The author in her own words

Opinions

Questions are sorted in chronological order. Most recent ones are at the bottom.

Question on Reception of the books

Did you ever expect the Harry Potter books to be so successful?

I would have been crazy to have expected what has happened to Harry. The most exciting moment for me, against very stiff competition, was when I found out Harry was going to be published. It was my life's ambition to see a book I had written on a shelf in a bookshop. Everything that has happened since has been extraordinary and wonderful, but the mere fact of being able to say I was a pubished author was the fulfillment of a dream I had had since I was a very small child.

(Source: Scholastic interview - 00-00-1998 )

Question on Favorite books

What are you reading now?

The last novel I read was Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres, which I loved.

(Source: Scholastic interview - 00-00-1998 )

Question on Favorite books

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 favorite book as a child was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

(Source: Scholastic interview - 00-00-1998 )

Question on Jessica Rowling

What does your daughter think of your work? What books do you want and like to read to her? And her to read on her own?

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 Beatrix Potter books and I recently read her 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', which she thoroughly enjoyed.

(Source: Scholastic interview - 00-00-1998 )

Question on Reception of the books

Did you expect the Harry books to be this successful?

Never. I just wrote the sort of thing I liked reading when I was younger (and still enjoy now!) I didn't expect lots of people to like them, in fact, I never really thought much past getting them published.

(Source: UKOLN - 00-00-1999 )

Question on Being a writer

Did you want to be an author when you were younger?

Yes, I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. English was always my favorite subject at school, so why I went on to do a degree in French is anyone's guess.

(Source: Amazon.co.uk - 00-00-1999 )

Question on Favorite books

What books do you enjoy reading?

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.

(Source: Amazon.co.uk - 00-00-1999 )

Question on Favorite books

Who are your favourite authors?

My favourite writer of all time is Jane Austen, but when I was younger I liked Paul Gallico's 'Manxmouse', CS Lewis' Narnia books and Noel Streatfield.

(Source: UKOLN - 00-00-1999 )

Question on Being a writer

Why did you choose to be an author?

If someone asked for my recipe for happiness, step one would be finding out what you love doing most in the world and step two would be finding someone to pay you to do it. I consider myself very lucky indeed to be able to support myself by writing.

(Source: Amazon.co.uk - 00-00-1999 )

Question on Being a single mother

Do you have any advice for struggling single mothers?

I am never very comfortable giving other single mothers "words of advice." Nobody knows better than I do that I was very lucky -- I didn't need money to exercise the talent I had -- all I needed was a Biro and some paper. Nor do other single mothers need to be reminded that they are already doing the most demanding job in the world, which isn't sufficiently recognized for my liking.

(Source: Salon interview, Margaret Weir - 31-03-1999 )

Question on Changing words in US edition

Do you think the English language is more alive in Great Britain than in the United States?

Part of what makes a language "alive" is its constant evolution. I would hate to think Britain would ever emulate France, where they actually have a learned faculty whose job it is to attempt to prevent the incursion of foreign words into the language. I love editing "Harry" with Arthur Levine, my American editor -- the differences between "British English" (of which there must be at least 200 versions) and "American English" (ditto!) are a source of constant interest and amusement to me.

(Source: Salon interview, Margaret Weir - 31-03-1999 )

Question on School life

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.

(Source: Salon interview, Margaret Weir - 31-03-1999 )

Question on Favorite books

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.

(Source: Salon interview, Margaret Weir - 31-03-1999 )

Question on Promotion tours

How has your success as an author impacted your lifestyle? Is there something you always wanted to do that you now are able to?

I never expected to be talking to journalists or doing lots of promotional work, and I have reached the point now where I have to say no to a lot of things just to make sure that I get enough time to write. On the other hand, I love travelling, and the chance to visit places I have never seen before is absolutely wonderful. My trip to the U.S. in October, 1998, to promote the book was my first ever, and I fell in love with New York and San Francisco.

(Source: Borders.com interview - 00-06-1999 )

Question on Covers in different countries

Since each of the editions is packaged differently, do you have a favorite?

My favorite cover is the American one, but I also love the Dutch edition.

