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The Ickabog – Chapter 3: Death of a Seamstress

Index ID: ICKB3 — Publication date: My 27th, 2020

The Beamish and Dovetail families both lived in a place called the City-Within-The-City. This was the part of Chouxville where all the people who worked for King Fred had houses. Gardeners, cooks, tailors, pageboys, seamstresses, stonemasons, grooms, carpenters, footmen, and maids: all of them occupied neat little cottages just outside the palace grounds.

The City-Within-The-City was separated from the rest of Chouxville by a high white wall, and the gates in the wall stood open during the day, so that the residents could visit friends and family in the rest of Chouxville, and go to the markets. By night, the sturdy gates were closed, and everyone in the City-Within-The-City slept, like the king, under the protection of the Royal Guard.

Major Beamish, Bert’s father, was head of the Royal Guard. A handsome, cheerful man who rode a steel-grey horse, he accompanied King Fred, Lord Spittleworth, and Lord Flapoon on their hunting trips, which usually happened five times a week. The king liked Major Beamish, and he also liked Bert’s mother, because Bertha Beamish was the king’s own private pastry chef, a high honour in that city of world-class bakers. Due to Bertha’s habit of bringing home fancy cakes that hadn’t turned out absolutely perfectly, Bert was a plump little boy, and sometimes, I regret to say, the other children called him ‘Butterball’ and made him cry.

Bert’s best friend was Daisy Dovetail. The two children had been born days apart, and acted more like brother and sister than playmates. Daisy was Bert’s defender against bullies. She was skinny but fast, and more than ready to fight anyone who called Bert ‘Butterball’.

Daisy’s father, Dan Dovetail, was the king’s carpenter, repairing and replacing the wheels and shafts on his carriages. As Mr Dovetail was so clever at carving, he also made bits of furniture for the palace.

Daisy’s mother, Dora Dovetail, was the Head Seamstress of the palace – another honoured job, because King Fred liked clothes, and kept a whole team of tailors busy making him new costumes every month.

It was the king’s great fondness for finery that led to a nasty incident which the history books of Cornucopia would later record as the beginning of all the troubles that were to engulf that happy little kingdom. At the time it happened, only a few people within the City-Within-The-City knew anything about it, though for some, it was an awful tragedy.

What happened was this.

The King of Pluritania came to pay a formal visit to Fred (still hoping, perhaps, to exchange one of his daughters for a lifetime’s supply of Hopes-of-Heaven) and Fred decided that he must have a brand-new set of clothes made for the occasion: dull purple, overlaid with silver lace, with amethyst buttons, and grey fur at the cuffs.

Now, King Fred had heard something about the Head Seamstress not being quite well, but he hadn’t paid much attention. He didn’t trust anyone but Daisy’s mother to stitch on the silver lace properly, so gave the order that nobody else should be given the job. In consequence, Daisy’s mother sat up three nights in a row, racing to finish the purple suit in time for the King of Pluritania’s visit, and at dawn on the fourth day, her assistant found her lying on the floor, dead, with the very last amethyst button in her hand.

The king’s Chief Advisor came to break the news, while Fred was still having his breakfast. The Chief Advisor was a wise old man called Herringbone, with a silver beard that hung almost to his knees. After explaining that the Head Seamstress had died, he said:

‘But I’m sure one of the other ladies will be able to fix on the last button for Your Majesty.’

There was a look in Herringbone’s eye that King Fred didn’t like. It gave him a squirming feeling in the pit of his stomach.

While his dressers were helping him into the new purple suit later that morning, Fred tried to make himself feel less guilty by talking the matter over with Lords Spittleworth and Flapoon.

‘I mean to say, if I’d known she was seriously ill,’ panted Fred, as the servants heaved him into his skin-tight satin pantaloons, ‘naturally I’d have let someone else sew the suit.’

