Will J.K.Rowling have the same success with her future crime novel?
J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel, a British newspaper reported Saturday.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling’s, as saying the creator of the “Harry Potter” books is turning to crime fiction.
“My wife spotted her writing her Edinburgh criminal detective novel,” the newspaper, which was available late Saturday, quoted Rankin as telling a reporter at an Edinburgh literary festival.
“It is great that she has not abandoned writing or Edinburgh cafes,” said Rankin, who is known for his own police novels set in the historic Scottish city.
Rowling famously wrote initial drafts of the Potter story in the Scottish city’s cafes. Back then, she was a struggling single mother who wrote in cafes to save on the heating bill at home.
Now she’s Britain’s richest woman — worth $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine — and her seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Rowling said she believed she was unlikely to repeat the success of the Potter series, but confirmed she had plans to work on new books.
“I’ll do exactly what I did with Harry — I’ll write what I really want to write,” Rowling said.
The office of Rowling’s literary agent, Christopher Little, was not immediately available to comment late Saturday.
After Harry Potter
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing after the publication of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She declared in a December 2005 interview that she will most likely not use a new pen name as the press would quickly discover her true identity.
In 2006, Rowling revealed that she had completed a few short stories and another children’s book (a “political fairy story”) about a monster, aimed at a younger audience than Harry Potter readers.
She is not planning to write an eighth Harry Potter book, but has said she will be writing an “encyclopaedia” of the wizarding world consisting of various unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. When asked on 6 July 2007 whether she would ever write an eighth Harry Potter novel Rowling confirmed that she only ever planned to write seven books in the series but also that she could not rule it out entirely. “Um, I think that Harry’s story comes to quite a clear end in Book Seven but I’ve always said that I wouldn’t say ‘never’. I can’t say I’ll never write another book about that world just because I think what do I know, in ten years time I might want to return to it but I think it’s unlikely”. In a recent interview, she said she “wants to fall in love with another idea…”, also stating that “Harry Potter was the experience of a lifetime”.
In an interview published on 26 July 2007, Rowling said that she wants to dedicate “lots” of her time to her family, but is currently “sort of writing two things”, one for children and the other for adults. She did not give any details about the two projects but did state that she was excited because the two book situation reminds her of writing the Philosopher’s Stone, explaining how she was then writing two books until Harry took over.
It has been reported that Rowling is currently working on a crime novel set in Edinburgh, Scotland. Fellow Scottish author Ian Rankin is quoted as saying that his wife has seen Rowling writing the novel in Edinburgh cafes.
1 Comment »
After reading the last book of harry i was very sad because now i new that i will not be able to read anymore of him and the magical world. Harry potter series were my fav books. i really want to have a new story just as magical and gripping as harry. I’d just like to tell jk rowling that it would be wonderful if she could make up a whole new magical world and this time have a girl as the main character!!!
ps; you should have an email address because i’m trying to contact you for so long.
Comment by Ambika — September 1, 2007 @ 10:38