Taking a Stand

Time for a little spouting-off on my part!

Moi

I'm the webmistress of the Semi-Intellectual Harry Potter Shrine. I'm an English major and Spanish and Russian languages minor at the University of Maryland. This is really my only website, since I don't flatter myself to think that random people want to read just about little old me. It's only "semi-intellectual" because I don't pretend to be a paragon of intellectualia, nor do I like to be more serious than necessary. After all, one of the most enjoyable parts in the series is Rowling's wickid sense of humor...

Harry History

  I read the first Harry Potter book way back in 1998 or 1999, after I read about it in a teeny tiny article in Newsweek. After reading the second book, I was so taken with the series that I immediately ordered the third one online. When I found out I had to actually wait for the fourth book to come out, that was quite a blow. Nothing like the three years that passed before book five came out! While I was waiting for Book 4 to come out, however, I built this website. I began it, if I remember correctly, around January 2000. For a while I neglected it, but now I've added a lot of new sections and I hope to keep building while I wait for the third movie and sixth book.

Why I Web

  As an English major and budding writer, I'm most interested in creating a website dedicated to the aspects of J.K. Rowling's writing that make the Harry Potter something different. Why do adults love it as much as children? How does Rowling build up such fantastic suspense? What kind of literary tradition is Rowling a part of. Unlike many stuffy critics and writers (like A.S. Byatt who apparently recently dissed the HP series), I believe that Harry Potter, if not Literature, is certainly literature, and most definitely will be a lasting part of British children's literature, which has a long and beautiful tradition.

What about the movie???

  I don't have much on this website in way of movie stuff, mostly because despite how fun the movies are, this website is dedicated to the books. The movies could most definitely be better in quality, in my opinion, and I sincerely hope that the new director will do the series more justice than Chris Columbus, whose heavy Hollywood touch needs to be done away with. Also a lot of websites have pictures from the movie on their website whereas I feel that no matter how many times I see the movies, I still imagine Dumbledore's office as featuring the color red, Harry's hair messier, Hermione's curlier and Mrs. Norris as thinner. So I try to encourage the idea that there is more than one way to imagine Harry and Hogwarts, not just the Warner Brothers way.

Feedback:

I'm open to suggestions about this site or anything regarding Harry in general. You can send an owl, just make sure "Harry Potter" is in the subject header.

I sincerely hope you like this page and send your comments to me about it: the content, the graphics, the fonts, the legibility, style, etc. Anything! And suggestions are always good too. 

Random Facts:

My favorite HP character (other than Harry, Hermione and Ron): Sirius Black...the Weasly twins are pretty cool too ("We know our names are Gred and Forge!).

Favorite book in the series: Prisoner of Azkaban

One of my favorite quotes: "If you were any slower, you'd be going backwards!"--Malfoy in Book 2

Time it took to read book 5: 48 hours

Times I cried reading book 5: erm...5? 6?

Times I laughed reading book 5: too many to count!

Favorite new character: Nymphadora Tonks (I wanna change my hair every day!)

Character I would most like to use as a punching bag: Professor Umbridge beats out Malfoy, Snape and Wormtail

Most underrated character in the series: Ron Weasly (he's so funny!)

Most annoying "good guy" in the series: Hagrid--why does he like weird creatures so much!? Nice character or mere plot device? definitely #2 in my book...

Best part about the series: it's not done yet!

Thanks for visiting!