‘Your Majesty is so kind,’ said Spittleworth, as he examined his sallow complexion in the mirror over the fireplace. ‘A more tender-hearted monarch was never born.’

‘The woman should have spoken up if she felt unwell,’ grunted Flapoon from a cushioned seat by the window. ‘If she’s not fit to work, she should’ve said so. Properly looked at, that’s disloyalty to the king. Or to your suit, anyway.’

‘Flapoon’s right,’ said Spittleworth, turning away from the mirror. ‘Nobody could treat his servants better than you do, sire.’

‘I do treat them well, don’t I?’ said King Fred anxiously, sucking in his stomach as the dressers did up his amethyst buttons. ‘And after all, chaps, I’ve got to look my blasted best today, haven’t I? You know how dressy the King of Pluritania always is!’

‘It would be a matter of national shame if you were any less well-dressed than the King of Pluritania,’ said Spittleworth.

‘Put this unhappy occurrence out of your mind, sire,’ said Flapoon. ‘A disloyal seamstress is no reason to spoil a sunny day.’

And yet, in spite of the two lords’ advice, King Fred couldn’t be quite easy in his mind. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought Lady Eslanda looked particularly serious that day. The servants’ smiles seemed colder, and the maids’ curtsies a little less deep. As his court feasted that evening with the King of Pluritania, Fred’s thoughts kept drifting back to the seamstress, dead on the floor, with the last amethyst button clutched in her hand.

Before Fred went to bed that night, Herringbone knocked on his bedroom door. After bowing deeply, the Chief Advisor asked whether the king was intending to send flowers to Mrs Dovetail’s funeral.

‘Oh – oh, yes!’ said Fred, startled. ‘Yes, send a big wreath, you know, saying how sorry I am and so forth. You can arrange that, can’t you, Herringbone?’

‘Certainly, sire,’ said the Chief Advisor. ‘And – if I may ask – are you planning to visit the seamstress’s family, at all? They live, you know, just a short walk from the palace gates.’

‘Visit them?’ said the king pensively. ‘Oh, no, Herringbone, I don’t think I’d like – I mean to say, I’m sure they aren’t expecting that.’

Herringbone and the king looked at each other for a few seconds, then the Chief Advisor bowed and left the room.

Now, as King Fred was used to everyone telling him what a marvellous chap he was, he really didn’t like the frown with which the Chief Advisor had left. He now began to feel cross rather than ashamed.

‘It’s a bally pity,’ he told his reflection, turning back to the mirror in which he’d been combing his moustaches before bed, ‘but after all, I’m the king and she was a seamstress. If I died, I wouldn’t have expected her to—’

But then it occurred to him that if he died, he’d expect the whole of Cornucopia to stop whatever they were doing, dress all in black and weep for a week, just as they’d done for his father, Richard the Righteous.

‘Well, anyway,’ he said impatiently to his reflection, ‘life goes on.’

He put on his silk nightcap, climbed into his four-poster bed, blew out the candle and fell asleep.


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The Ickabog – Chapter 2: The Ickabog

Index ID: ICKB2 — Publication date: May 26th, 2020

Note: Second chapter of the political fairytale written by J.K. Rowling around 2010.

The legend of the Ickabog had been passed down by generations of Marshlanders, and spread by word of mouth all the way to Chouxville. Nowadays, everybody knew the story. Naturally, as with all legends, it changed a little depending on who was telling it. However, every story agreed that a monster lived at the very northernmost tip of the country, in a wide patch of dark and often misty marsh too dangerous for humans to enter. The monster was said to eat children and sheep. Sometimes it even carried off grown men and women who strayed too close to the marsh at night.

The habits and appearance of the Ickabog changed depending on who was describing it. Some made it snakelike, others dragonish or wolflike. Some said it roared, others that it hissed, and still others said that it drifted as silently as the mists that descended on the marsh without warning.

