The story that Rowling had begun to write on the train that day was about an orphan boy. I slightly glibly used the trope for six months before my mother died. To me this decade now was infused with loss. Perhaps that would have colored my feelings about the story I was writing. But in fact, that sense of loss and this real despair that I felt started to go into the story. The thing that interests me most is human nature, above anything else.
Host Megan Phelps-Roper writes a letter to J.K. Rowling—and receives a surprising invitation in reply: the opportunity for an intimate conversation in Rowling’s Scottish home.
Produced by Andy Mills, Matthew Boll, and Megan Phelps-Roper, with special thanks to Candace Mittel Kahn and Emily Yoffe.
This show is proudly sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE believes free speech makes free people. Learn more at thefire.org.