JKR at SkyDome

[s_ings at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 4608

Just wanted to stop by quickly and let you all know how JKR's reading 
went yesterday. They saying it was the largest public reading in 
history. Exact attendance figures have not been released, but it was 
somewhere over 15,000. When she came out on stage and took one look at 
the size of the crowd she said "I feel like I should be leading you 
all to revolution".

It was obvious that she was incredibly nervous, though it didn't 
prevent her from giving us a fabulous reading of Chapter 4 of GoF. She 
did stumble a bit over a few words at the beginning, but once she got 
going I suspect the reading just pushed the nervousness aside. Once 
she finished the chapter, she decided to answer some of the questions 
she'd been asked most frequently while in Toronto.

When will book 5 be out? Not likely by July, though we won't have too 
long a wait and it will be called HP and the Order of the Phoenix. 
(not that this was news to any of us)

Where does she get all her ideas? "From my head. I know that's a 
rather boring answer but that's the way it is."

She answered the 'how do you pronounce Hermione?' question with the 
same "if I knew it was going to be so difficult I'd have named her 
Jane" response. 

She did confess that her references to the books coming out next year 
for Comic Relief were a "shameless plug"

How much control do you have over the movie? "I have script approval"

Do you think the movie will ruin the books for readers? "Of course 
not, the readers aren't idiots".

She said an eighth book was unlikely.

Do you think your books encourage Satanism? "No, you are a lunatic".

Do you believe in magic? "Not the kind of magic they do at Hogwarts - 
or maybe the Ministry of Magic is making me say that".

For any of the other questions (i.e. Will Harry and Cho get together, 
etc.) she just said we should keep reading the books.

I know this is getting long, but I do want to add my general 
impression of the event itself. I've worked in festival organizing 
myself for about 3 years, and tend to notice when things aren't up to 
snuff.

They had 3 large screens on the wall behind the stage on which they 
displayed such things as HP trivia, mock-ups of Daily Prophet 
headlines, etc. before the show. They consistently spelled Quidditch 
incorrectly, and referred to Nicholas "Flannel" on one of the screens 
(my daughter caught that one!). They had a fellow dressed in robes 
wandering the audience signing books as "Ablus Dumbledore". Come on, 
let's get it right! Sorry, but that's just shoddy work on the 
festival's part. During the second author's reading (JKR was the 3rd), 
the lighting tech kept bringing the lights up, so the kids thought JKR 
was appearing and drown the other author out a number of times (Pity, 
too, the book sounded very good).

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed it (though I expect we were a little too 
far away for any of the photos to amount to much - but I'll let you 
know) and it was well worth the trip.

Sheryll