External links
- Melissa Anelli's personal web site
- Melissa Anelli's Twitter – @melissaanelli
- Official website of Harry, a History
- The Leaky Cauldron
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Melissa Anelli | |
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| Born | December 27, 1979 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, webmistress |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Georgetown University |
| Notable works | Harry, A History |
| Website | |
| melissaanelli | |
Melissa Anelli (born December 27, 1979) is an American author and webmistress. She is the author of Harry, A History , which chronicles the Harry Potter phenomenon. Anelli is also the full-time webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, a commercial fansite devoted to the Harry Potter franchise for fans.
Anelli also is one of three hosts of the Leaky Cauldron's official podcast PotterCast, which talks about various aspects of the Harry Potter books, movies, video games and more. The podcast conducted a two-episode interview with Rowling in late December 2007, after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows . [1]
Anelli was born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, New York. She is a graduate of Georgetown University, where she served as an editor for The Hoya . [2] She became fascinated with the Harry Potter books in 2000, and active in Harry Potter fandom the following summer, shortly before the September 11 attacks in the United States. She says she was drawn into the series by its underlying message of tolerance and love, which she believes was especially needed as the United States geared for war. [3]
In 2001, Anelli joined the all-volunteer staff of The Leaky Cauldron, a relatively new web site devoted to the Harry Potter universe. On her own initiative, Anelli began contacting individuals at Warner Bros., which was producing the Harry Potter films, and at Scholastic, which published the Harry Potter books in the United States. It took a year before the movie studio took her seriously and began answering her questions with reportable information, and a longer period of time before the publishers agreed to do the same. [4] By the end of 2002, The Leaky Cauldron was receiving over 500,000 hits per day. [5] By November 2008, largely under Anelli's influence, the site became the second most popular English-language Harry Potter fansite, with over 1 million hits per day. [6]
In 2002, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling announced that she would release a single index card containing 93 words that were clues to the content of the unreleased fifth novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix . The index card would be auctioned, with all proceeds benefitting Book Aid International. Anelli organized a campaign to have fans combine their money to purchase the card. She incorporated a nonprofit organization, Leaky, Inc., and became its first president. [5] The card sold to an anonymous collector for $45,231, over six times the reserve price. Leaky, Inc. donated the $23,656 they had collected to Book Aid International. [7]
In 2005, Rowling personally invited Anelli and Emerson Spartz, the teenage webmaster of popular fansite Mugglenet, to Edinburgh, Scotland for the release of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince . The two were granted an exclusive interview with Rowling the day after the book was released. [8] The only other interview Rowling granted that weekend was to a group of 70 children, aged 8–16, who were selected in various contests for the honor. [8] [9] Anelli and Spartz were the only Americans included. [10] The pair published an extensive, three-part interview on their respective websites. The interview caused some controversy within the Harry Potter fandom. At one point, Spartz referred to fans who believed that characters Harry Potter and Hermione Granger would become a couple as "delusional", and Anelli and Rowling laughed. Both Spartz and Anelli received a large quantity of hate mail from fans who believed they had been insulted. One adult fan remarked that, "It was like Melissa and Emerson were our representatives, and you don't want to hear your ambassadors be so partisan. You hope that they're speaking for everyone." [11] Anelli later commented that the irate fans had "lost the ability to divorce themselves between what J.K. Rowling is doing and what they'd like to see happen, and they've taken their disappointment and projected it onto her. I can totally understand how you could be upset if your preference didn't happen, but I can't understand or tolerate that people who claim to be her fans can be so mean to her." [11]
Anelli also serves as a host of PotterCast, a Harry Potter-centered podcast sponsored by The Leaky Cauldron.
In 2008, Anelli began receiving threatening messages from Jessica Elizabeth Parker, a resident of New Zealand, whom she had banned from commenting at The Leaky Cauldron for offensive behavior. [12] Parker continued to regularly harass Anelli for a period of 8 years, starting by sending her digital messages containing sexual and violent threats, but in later years also sending postcards and making phone calls to Anelli and her family. [13] Anelli initially found it difficult to take legal action against Parker because she was a resident of a different country, and because cyberstalking laws were in a nascent stage, but in 2011, with the help of the FBI and Interpol, Parker was arrested in New Zealand for criminal harassment. [12] Parker has been arrested twice more since 2011, [14] but according to Anelli, the harassment never completely stopped. [13]
Anelli's work at The Leaky Cauldron was voluntary. During the day, she worked to support herself. In 2001, Anelli began working at MTV Networks' Pages Online, a magazine for the entertainment industry. [5] By 2004, she had become a full-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance . [15] Anelli is now a freelance journalist based in New York City. [6] [16]
Her first book, Harry, A History , was released in early November 2008 and debuted at No. 18 on the New York Times Best Seller List. [17] Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman explains that "the book captures the flavour of Pottermania, where fans' e-mails fly...with the latest breathless news of the writer and her progeny." [16] Another review in the same paper, by Ernie Waters, says, "Anelli unravels what lies beneath the Harry Potter phenomenon and how it feels to be so wrapped up in the mystical world...It tries, and largely succeeds, to explain just what it is about the boy wizard which inspires such deep-seated devotion." [18]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| International | |
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Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.
Lord Voldemort is a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Prof. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. For most of the series, he is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts. As part of his backstory, it is revealed that he is the founder and leader of the Order of the Phoenix, an organisation dedicated to fighting Lord Voldemort, the main antagonist of the series.
