"Good Lord, is this - can this be - ?"
--Tom (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

And lo, on the 13th day of the 5th month of 2005 Emerson did proclaim, "I have received the holy phone call. It was neither collect nor a message on how to pay only 5 cents a minute on long distance, rather it was a message from across the ocean. The message has told me to cross over the ocean for the 16th of the July where I shall receive the answers we seek from J.K. Rowling."

And the peasants rejoiced.

And as the peasants' word spread from one inbox to another, Emerson did say, "Sendeth your questions to mine mailbox but not at this time. Do not worry, my followers, for the time shall come after the Sith have Revenged but before the 16th day of the 7th month when the newest tome reacheth our hands. The questions should be no more than a few words in length and not deal with the chocolate of Mars."

And the peasants rejoiced.

And lo, on the 15th day of the 5th month the printed media did proclaim, "You may have a chance to interview J.K. Rowling! Turn to page A7 for more information."

And the peasants rejoiced.

From her location on the web, J.K. did add, "Those who seeketh answers shall speak to me in Edinburgh Castle on the weekend of the release of my newest tome. The event shall be filled with laughter, enjoyment and reporters asking me the same questions a million different times. Melissa the wise of the Cauldron that Leaks and Emerson the keeper of the net of Muggles shall also come. For they represent the peasants and without them the sites they build would be for naught."

Well, it's been quite a busy time for the fans. Firstly, we must congratulate the chosen ones. Emerson and Melissa deserve to go. They worked hard to build up their sites and they deserve their reward. To get a chance to speak with J.K. Rowling in person, that is quite an honor! From what we understand, the questions they'll ask will be gathered (partly) from the fans and their own collection of burning issues. Hopefully this will answer some things that we always wanted to know. Who cares if the answer is not satisfactory (who remembers the Mark Evans brouhaha?).

But, we get to choose part of the questions! This duty lies with you (the reader) to make sure that you submit (or vote or email) what you always wanted an answer to. Half-Blood Prince will probably be out around the time of the interview, so let's not all go asking who/why that person is the prince (or possibly by the end of the book, the person formerly known as the half-blood prince). Otherwise, go now and think of your question that you'd like J.K. to answer. We know that a lot of you are more creative than us. After all, some of you keep sending messages telling us how unoriginal we are. So put your thinking caps on and get going. When you do, make it short, make it interesting and most of all have fun while coming up with it. Both of us will probably be submitting a question, unless Emerson is going to ask about Mars Bars for us.

Also, if you haven't figured it out already, this event is the first in the wave of Half-Blood Prince pre-release hype. The book is one month away now and it's starting to get tense. Every day we get closer to launch, the temptation grows to spoil ourselves silly with information. While the Edinburgh Castle event won't have that many HBP spoilers (as no one should have completed the book at that point, except for possibly that speed reader who appears on those infomercials), the internet is ever so tempting. Already there have been manuscript "leaks" and dropped hints and who knows what else is coming. Personally, we will not be reading any of these leaks or hints, so please don't send anything to us (that is spoilerific). We don't want to ruin the surprises, and while some of you can't wait, please don't ruin it for the rest of us. And please, don't try stealing the book from the heavily defended warehouses just to get a jumpstart on your friends. Really, some people are just asking for trouble...

With that out of the way, we can now go back to our story...

Remember the moral of the beetle that Skeeters, who asked the wrong questions and ended up disgraced. But when the right questions were asked, she proved that she could pull an about face. For it matters not at the quantity of questions submitted, rather it will be the quality. And so, we reach the end of this week's column. Remember to leave in an orderly manner and send all hate mail to the links provided below.

And thus the peasants rejoiced.

6/13/05

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