A New Kind of Authorship?

[Brian]

The JKR website has me thinking that we have on our hands a new kind 
of authorship.

Granted, there's nothing new about author-fan interaction, since fan 
mail has been around as long as mail itself, but surely we're in the 
midst of a new phenomenon.

Jo's website is proof that she is aware of lists such as HPFGU and 
that she wishes to give her own views on certain subjects.  In fact, 
I'm not convinced that she isn't an HPFGU member (though I won't 
mention my JKR!poster suspects).  

I'm a grad. student in English lit.  We spend hours (some of the 
needlessly) discussing things like authorial intent, interaction 
between author and history, etc.  I'm reasonably confident one could 
write a doctoral dissertation on the relationship between JKR and her 
fans, thanks to the Internet.

Case in point:  I wonder if Jo originally intended her books to be 
rife with red herrings?  She used the term "red herrings" in one of 
her interviews, and that got me thinking.  

Just a thought.

Brian