J K Rowling launches new 'real and personal' website

J K Rowling has revealed a new “real and personal” website designed to reflect her “writing desk”, which also features answers to fans’ questions about her recent film "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them".

The writer revealed the new creation via Twitter last night (20th December), explaining that she decided to redesign her website after her old one fell into disuse and she no longer felt the same “connection” to it.

The Harry Potter author also described 2016 as “one of the busiest years of my life” and revealed her “overwhelming relief” at the reception of her first stage play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", which debuted in July, and the release of her first film script, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", which hit cinemas last month.

“Once upon a time, JKR.com was a cosy corner of cyberspace where I could share things I was writing, answer readers’ questions, debunk baseless press stories and be as serious or as frivolous as I fancied on any given day,” Rowling wrote. “However, when I finished writing the Potter books, my website fell into disuse. I spent a few years writing, not publishing, and enjoying the quiet. A few years ago I resurrected JKR.com, but I didn’t feel the same connection to the new design and it showed, because I hardly ever wrote anything for it. So I decided to start over. I wanted to bring my website back to what it used to be: something real and personal.”

Rowling divulged that she did not originally plan for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and the movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them" to come out in the same year, “with the result that 2016 meant an almost total re-immersion in the wizarding world”.

“I’ve been absolutely delighted with the reception of both pieces: the stakes are always very high when you return to a well-loved creation, and after almost a decade of refusing to do spin-offs or remakes, I feel overwhelming relief that both long-time fans and newcomers have enjoyed what we’ve done,” she wrote.

Rowling’s new website also features her Twitter feed because “Twitter has become for me a nice way of interacting with readers in the website-free years”. The function to debunk “baseless press stories” would be coming soon, she said, and the website also has links to charities the author supports including her own, Lumos, and her charitable trust, Volant.

For its re-launch, her website also features a Q&A on "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" as a “Christmas gift to wizard lovers”.