Was Dumbledore Gay?

In 2007, Harry Potter author JK Rowling offered fans some additional insight into her character Albus Dumbledore, when she explained that the much-loved wizard and Hogwarts headmaster was gay.

Recently, a fan named Ana Kovovic took to Twitter to query Rowling’s decision, asking the author: “I wonder why you said that Dumbledore is a gay because I can’t see him that way?”

Rowling’s response? “Maybe because gay people just look like…people?”

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JK ROWLING’S “THE CASUAL VACANCY” ADAPTED FOR MINI SERIES

HBO has announced the air dates for its miniseries adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy, with the British slice-of-life drama set to premiere in a two-night block in late April. The first two hours of the miniseries, produced in association with BBC One, will debut in the States on April 29, with the third and final hour airing the following night.

Of course, British viewers won’t have to wait nearly as long to see this take on Rowling’s tale of bitter infighting, class warfare, and vicious rumors during an election in a small English town. The Casual Vacancy will air on BBC One on February 15, more than two months before its American debut.

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JK Rowling Harvard Speech To Be Published As Illustrated Book

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s 2008 commencement speech at Harvard University is set to be published as an illustrated book. Little, Brown will release the hardcover of Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination, worldwide on April 14, 2015.

According to the publisher, sales of the book, to be illustrated by Joel Holland, will benefit both Lumos, a charity organization founded by Rowling that works to transform the lives of disadvantaged children, as well as university-wide financial aid at Harvard.

“I have heard and read many commencement speeches, none more moving and memorable than J.K. Rowling’s,” said Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust. “Years after her visit to Harvard, people still talk about it—and still find inspiration in her singular evocation of the idea that living a meaningful life so often means daring to risk failure. What a powerful example she embodies, and what a remarkable gift her speech was, and is, for all of us privileged to hear it then—and to read it now.”

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JK Rowling Writing More About Harry And The Gang

JK ROWLING WRITING MORE ABOUT HARRY AND THE GANG

JK Rowling has revealed she is writing new material for her dedicated all-things-Hogwarts website, Pottermore – with a special tale that released in mid- December to bring readers up to date with what happened to blond-haired baddie Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy, played by Tom Felton in the film series, was Potter’s sworn enemy at Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches. By the final episode films, he had grown into a real villain, in league with Potter’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort. A change in character for Malfoy would not be altogether surprising: Rowling described him as being “not wholly bad, just a moral coward”, and in one of the final scenes of the series, an adult Malfoy is seen taking his own children to catch the Hogwarts Express train at King’s Cross station at the same time as Harry and his gang.

To mark Halloween, the author released via the site an essay that revealed her views on one of the stories’ characters, the teacher Dolores Umbridge, played in the films by Imelda Staunton. She said the teacher was modeled on two people she had encountered in real life. She has also used Pottermore to expand on such characters as the ice-cream selling Florean Fortescue, who appears in “The Chamber of Secrets” and “The Prisoner of Azkaban” before meeting a sticky end.

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HOLLYWOOD’S TOP AUTHORS

HOLLYWOOD’S TOP AUTHORS

It is a golden age for book writers in Hollywood.

Take the holiday season’s movies and awards contenders. The most anticipated are adapted: Laura Hillenbrand’s (No. 10) Unbroken, Suzanne Collins’ (No. 12) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (scripted by No. 19 Nick Hornby) and the third installment of The Hobbit.

Authors are exerting more clout than ever, from Gillian Flynn (No. 7) scripting her Gone Girl adaptation to EL James’ (No. 4) close involvement in Fifty Shades of Grey. Still others have had a profound influence on Hollywood’s tastes, with everyone wanting to make the next Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (No. 3). And then there’s J.K. Rowling (No. 1): No single creator has had so much influence on a megafranchise since George Lucas and the original Star Wars trilogy. Authors are taking advantage of new outlets as well, with James Patterson (No. 8) developing his YA series Maximum Ride for YouTube and Stephen King’s (No. 2) 11/22/63 being adapted for Hulu.

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WILD ABOUT HARRY? CHECK POTTERMORE.COM

J.K. Rowling’s pottermore.com posted an original story on Halloween about a key character from the Harry Potter books. The special Halloween treat for Harry Potter fans focuses on the witch and former Hogwarts professor Dolores Umbridge.

The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. “Umbridge is not only one of the most malicious Potter characters, she is the only person other than Lord Voldemort to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry,” according to pottermore.com.

The new exclusive J.K. Rowling content provides a rich, 1,700-word backstory about Umbridge’s life filled with new details, as well as Rowling’s revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character.

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The World’s Top Earning Authors

THE WORLD’S TOP EARNING AUTHORS

Watch out Danielle Steel and Stephen King – the kids are coming. The world’s top-earning authors list includes three young newcomers who made more than $9 million each in the last year.