(Source: Borders.com interview - 00-06-1999 )

Question on Reception of the books

What do you think it is about the Harry Potter books that connects with so many people?

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 humor in the books, not what I think children will find funny. 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. I didn't write with a target audience in mind. What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never thought about writing for children -- children's books chose me. I think if it is a good book anyone will read it.

(Source: Borders.com interview - 00-06-1999 )

Question on Witchcraft

Do you really believe in witchcraft?

Not really. I know quite a lot about it, but i don't believe it works.

(Source: Nickelodeon Magazine - 00-00-2000 )

Question on Magic

If you had magic powers like Harry Potter, how would you use them?

I would make myself tidier because I'm a very disorganised person, and I would shrink people who annoy me and put them under a teacup for a little bit to keep them quiet.

(Source: Nickelodeon Magazine - 00-00-2000 )

Question on Name Joanne

We have been instructed to call you Jo, you don't like Joanne?

No one ever called me Joanne when I was young, unless they were angry.

(Source: CBC's Shelagh Rogers/Lauren McCormick - 00-00-2000 )

Question on Canada

What did you think Canada would be like?

Beautiful, and I haven't been disappointed. We went to Niagara yesterday. We've all got this lifetime "To Do" list and visiting Niagara was one of mine. It was just stunning. Beautiful.

(Source: CBC's Shelagh Rogers/Lauren McCormick - 00-00-2000 )

Question on Favorite subject in school

What was your favorite subject in school?

English. Most definitely. My worst subject was chemistry, which is why Professor Snape teaches Potions. I hated chemistry.

(Source: Nickelodeon Magazine - 00-00-2000 )

Question on Favorite person in history

Do you have a role model, if so, who?

I don't really have a role model, but I have a heroine! Her name was Jessica Mitford, and she was a human rights activist.

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on British Book Awards

How do you feel about receiving the British Book Awards Children's Book of the year?

Very, very honored. :-)

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Reception of the books

How does it feel to know that millions of kids are reading your books?

Amazing! I don't think I really realized how many there were until I visited the States in October, and met thousands and thousands of people at book signings.

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Character Remus J. Lupin

If you had to choose one teacher from your books to teach your child, who would it be and why?

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

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Promotion tours

What do you think has been your greatest experience because of Harry Potter's success?

The last American tour. Because for the first time I realized how many children love Harry. It was a moving experience for me.

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Favorite books

Who is your favorite author?

Jane Austen. I find her un-put-downable. :-)

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Favorite characters

Who is your favorite character?

I love, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and Professor Lupin.

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Other jobs besides writer

Would you ever want to consider another job if you had the opportunity?

No. I'm doing the thing I love best in the world! Although I did enjoy being a teacher. :-)

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Favorite characters

Would you get a mythical pet from one of your books? If you could, which one?

If I could, I would choose a Phoenix, because they have such useful properties, as Harry finds out in Book III.

(Source: Chat session - 03-02-2000 )

Question on Jessica Rowling

Has being around your daughter day in and day out altered the way you feel about kids? You were writing about them before she was born, but--?

All the children in the books and all of the feelings in the books are based on my memories. They aren't based on anything my daughter has given me. It comes from inside me, my memories of being a child. And also, as I've said, so much of it was fixed before she was born. I think this is probably a good thing. I mean, we remember Christopher Robin, who was tormented till he died at the age of 75 by people taking the mickey out of him. That wasn't a smart thing to do, putting your child by name into the book, and his toys. I don't want Jessica to always be Harry Potter's sister. My worst fear, actually.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Reception of the books

Has the mania reached a peak?

I don't know. I thought it had reached a peak with "Prisoner of Azkaban", and it hadn't. We can't carry on like this forever. At some point things have got to calm down. The film isn't going to help in terms of diminishing it.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Reception of the books

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.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Character Harry Potter

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 prregnancy 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.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Magic

One theme that's so powerful in these books is the idea of the powerlessness of kids--ordinary kids, that is. And I think it's probably a chief attraction for young readers?

Yeah, definitely. 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.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Fantasy books

Why are the English so good at writing fantasy?

Britain has the most incredible mix of folklore traditions because we were invaded by so many people.