The Ickabog, they said, had extraordinary powers. It could imitate the human voice to lure travellers into its clutches. If you tried to kill it, it would mend magically, or else split into two Ickabogs; it could fly, spurt fire, shoot poison – the Ickabog’s powers were as great as the imagination of the teller.

‘Mind you don’t leave the garden while I’m working,’ parents all over the kingdom would tell their children, ‘or the Ickabog will catch you and eat you all up!’ And throughout the land, boys and girls played at fighting the Ickabog, tried to frighten each other with the tale of the Ickabog, and even, if the story became too convincing, had nightmares about the Ickabog.

Bert Beamish was one such little boy. When a family called the Dovetails came over for dinner one night, Mr Dovetail entertained everybody with what he claimed was the latest news of the Ickabog. That night, five-year-old Bert woke, sobbing and terrified, from a dream in which the monster’s huge white eyes were gleaming at him across a foggy marsh into which he was slowly sinking.

‘There, there,’ whispered his mother, who’d tiptoed into his room with a candle and now rocked him backwards and forwards in her lap. ‘There is no Ickabog, Bertie. It’s just a silly story.’

‘B-but Mr Dovetail said sheep have g-gone missing!’ hiccoughed Bert.

‘So they have,’ said Mrs Beamish, ‘but not because a monster took them. Sheep are foolish creatures. They wander off and get lost in the marsh.’

‘B-but Mr Dovetail said p-people disappear, too!’

‘Only people who’re silly enough to stray onto the marsh at night,’ said Mrs Beamish. ‘Hush now, Bertie, there is no monster.’

‘But Mr D-Dovetail said p-people heard voices outside their windows and in the m-morning their chickens were gone!’

Mrs Beamish couldn’t help but laugh.

‘The voices they heard are ordinary thieves, Bertie. Up in the Marshlands they pilfer from each other all the time. It’s easier to blame the Ickabog than to admit their neighbours are stealing from them!’

‘Stealing?’ gasped Bert, sitting up in his mother’s lap and gazing at her with solemn eyes. ‘Stealing’s very naughty, isn’t it, Mummy?’

‘It’s very naughty indeed,’ said Mrs Beamish, lifting up Bert, placing him tenderly back into his warm bed and tucking him in. ‘But luckily, we don’t live near those lawless Marshlanders.’

She picked up her candle and tiptoed back towards the bedroom door.

‘Night, night,’ she whispered from the doorway. She’d normally have added, ‘Don’t let the Ickabog bite,’ which was what parents across Cornucopia said to their children at bedtime, but instead she said, ‘Sleep tight.’

Bert fell asleep again, and saw no more monsters in his dreams.

It so happened that Mr Dovetail and Mrs Beamish were great friends. They’d been in the same class at school, and had known each other all their lives. When Mr Dovetail heard that he’d given Bert nightmares, he felt guilty. As he was the best carpenter in all of Chouxville, he decided to carve the little boy an Ickabog. It had a wide, smiling mouth full of teeth and big, clawed feet, and at once it became Bert’s favourite toy.

If Bert, or his parents, or the Dovetails next door, or anybody else in the whole kingdom of Cornucopia had been told that terrible troubles were about to engulf Cornucopia, all because of the myth of the Ickabog, they’d have laughed. They lived in the happiest kingdom in the world. What harm could the Ickabog do?


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The Ickabog – Chapter 1: King Fred the Fearless

Index ID: ICKB1 — Publication date: May 26th, 2020

Note: First chapter of the political fairytale written by J.K. Rowling around 2010.

Once upon a time, there was a tiny country called Cornucopia, which had been ruled for centuries by a long line of fair-haired kings. The king at the time of which I write was called King Fred the Fearless. He’d announced the ‘Fearless’ bit himself, on the morning of his coronation, partly because it sounded nice with ‘Fred’, but also because he’d once managed to catch and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t count five footmen and the boot boy.

