If you're yearning to open a few more gifts, get yourself over to J.K.Rowling.com. Not only has it been decorated in the holiday spirit, but updates have been made to the 'Rumour', 'About Me' and 'Rubbish' sections. And the icing on the cake is a new FAQ poll dripping with Book 6 Spoilers!
Open the gift on her desk to read this message:
"DECEMBER 25th
That tired old welcome page was starting to bug me, so I thought I'd give you something new for Christmas. I've tried keeping a diary many times in the past and never got much further than January 15th, but I've been feeling the need for a place to put everyday updates that don't qualify as real 'news'. As ever, if there is a quiet spell you should not take it as a sign that I've given up diary writing, but rather that I am working hard on something a little more eagerly anticipated...
For 2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series. I contemplate the task with mingled feelings of excitement and dread, because I can't wait to get started, to tell the final part of the story and, at last, to answer all the questions (will I ever answer all of the questions? Let's aim for most of the questions); and yet it will all be over at last and I can't quite imagine life without Harry.
However (clears throat in stern British manner) this is no time to get maudlin.
I have been fine-tuning the fine-tuned plan of seven during the past few weeks so that I can really set to work in January. Reading through the plan is like contemplating the map of an unknown country in which I will soon find myself. Sometimes, even at this stage, you can see trouble looming; nearly all of the six published books have had Chapters of Doom. The quintessential, never, I hope, to be beaten Chapter That Nearly Broke My Will To Go On was chapter nine, 'Goblet of Fire' (appropriately enough, 'The Dark Mark'.)
As for this website, I've got plans...you'll find out what they are in due course (constant vigilance, my friends). In the meantime, happy holidays to everyone, and if Father Christmas has already squeezed down your chimney, I hope he left something good."
Thanks so much Jo!
JKR's radio interview with Stephen Fry can now be downloaded here. And thanks to Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron, you can view the full transcript here.
If you have the time (25 minutes), I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen. Hearing their voices adds so much to this interview.
Jim Dale, narrator of the US audio books, has once again received a Grammy nomination in the category "Best Spoken Word Album for Children" for his work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Dale previously won a Grammy in 2000 for the Goblet of Fire. The awards will be broadcast from Los Angeles on February 8th.
As mentioned in our last entry, the BBC Radio 4 will air an interview with author J.K. Rowling and Stephen Fry called 'Living with Harry' this Saturday, December 10th at 9 AM. It will re-air again on Christmas Eve, December 24th at 5pm.
Here are a few more excerpts, where Rowling speaks more about how the events in Book Six will tie into Book Seven.
SF: Is it really true that you've got it [the end of the story] all planned out?
JKR: Yes, I do know what's going to happen in the end. And occasionally I get cold shivers when someone guesses at something that's very close, and then I panic and I think "Oh, is it very obvious?" and then someone says something that's so off the wall that I think "No, it's clearly not that obvious!"
So much that happens in [book] six relates to what happens in [book] seven. In six, although there is an ending that could be seen as definitive in one sense, you very strongly feel the plot is not over this time and it will continue. It's an odd feeling, for the first time I'm very aware that I'm finishing.
SF: You've not held back from the difficult and the frightening [in your fiction].
JKR: I feel very strongly that there is a move to sanitise literature because we're trying to protect children not from, necessarily, the grisly facts of life but from their own imaginations. . . And the child that has been protected from Dementors in fiction, I would argue, is much more likely to fall prey to them later in life in reality.
The The Scotsman has snippets of an interview with Stephen Fry and JK Rowling which will be broadcast in it's entirety next week on BBC Radio.
In the interview Rowling revealed: "There is another book that's sort of mouldering in a cupboard that I quite like, which is for slightly younger children. There are other things I'd like to write. But I'll need to find a good pseudonym and do it all secretly."
You can catch the conversation on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Saturday, 10 December. Or wait for the transcripts that appear online soon after.