(Source: Newsweek, Malcolm Jones - 10-07-2000 )

Question on Social issues

Are we too often protecting our kids from issues concerning race relations and civil rights? In North America, there is a sense that we ought to protect our kids from these things.

I think children are interested in those things.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Being a single mother

As a mom, did you feel like a failure? You're broke. Suddenly you have this kid.

I felt very angry. I don't know that I felt a failure. And yet at the same time I was proud of myself, and this is the truth. And there will be people watching this, women in exactly the situation as I was. I've got to say to them, "I do not look back at myself then and think what a loser." I look back on myself then, and I'm very proud, because I was doing the work of three people. I was doing a paid job. I was the only bread- winner, and I was being mother and father. If anyone thinks that's easy, try it sometime. And I was writing a novel. I'm still a single parent. The expectation seems to be that once you've made some money, you will hand over your child to a battalion of nannies and then you'll go off and do what you want to do. Well, the fact is that I want to bring up my daughter and that means I want to spend time with my daughter. There's no way I'm going to be able to do that if I give promotional tours to every country that publishes me. So it's for very prosaic reasons that I've been keeping a relatively low-profile recently.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Book The goblet of fire

Book four opens with a murder and then there's one at the end. I won't say who it is. You cried then?

Yeah. But in the future there's worse coming.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Favorite characters

Do you have a favourite character?

Actually, no, I don't think I do. I actually enjoyed writing Dudley as well.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Fear

Do you think your books frighten children?

On my last U.S. tour I was there over Halloween with my daughter. We were in this hotel room, and three programs in a row were concerned with the question of how we stop our children being frightened by Halloween. I'm sitting there 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 deal with that. A happy child is not one who has never experienced fear or has never been allowed to experience fear. Fear is a healthy thing. It's a survival thing. Let's say a child grows to age 14 never having experienced fear, it would be a destroying experience for that boy or girl the first time they felt fear. You have to learn that.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Book The goblet of fire

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

It depends on the kid; 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. So it depends on the child. My daughter is coming up to seven. She absolutely adores them (She's not all the way through [four] yet).

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Fame

Is it naive to pretend that you're not a celebrity?

On a certain level, I think it's realistic, because kids don't turn up to see me for me. I think I could be man, woman, old, young; as long as I had written the books they would be interested in seeing who had written the Harry Potter books, but I don't think the appeal is me personally. I know for a fact the appeal isn't me personally, you know, what I look like or what I'm like to speak to. They just are curious to find out who wrote the books. So I hope and believe that the books are the attraction rather than me personally.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Reception of the books

Is there a difference in the American response and the British response? In America you're a celebrity and Americans treat their celebrities in perhaps a different way than you've been treated here.

I don't like the idea of myself being a celebrity.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Killing characters off

It's hard to draw the line here, isn't it, because someone could read your book and say there's murder -- not a topic for kids.

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.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Character Harry Potter

Some people say good characters are boring and evil characters are always the more interesting. There's the famous line about Milton and Paradise Lost: God is a bore and the devil is interesting.

Well, Harry is good. I personally do not find Harry boring at all. He has his faults. Ron and Hermione are very good characters ... but no, I'm not bored by goodness.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Fear

What ought we to protect our kids from?

We're trying to protect them from our own fears, I think, and that's not healthy. That's not good. Obviously we want them physically safe. That's a very natural instinct. 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.

(Source: CBC's Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )

Question on Promotion tours

You say you won't be able to give promotional tours to every country that publishes you, and yet here we are on the train and at every stop there are hundreds of kids and parents...

That's the nice thing, though. I really, really love meeting the kids, because that's like teaching without pain, you see. I used to be a teacher and I enjoyed teaching. Meeting loads of kids in the context in which I meet them now, it's fun. I don't have to discipline. They want to riot, I can join in if I want to. It's fun. I never expected to be in the papers. The height of my ambition for these books was to get reviewed. A lot of children's books don't even get reviewed -- forget good review, bad review. Personally, no, I never expected to be in the papers so it's an odd experience when it happens to you.

(Source: CBC Evan Solomon - 13-07-2000 )