King Fred the Fearless came to the throne on a huge wave of popularity. He had lovely yellow curls, fine sweeping moustaches and looked magnificent in the tight breeches, velvet doublets, and ruffled shirts that rich men wore at the time. Fred was said to be generous, smiled and waved whenever anyone caught sight of him and looked awfully handsome in the portraits that were distributed throughout the kingdom, to be hung in town halls. The people of Cornucopia were most happy with their new king, and many thought he’d end up being even better at the job than his father, Richard the Righteous, whose teeth (though nobody had liked to mention it at the time) were rather crooked.

King Fred was secretly relieved to find out how easy it was to rule Cornucopia. In fact, the country seemed to run itself. Nearly everybody had lots of food, the merchants made pots of gold, and Fred’s advisors took care of any little problem that arose. All that was left for Fred to do was beam at his subjects whenever he went out in his carriage and go hunting five times a week with his two best friends, Lord Spittleworth and Lord Flapoon.

Spittleworth and Flapoon had large estates of their own in the country, but they found it much cheaper and more amusing to live at the palace with the king, eating his food, hunting his stags, and making sure that the king didn’t get too fond of any of the beautiful ladies at court. They had no wish to see Fred married, because a queen might spoil all their fun. For a time, Fred had seemed to rather like Lady Eslanda, who was as dark and beautiful as Fred was fair and handsome, but Spittleworth had persuaded Fred that she was far too serious and bookish for the country to love her as queen. Fred didn’t know that Lord Spittleworth had a grudge against Lady Eslanda. He’d once asked her to marry him, but she’d turned him down.

Lord Spittleworth was very thin, cunning, and clever. His friend Flapoon was ruddy-faced, and so enormous that it required six men to heave him onto his massive chestnut horse. Though not as clever as Spittleworth, Flapoon was still far sharper than the king.

Both lords were expert at flattery, and pretending to be astonished by how good Fred was at everything from riding to tiddlywinks. If Spittleworth had a particular talent, it was persuading the king to do things that suited Spittleworth, and if Flapoon had a gift, it was for convincing the king that nobody on earth was as loyal to the king as his two best friends.

Fred thought Spittleworth and Flapoon were jolly good chaps. They urged him to hold fancy parties, elaborate picnics, and sumptuous banquets, because Cornucopia was famous, far beyond its borders, for its food. Each of its cities was known for a different kind, and each was the very best in the world.

The capital of Cornucopia, Chouxville, lay in the south of the country, and was surrounded by acres of orchards, fields of shimmering golden wheat, and emerald-green grass, on which pure white dairy cows grazed. The cream, flour, and fruit produced by the farmers here was then given to the exceptional bakers of Chouxville, who made pastries.

Think, if you please, of the most delicious cake or biscuit you have ever tasted. Well, let me tell you they’d have been downright ashamed to serve that in Chouxville. Unless a grown man’s eyes filled with tears of pleasure as he bit into a Chouxville pastry, it was deemed a failure and never made again. The bakery windows of Chouxville were piled high with delicacies such as Maidens’ Dreams, Fairies’ Cradles, and, most famous of all, Hopes-of-Heaven, which were so exquisitely, painfully delicious that they were saved for special occasions and everybody cried for joy as they ate them. King Porfirio, of neighbouring Pluritania, had already sent King Fred a letter, offering him the choice of any of his daughters’ hands in marriage in exchange for a lifetime’s supply of Hopes-of-Heaven, but Spittleworth had advised Fred to laugh in the Pluritanian ambassador’s face.

‘His daughters are nowhere near pretty enough to exchange for Hopes-of-Heaven, sire!’ said Spittleworth.

To the north of Chouxville lay more green fields and clear, sparkling rivers, where jet-black cows and happy pink pigs were raised. These in turn served the twin cities of Kurdsburg and Baronstown, which were separated from each other by an arching stone bridge over the main river of Cornucopia, the Fluma, where brightly coloured barges bore goods from one end of the kingdom to another.

