What did JK Rowling tell two aspiring authors on Twitter?
JK Rowling can鈥檛 tell you how to become a wizard, but she can tell you how to become a writer.
Though Harry Potter and his friends have probably never heard of Twitter, their creator relies on the platform to communicate with her more than 5 million followers. Ms. Rowling is known for using Twitter to stand up for equal rights and empowerment, and on Saturday she lent encouragement to two aspiring authors.
Both Twitter users turned to Rowling for advice on how to overcome pressure from others to abandon their literary dreams. One said his or her parents denied that writing was 鈥渁 worthy profession.鈥� The other said that in Egypt, where she lives, 鈥済irls can鈥檛 do anything as freely as boys.鈥�
Rowling offered the first a glimpse into her personal rise to writer-hood: she said she wrote 鈥渙n the sly鈥� while pretending to be interested in another career. The second, she advised to 鈥渢urn [their laughter] into fuel.鈥�
The feminist vein reflected in Rowling鈥檚 second tweet seems to run in the Harry Potter family: Rowling鈥檚 encouragement to break the shackles of gender-based oppression echo a similar piece of advice given by Harry Potter actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson. Earlier this year, Ms. Watson gave a somewhat pithier response to a female Twitter user whose father told her she could not be an engineer because it was a 鈥渕en鈥檚 profession.鈥�
Watson鈥檚 reply: 鈥淏ecome an engineer.鈥�
But Rowling doesn鈥檛 only use Twitter to stand up for women. Gay rights advocacy has been a common theme on her social media feed. Her revelation, in a talk at聽Carnegie Hall in 2007,聽that her character Albus Dumbledore was gay has brought Rowling into the heart of the movement. When one user in March, 鈥淚 wonder why you said that Dumbledore is a gay because I can鈥檛 see him in that way," Rowling responded, 鈥淢aybe because gay people just look like... people?鈥�
She also in Ireland in May, and last December she shared an image that lent depth to Harry鈥檚 childhood bedroom, the cupboard under the stairs:
Her outspokenness on the issue is deliberate: in condemnation of anti-gay rhetoric from the Westboro Baptist Church, Rowling in May, 鈥淚 think it's important that scared gay kids who aren't out yet see hate speech challenged.鈥�
Though the final installment in the Harry Potter series was released eight years ago, Rowling has continued bringing the fantasy world to life through supplemental materials like the interactive website Pottermore. The movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which takes its title from one of Harry鈥檚 textbooks, will explore the wizarding world from a different perspective and is set for release in theaters in November 2016.