The Order of the Phoenix is a secret organisation in the Harry Potter series of fiction books written by J. K. Rowling. Founded by Albus Dumbledore to fight Lord Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters, the Order lends its name to the fifth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The people in the Order of the Phoenix are Sirius Black, Emmeline Vance, Nymphadora Tonks, Benjy Fenwick, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Edgar Bones, Lily Potter, James Potter, Sturgis Podmore, Caradoc Dearborn, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Fleur Delacour, Alice Longbottom, Frank Longbottom, Dorcas Meadowes, Albus Dumbledore, Hestia Jones, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Aberforth Dumbledore, Dedalus Diggle, Minerva McGonagall and Marlene McKinnon.
The Harry Potter fandom is the community of fans of the Harry Potter books and films who participate in entertainment activities that revolve around the series, such as reading and writing fan fiction, creating and soliciting fan art, engaging in role-playing games, socialising on Harry Potter-based forums, and more. The fandom interacts online as well as offline through activities such as fan conventions, participating in cosplay, tours of iconic landmarks relevant to the books and production of the films, and parties held for the midnight release of each book and film.
The following is a list of Hogwarts staff in the Harry Potter books written by J. K. Rowling.
MuggleNet is the Internet's oldest and largest Harry Potter and Wizarding World fansite. MuggleNet was founded in 1999. It has expanded over the years to include a handful of partner podcasts, a separate book blog, over half a dozen published works and live events. At one point, it also ran its own forums, social network and separate fan fiction website. Originally owned by founder Emerson Spartz, MuggleNet became an independently-owned and operated brand in early 2020.
The Leaky Cauldron, also called Leaky, TLC, or Leaky News, is a Harry Potter fansite and blog. The site features news, image and video galleries, downloadable widgets, a chat room and discussion forum, and an essay project called Scribbulus, among other offerings. Since 2005, the Leaky Cauldron has also hosted an official podcast, called PotterCast.
PotterCast is the official podcast of the Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron. Its episodes are posted once per month and are typically about an hour long. In every episode, the hosts discuss particular passages, themes, and questions from the Harry Potter books and films, and they go over the Potter-related news stories reported during the previous week by The Leaky Cauldron. The podcast often includes input from everyday Potter fans, but it has also featured numerous interviews with professionals involved in making the Potter books, films, and video games. PotterCast frequently hosts contests, and it has presented a variety of themed shows, including a special wizard rock video edition and an episode for Banned Books Week 2005, in which staff interviewed representatives from the American Library Association. It also covers breaking news, such as the press conference hosted by Warner Brothers before the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a book of fairy tales by author J. K. Rowling. There is a storybook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final novel of the Harry Potter series.
Harry and the Potters and the Power of Love, or Power of Love, is the third studio album by indie rock band Harry and the Potters, released on July 4, 2006. The album was primarily inspired by the sixth novel in the Harry Potter book series.
Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. He is introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as a half-giant and half-human who is the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts, the primary setting for the first six novels. In the third novel Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hagrid is promoted to Care of Magical Creatures professor, and is later revealed to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. A loyal, friendly, softhearted personality who is easily brought to tears, he is also known for his thick West Country accent.
Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon is a 2008 book by writer and webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, Melissa Anelli. The book describes the Harry Potter phenomenon in detail. The book was published on November 4, 2008, by Pocket Books, and debuted at #18 on The New York Times paperback bestseller list.
Ginevra Molly "Ginny" Weasley is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novel series. Ginny is introduced in the first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as the youngest sibling and only daughter of Arthur and Molly Weasley. She becomes Harry's main love interest and eventually marries him at the end of the series. She is portrayed by Bonnie Wright in all eight Harry Potter films.
Production of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 2010/2011 two-part finale of the Harry Potter film series, began in 2009. Both Part 1 and Part 2 were directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves, and from the screen adaptation of the 2007 novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The picture was produced by Rowling, alongside David Heyman and David Barron. It was originally set to be released as one, but due to its long-running time, Warner Bros. Pictures divided the film into two parts.
Wizarding World Digital is a digital publishing, e-commerce, entertainment and news company. It offers news, features, and articles as well as new and previously unreleased writing by J. K. Rowling regarding the Wizarding World. The site features Rowling's thoughts, several pages of unpublished text, and a sales resource for e-book and audiobook versions of the seven Harry Potter novels through Pottermore Publishing.
The Wizarding World is a fantasy media franchise and shared fictional universe centred on the Harry Potter novel series by J. K. Rowling. A series of films have been in production since 2000, and in that time eleven films have been produced—eight are adaptations of the Harry Potter novels and three are part of the Fantastic Beasts series. The films are owned and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The series has collectively grossed over $9.6 billion at the global box office, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film franchise of all time.
Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black) is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. She evolved from an unnamed periphery character in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into a major antagonist in subsequent novels. In the final installment of the story, Rowling established her as Lord Voldemort's "last, best lieutenant". Bellatrix was the first female Death Eater introduced in the books. Bellatrix had a fanatic obsession with the Dark Lord although she was clearly fearful of his magical abilities and absolute power over his forces. She is almost as sadistic and homicidal as Lord Voldemort, with a psychotic personality.
Luna Lovegood is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling. She first appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where she is described as having straggly, waist-length dirty-blond hair and a dazed, dreamy look on her face.