Kurdsburg was famous for its cheeses: huge white wheels, dense orange cannonballs, big crumbly blue-veined barrels and little baby cream cheeses smoother than velvet.

Baronstown was celebrated for its smoked and honey-roasted hams, its sides of bacon, its spicy sausages, its melting beefsteaks, and its venison pies.

The savoury fumes rising from the chimneys of the red-brick Baronstown stoves mingled with the odorous tang wafting from the doorways of the Kurdsburg cheesemongers, and for forty miles all around, it was impossible not to salivate breathing in the delicious air.

A few hours north of Kurdsburg and Baronstown, you came upon acres of vineyards bearing grapes as large as eggs, each of them ripe and sweet and juicy. Journey onwards for the rest of the day and you reached the granite city of Jeroboam, famous for its wines. They said of the Jeroboam air that you could get tipsy simply walking its streets. The best vintages changed hands for thousands upon thousands of gold coins, and the Jeroboam wine merchants were some of the richest men in the kingdom.

But a little north of Jeroboam, a strange thing happened. It was as though the magically rich land of Cornucopia had exhausted itself by producing the best grass, the best fruit, and the best wheat in the world. Right at the northern tip came the place known as the Marshlands, and the only things that grew there were some tasteless, rubbery mushrooms and thin dry grass, only good enough to feed a few mangy sheep.

The Marshlanders who tended the sheep didn’t have the sleek, well-rounded, well-dressed appearance of the citizens of Jeroboam, Baronstown, Kurdsburg, or Chouxville. They were gaunt and ragged. Their poorly nourished sheep never fetched very good prices, either in Cornucopia or abroad, so very few Marshlanders ever got to taste the delights of Cornucopian wine, cheese, beef, or pastries. The most common dish in the Marshlands was a greasy mutton broth, made of those sheep who were too old to sell.

The rest of Cornucopia found the Marshlanders an odd bunch – surly, dirty, and ill-tempered. They had rough voices, which the other Cornucopians imitated, making them sound like hoarse old sheep. Jokes were made about their manners and their simplicity. As far as the rest of Cornucopia was concerned, the only memorable thing that had ever come out of the Marshlands was the legend of the Ickabog.


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J.K. Rowling introduces The Ickabog

Index ID: ICKBINTRO — Publication date: May 26th, 2020

Note: Introduction to her new story, published on her official website.

About The Ickabog

The idea for The Ickabog came to me while I was still writing Harry Potter. I wrote most of a first draft in fits and starts between Potter books, intending to publish it after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

However, after the last Potter book I wanted to take a break from publishing, which ended up lasting five years. In that time I wrote The Casual Vacancy and Robert Galbraith wrote The Cuckoo’s Calling. After some dithering (and also after my long-suffering agent had trademarked The Ickabog – sorry, Neil) I decided I wanted to step away from children’s books for a while. At that point, the first draft of The Ickabog went up into the attic, where it’s remained for nearly a decade. Over time I came to think of it as a story that belonged to my two younger children, because I’d read it to them in the evenings when they were little, which has always been a happy family memory.

A few weeks ago at dinner, I tentatively mooted the idea of getting The Ickabog down from the attic and publishing it for free, for children in lockdown. My now teenagers were touchingly enthusiastic, so downstairs came the very dusty box, and for the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again. As I worked to finish the book, I started reading chapters nightly to the family again. This was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my writing life, as The Ickabog’s first two readers told me what they remember from when they were tiny, and demanded the reinstatement of bits they’d particularly liked (I obeyed).

I think The Ickabog lends itself well to serialisation because it was written as a read-aloud book (unconsciously shaped, I think, by the way I read it to my own children), but it’s suitable for 7-9 year olds to read to themselves.

I’ll be posting a chapter (or two, or three) every weekday between 26th May and 10th July on The Ickabog website. We plan to publish some translations soon and will post further details on that website when they’re available.

