's the most wonderful thought for an author.