In a ranking long-dominated by stalwarts like crime writer James Patterson (who earned an estimated $90 million between June 2013 and June 2014), several of these “youngsters” have joined the ranks of big earners due to the increased commercial appeal of teen literature. Young adult author Veronica Roth‘s ranks 6th on account of her “Divergent” trilogy which sold a combined 6.7 million copies in 2013, earning her around $17 million between June 2013 and June 2014. At just 26, Roth is the youngest newcomer on the ranking, and one of seven women on the 17-person list. 37-year-old newcomer John Green’s ”The Fault in Our Stars” propelled him to an estimated $9 million yearly paycheck. The YA love story, which follows the trials of two cancer-stricken teens, has sold well over 1 million copies in the U.S. and spawned a weepy summer blockbuster. Green is tied for 12th place with Gillian Flynn, who joins the rankings for the first time due to the continued success of 2012′s “Gone Girl.” This New York Times bestseller sold 1.2 million copies in 2013.

Interestingly, a 2012 Bowker Market Research study suggested 55% of YA books are bought by people 18 and older. Adults aged between 30 and 44 accounted for 28% of all YA sales, and the books are purchased for their own reading the vast majority of the time.

With $14 million in earnings, the original young adult tour de force, J.K. Rowling, ranks 8th on the list. She continues to earn from back sales of her iconic Harry Potter series, while Pottermore – a proprietary website she setup to sell Harry Potter ebooks – earns millions. Unlike most authors, Rowling never signed over the digital rights to her books, so she sells directly to readers, earning far more from these digital sales than most authors do through ebooks.

Dan Brown, who first joined the Celebrity 100 ranking in 2004 thanks to the meteoric success of the Da Vinci Code, made an estimated $28 million from his Robert Langdon thriller series. In 2013, his fourth installment, “Inferno,” sold more than 1.4 million copies in the U.S.

Mainstays Nora Roberts ($23 million), Danielle Steel ($22 million) and Janet Evanovich ($20 million) round out the first five. Notably absent from the top: Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins, who ranked third in 2013. This year, she earned a relatively paltry $16 million – a 71% decrease from the $55 million she pulled in between 2012 and 2013 – due to an 88% drop in book sales of her dystopian trilogy.

Collins still fared better than “Fifty Shades Of Grey” author E.L. James. The top earning author on last year’s ranking with a $95 million paycheck, James (No. 11) made just $10 million in this scoring period. Her erotic trilogy sold a meager 1.8 million copies in 2013, compared to more than 29 million in 2012.

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JK Rowling Has Released A New Harry Potter Short Story

JK ROWLING HAS RELEASED A NEW HARRY POTTER SHORT STORY

J.K. Rowling has a new short story about the adult Harry Potter, written in the form of a gossip column by Rita Skeeter, the ruthless and fact-bending journalist of the Potter series. Harry, who is attending the Quidditch World Cup with his family, as well as Ron and Hermione, is now in his 30s and has “a couple of threads of silver” in his hair and a mysterious cut on his cheek. “Are cracks beginning to show in a union the Potters are determined to promote as happy?” asks Skeeter, who also takes shots at his glasses, friends and godson. Rowling has satirized tabloid papers in the past, and indeed testified at an inquiry into the practices of the British press, saying that the unwanted attention made her feel like she was “under siege or like a hostage.” The new story can be read on her website Pottermore.

JK Rowling Weighs In On Scottish Separatism

JK ROWLING WEIGHS IN ON SCOTTISH SEPARATISM

J K Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, has donated £1m to the Scottish anti-independence campaign “Better Together.” A long-standing supporter, Rowling’s donation is the organization’s largest single gift to date.

Rowling, who lives in Edinburgh, said: “My hesitance at embracing independence has nothing to do with lack of belief in Scotland‘s remarkable people or its achievements. The simple truth is Scotland is subject to the same 21st-century pressures as the rest of the world. It must compete in the same global markets, defend itself from the same threats and navigate what still feels like a fragile economic recovery. The more I listen to the Yes Campaign, the more I worry about its minimisation and even denial of risks. Dramatically differing figures and predictions are being slapped in front of us by both campaigns, so that it becomes difficult to know what to believe.” She continued: “If we leave, though, there will be no going back. This separation will not be quick and clean: it will take microsurgery to disentangle three centuries of close interdependence, after which we will have to deal with three bitter neighbors.”

NEW TITLE FROM ROBERT GALBRAITH…AKA J.K. ROWLING

NEW TITLE FROM ROBERT GALBRAITH…AKA J.K. ROWLING

Writing as Robert Galbraith, J.K. Rowling is set to release her next crime novel The Silkworm on June 19. The novel will continue in the tradition of Rowling’s 2013 novel The Cuckoo’s Calling — and feature a British private investigator named Cormoran Strike.

USA Today featured an exclusive excerpt from the new book, which found Strike taking on a new case in London when novelist Owen Quine goes missing. Though readers of The Cuckoo’s Calling already knew that Strike’s clever assistant Robin Ellacott had agreed to stick around, the first chapters of The Silkworm reveal the pair are still close. There’s also no mention of Matthew, Robin’s fiancée, in the initial chapters, which could be an indication of the state of the pair’s current relationship status.

The war veteran-turned-detective is still battling the same demons in the opening chapters of The Silkworm. Keeping erratic hours, living in his office and ruminating about his famous, but distant father, Strike is the same old sad-sack detective readers met in The Cuckoo’s Calling.