The Ickabog is a story about truth and the abuse of power.  To forestall one obvious question: the idea came to me well over a decade ago, so it isn’t intended to be read as a response to anything that’s happening in the world right now. The themes are timeless and could apply to any era or any country.

The Illustration Competition

Having decided to publish, I thought how wonderful it would be if children in lockdown, or otherwise needing distraction during the strange and difficult time we’re passing through, illustrated the story for me. There will be suggestions about the illustrations we might need for each chapter on The Ickabog website, but nobody should feel constrained by these ideas. I want to see imaginations run wild! Creativity, inventiveness and effort are the most important things: we aren’t necessarily looking for the most technical skill!

In November 2020, The Ickabog will be published in English in print, eBook and audiobook formats, shortly followed by other languages. The best drawings in each territory will be included in the finished books. As publishers in each territory will need to decide which pictures work best for their own editions, I won’t be personally judging the entries. However, if parents and guardians post their children’s drawing on Twitter using the hashtag #TheIckabog, I’ll be able to share and comment!  To find out more about the Illustration Competition, go to The Ickabog website when it launches.

Covid-19 Donation

I’m pledging all author royalties from The Ickabog, when published, to help groups who’ve been particularly impacted by the pandemic. Further details will be available later in the year.

Huge thanks are due…

… to my dear friend and editor Arthur Levine; to the phenomenal James McKnight of the Blair Partnership, who’s worked tirelessly to make this project a reality in a very short space of time; to Ruth Alltimes at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, whose help has been invaluable; to my peerless management team, Rebecca Salt, Nicky Stonehill and Mark Hutchinson and to my wonderful agent Neil Blair. I promise all of you not to have any more bright ideas for a few months at least.


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The Ickabog – Welcome message

Index ID: ICKBWEL — Publication date: May 26th, 2020

Welcome!

You’ve arrived at the website of my new story, The Ickabog.

I had the idea for The Ickabog a long time ago and read it to my two younger children chapter by chapter each night while I was working on it. However, when the time came to publish it, I decided to put out a book for adults instead, which is how The Ickabog ended up in the attic. I became busy with other things, and even though I loved the story, over the years I came to think of it as something that was just for my own children.

Then this lockdown happened. It’s been very hard on children, in particular, so I brought The Ickabog down from the attic, read it for the first time in years, rewrote bits of it and then read it to my children again. They told me to put back in some bits they’d liked when they were little, and here we are!

The Ickabog will be published for free on this website, in instalments, over the next seven weeks, a chapter (or two, or three), at a time. It isn’t Harry Potter and it doesn’t include magic. This is an entirely different story.

The most exciting part, for me, at least, is that I’d like you to illustrate The Ickabog for me. Every day, I’ll be making suggestions for what you might like to draw. You can enter the official competition being run by my publishers, for the chance to have your artwork included in a printed version of the book due out later this year. I’ll be giving suggestions as to what to draw as we go along, but you should let your imagination run wild.

I won’t be judging the competition. Each publisher will decide what works best for their editions. However, if you, your parent or your guardian would like to share your artwork on Twitter using the hashtag #TheIckabog, I’ll be able to see it and maybe share and comment on it!

When the book is published in November, I’m going to donate all my royalties to help people who have been affected by the coronavirus. We’ll give full details later in the year.

I think that’s everything you need to know. I hope you enjoy reading it and I can’t wait to see your pictures!

Love,

J.K. Rowling


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Reply for Hetta

Index ID: HETTA — Publication date: April 3rd, 2020

Note: This letter was shared on Twitter to a fan who wrote a letter to J.K. Rowling during the self-isolation days due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This is the tweet: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1246119184569942016/

Dear Hetta,

Thank you for saying that you like my books!

I didn’t mind calling myself “J.K.”. You see, I’d always been sorry my parents didn’t give me a middle name, so I got to call myself Kathleen after my favourite grandmother!

