Yesterday I started a sale on my TpT store in honor of Harry Potter’s birthday. HOWEVER- it was also the birthday of J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. So, today I wanted to write a little bit about her.
She is a woman I truly admire; a hardworking dreamer I can identify with. She not only dealt with poverty and depression, but has been quite open in admitting they were hard won battles. Personifying depression in a dementor was a genius idea, because it helped people empathize with what she and so many others feel during depression. Empathy can lead to understanding. Understanding can lead to help.
She also values imagination more than any one else I can think of, maybe Walt Disney or Jim Henson, but she believes imagination is for more than making art. In her speech at a Harvard commencement, she told them this: “Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”
During that speech, I learned what a humanitarian she is, and that she had worked with displaced people who were still reeling from the oppression they had suffered. She had personally encountered the victims of real-life Voldermorts, and the horror they had lived through inspired her to write. She shared a part of their stories with her readers, and her readers (using their powerful imaginations) empathized with people who, like Cedric Diggory, died because he was in the way of someone whose power corrupted them.
And I can’t even begin to talk about how clever and witty I think she is. I am eagerly awaiting her first adult novel in September. So happy birthday, Jo! I hope you will keep inspiring us and taking us on adventures for many years to come!
Click on the picture below to shop my TpT store. 10% off everything until Friday!!
No comments:
Post a Comment