Hogwarts Herald

Well, kind of. J.K. Rowling has hand written an 800 word outline of a prequel to Harry Potter. The story card is going to be auctioned off along with the story cards of 13 other authors. Proceeds will be going to two different charities, English PEN and Dyslexia Action. The project is all part of Waterstone’s celebration of the National year of Reading. In addition to auctioning off the originals, a book with all thirteen stories and the winners of a storycard contest that Waterstone’s holding will be published. The “What’s Your Story?” contest is going to have 2 adult and 1 child winners, who will be published in the storycard book. The proceeds from the book sales will also go to the charities. Fortunately for those of us that cannot afford the undoubted hundreds of thousands of dollars that this story card will probably start at, we will be able to visit Waterstone’s website and read all of the stories, starting June 11, 2008!!! Not just Jo’s, but stories by Doris Lessing, Neil Gaiman, Michael Rosen, Nick Hornby, Sebastian Faulks, Lauren Child, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh as well. And that’s not even everyone.

J.K. Rowling has repeatedly announced that she is not writing a prequel to the Harry Potter series, and in fact would not write another book in the series. However she did hand write several copies of the Tales of Beedle the Bard which were also auctioned off to charity. Does this mean that with a good enough charity Jo might write a full prequel and donate ALL of the proceeds to said charity? I don’t think so, but we can hope can’t we?