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Harry Potter Prequel

Rowling is Gold: A Simple 800-word Prequel Helps Break a Record

by Travis Prinzi on August 9, 2008

It was a simple 800-word story scribbled on two sides of a postcard, but it helped What’s Your Story? sell out in a day, breaking the record for the fastest-selling short story collection in history.  From BBC:

What’s Your Story? contains 13 postcard-sized tales by authors including Doris Lessing, Nick Hornby and Sebastian Faulks.

More than 10,000 copies were bought on its first day of release, with some shops sold out by Thursday lunchtime.

The Hog’s Head post on the prequel.

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Wilberforce, Bathsheba, Elvendork: The Harry Potter Prequel

by Travis Prinzi on June 11, 2008

by Travis

Bathsheba?  Anyone have a brilliant idea about why she chose that name?  And here’s a prediction: the internet is about to be flooded with people wanting “Elvendork” as their new screen name.  Which new patron of the pub will claim the name here first?

John Granger asks about Elvendork, and at Suite101, I write at length about Wilberforce.  You’ve got to be a real (elven)dork to come up with almost 600 words of analysis on this 800 word story, but here you are:

The Harry Potter Prequel

The take-home point: “Wilberforce” pulls together two strains of thought in Rowling’s construction of the Harry Potter series – Christian influence and social justice.

Also, I was very honored today to receive an Editor’s Choice Award for my article J.K. Rowling’s Harvard Speech.

I’ll be interested in more of the pub’s thoughts on the three names – Wilberforce, Bathsheba, and Elvendork - and the story as a whole.  (Only an elvendork would think this hard about three names embedded in an 800 word story.)

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HP “Prequel”: What Do You Think?

by Dave the Longwinded on May 29, 2008

by Dave

Check out this news article from the Chicago Sun-Times. For a charity event, several major UK authors were asked to write something on a card to be auctioned to raise money to help those with dyslexia:

Rowling used both sides of her card to hand-write a prequel to her seven-book Harry Potter saga.

Rowling’s “prequel” is only about 800 words. Good? Bad? Canon? Fluff? Before you dismiss it, keep in mind that Rowling’s other charity books, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, have been considered important in scholarly work on the series.

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