Lots of love,

Jo

also known as
J.K. Rowling


The following images are related to this writing


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The next JK Rowling may need help from an arts programme

Index ID: NXTJKR — Publication date: March 29th, 2020

Note: It was published as a Twitter thread on J.K. Rowling's official account: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1244250277928144896

As I keep being tagged into this ongoing debate, so I’m going to weigh in. It’s accurate to say that if Britain hadn’t had a welfare programme, my eldest daughter and I would have been in desperate trouble. I understand you’re not contesting that. However, you also seem to be asserting that I never benefited from government support as an artist. This is inaccurate. I received a grant from a government supported arts programme that enabled me to finish my second book.

In times like these, and speaking as somebody who has several key workers in her immediate family, I can see why some people might regard artists, writers etc as about as much use as Cacofonix the Bard on the battlefield (Asterix reference, if you haven’t read it, do). However, even in wartime, filmmakers, writers and performers were supported by government to do the necessary work of improving morale and providing people with a necessary means of escape and respite. Art is unique to humanity and it bolsters our humanity.

The priority right now is saving lives, but I felt obliged to point out that I *did* receive government assistance through an arts programme. One of the many reasons I feel strongly that people like me should pay their full share of taxes is that the next JK Rowling may need help from an arts programme, too, and I wouldn’t want her to be unable to fulfil her potential because the money wasn’t there. Art matters, even in terrible times. Books have always been my greatest refuge and I know I’m not alone.

PS Sorry for the two 4s. I’m a writer. I can’t count.


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The Strange Tale of J.K. Rowling and the Bengal Tiger Reserve

Index ID: BENTIG — Publication date: February 18th, 2020

Even by Wizarding World standards, this one is bizarre.  Rumours were recently circulating that J.K. Rowling was collaborating on, or even writing, a book called What’s Left of the Jungle Book, based on the exploits of a guide at a West Bengal tiger reserve in India.  It turns out the rumour was the result of a chain of misunderstandings, mistranslations and over-eager speculation between a group of students, the reserve guide and a potential publisher.  J.K. Rowling has not arranged to meet the guide in California, has never visited the Buxa Tiger Reserve, and has no plans to base any work – fact or fiction – on this subject.


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Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Human Rights Award 2019 – Acceptance Speech

Index ID: RFKAS — Publication date: December 12th, 2019

I’m disappointed, I was told I’d meet some Kennedies!

You should know that among the British, being forced to watch a film in which people say how great you are is actually considered cruel and inhumane treatment. We are a people of the firm handshake. If we’re feeling particularly effusive we may say ‘Well done’, but that’s generally followed by something like ‘You bastard’. In case the recipient becomes inappropriately giddy.

And so I am feeling very shaken, honestly, and I’m going to try and express why I feel so emotional about this award. And I’m going to try and do that quite briefly because no one wants to hear from Nancy Pelosi more than I do.

So, briefly then, on the top floor of my house in Edinburgh is a framed poster from Robert Kennedy’s presidential run. And I bought it from a memorabilia store in DC during my first ever Harry Potter tour in the states. And I bought it of course because Robert Kennedy has been, since my teens, one of my greatest heroes. We overlapped on this earth for only three years. So I know him by his legacy, and by the many biographies I’ve read.

Robert Kennedy embodied everything I most admire in a human being. He was morally and physically courageous. And like Churchill, I believe that courage is the foremost of the virtues because it guarantees all the others. He looked beyond the invisible, that powerful boundaries that can insulate people of privilege from the rest of the world. And he looked into those dark corners where poverty and discrimination and injustice breed. He was a man of empathy and action. And he brought about real change, and he continues to inspire people beyond the boundaries of his own country. And I’m not sure we can ask much more of any politician or indeed any human being.

Having said all of that, I do understand the very human desire not to go poking into too many dark corners. As you’ve just seen on the film, I experienced that feeling myself when I saw a picture of a small child screaming through wire in a British news paper. And I went to turn the page. Now, I’m not usually very good with dates or counting, as anyone who would like to check the shifting numbers of house elves at Hogwarts can confirm, but I always know exactly how long ago it was that I saw that picture because I was pregnant with my youngest child at the time, and she turns fifteen this January. I was very ashamed of my impulse, and so I turned back and I thought, ‘If it’s as bad as it looks, you have to do something about it’. And I read the accompanying article, which was by an undercover reporter, and it was bad. And so I knew I had to do something about it. And I began writing letters. And then I met many experts in the field. And that lead to the founding of my NGO Lumos, which aims to end child institutionalisation.

I think it isn’t widely enough understood, as Roger said on the film, that 80% of the children living in so called orphanages worldwide has at least one living parent. Research shows us that even well run institutions have catastrophic effects on child health and development. Statistics show us that one in five will have a criminal record, one in seven will enter the sex trade, and one in ten will kill themselves. We know that many institutions are hotbeds of abuse. And we understand that parents are pressured, and sometimes even tricked, into giving up their children on the promise of food, healthcare, and education that they know isn’t available anywhere else in their communities. Now I’ve often been asked why this issue, and my answer is there are few people on earth more vulnerable than a child who’s been taken from their family and hidden from mainstream society. I’ve now met children with attachment disorders so severe that they will crawl into the lap of any stranger who smiles at them. I’ve seen profoundly ill children lying three in a bed with minimal human contact, and no stimulation. And I’ve stood in roomfulls of babies who’ve learnt not to cry.

Now, there is good news, believe it or not. And the good news is that this is an entirely man made problem, and we can fix it. That is good news. We have to have hope here. And it is fixable, as long as we have the individual and the political will. Incredibly it is cheaper to support children in their own family than it is to warehouse them in this way. And most importantly of all. The outcomes for children are hugely improved if they’re brought up in loving family care. And that include foster care. And we can all make small changes to bring about that outcome by making sure we never donate to so called orphanages and we don’t volunteer in them. So I’m very, very proud and grateful to all of our incredible Lumos staff around the world. We’re now providing support on deinstitutionalisation to 50 countries globally. And we’ve so far helped just under 50,000 children directly. Either moving them from institutions into loving families, often their own, or preventing them entering the institution in the first place. And I cover all core costs of Lumos, so all donations go directly to programs that help children.

Can I just say, this speech is full of typos, so whoever got it on the silent auction, send it to me and I’ll copy edit it for you. It’s really annoying me as I read through. Anyway. I’m nearly there.

I didn’t know the sex of the baby I was carrying when I first read about that cage child, but I did know that if it was a boy, I would name him Robert, after Robert Kennedy. And in fact she became Mackenzie and I became Robert. When I was thinking up a pen name for the crime series that has been one of the great joys of my writing life I took the name Robert Galbraith in tribute to my political hero. So I’m currently just a few pages away from completing JK’s thirteenth and Robert’s fifth novel. And if I hadn’t come to New York to accept this award I would have finished it this week. And I should say that I enter a state that can best be described as feral when I’m in the final stages of a book, so one of the many extraordinary things about this evening is that I’m standing in front of you not looking like a cave dwelling hermit. And for this my husband thanks you. So I just want to say thank you. This truly is one of the most extraordinary honours I could have possibly been given, and I shouldn’t ask for anything else while I’m standing here, but I will. If you would like to know more about how to help some of the worlds most vulnerable children, please visit wearelumos.org.

Thank you.


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Foreword: Finding the Way Home

Index ID: FWFWH — Publication date: November 2019

Note: J.K. Rowling's Lumos Foundation has been working to help children in orphanages for nearly 15 years. "Finding the Way Home" is a documentary about childrens in orpanaghes. For the film premiere, a booklet of the movie was given to present press, and Rowling collaborated writing the foreword for it.
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