Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Writer and author of the Harry Potter series, which she conceived on a delayed train journey and sold 40 million copies worldwide.
On the island
Eight records
My parents were very young when they had me. They were both twenty, and they had all the Beatles records. And so I grew up listening to them. Against very stiff competition, I've chosen Come Together.
After the Beatles, my favourite … band would have to be the Smiths. I just love them for the guitar. Johnny Marr's guitar, I play guitar, extremely badly, I would love to be able to play like him and for the lyrics, which are so witty.
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata'
When I was writing madly, I also went through a period when I was temping in offices. And to stop people talking to me, which sounds horrible, I used to put this piece of music on a tape, put in my earplugs and pretend that I was audio typing.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35Favourite
One of my favourite pieces of music, but also, it I associate it very, very, very strongly with that summer, with being pregnant, because I actually bought this for my ex-husband's birthday. and we played it daily and um I have told my daughter that this was probably the first piece of music she ever heard.
A very dear friend of mine bought me this album for Christmas, the Christmas after I'd left my ex-husband, and I played this song repeatedly, corny perhaps, but true, um and it helped. And what I find remarkable about this song is the simplicity of l the language. It's very difficult to write very simply about profound emotion.
This is Marianne Faithful singing Guilt, an emotion I am not unfamiliar with. And but I just I just love this song.
I was sitting there thinking, What do you really want on a desert island? And I wanted one really good loud one. Jimi Hendrix with All Along the Watch Tower.
Wiener Singverein & Wiener Philharmoniker
This is probably my favourite piece of music. In the World, On Its Own Merits
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:19Do you still have to pinch yourself [about your success]?
Yes, yes. I I feel that I've spent three years in a state of shock.
Presenter asks
2:14How close to the truth is the image of you as a down-at-heel single mother writing in cafes?
Like most newspaper stories, I think, it's about fifty percent true and fifty percent embroidery. It's true that I lived entirely on benefits for nine months, and mostly on benefits for about eighteen months. It's true that I wrote in cafes with my daughter sleeping next to me. And that sounds very romantic, but of course it's not at all romantic when you're living through it. The embroidery comes where they say, well, her flat was unheated. I wasn't in search of warmth. I was just in search of good coffee, frankly
Presenter asks
4:24Did you know all about Harry [Potter] the minute he came to you?
I knew that his parents had been killed. I knew he was a wizard and he didn't know he was. It wasn't until I got off the train. that I started going back and thinking, well, how can he not know? And what happened to his parents? And it took me five years to work out this very long plot.
The keepsakes
The book
John 'Lofty' Wiseman
And literature is great, but I really do want to live, so I've asked for the SAS Survival Guide, please.
The luxury
I decided that as for my luxury I'd like unlimited paper and a pen, please. That I will be writing stories to read.
Presenter asks
7:55What was Jo Ann Rowling the child like?
A real daydreamer, very vivid fantasy life, very freckly, squat, thick national health glasses. Bit of a know-it-all. Underneath very nervous. Very, very insecure.
Presenter asks
20:00What did that [six-figure American book deal] mean to you?
It was security, it meant we could get out of rented accommodation, but it also sent me into an absolute panic. … Oh my God They're gonna find me out The next book won't be as good. I felt as though everyone was suddenly watching every word I wrote, and I was very frightened.
“when you've got absolutely nothing, you can plan what you like. You can plan what you like. I mean, you can sit on a train and plan world domination if you want to. It might make you a very sad individual. But I wasn't telling anyone about it. It was just in my head.”
“There is a great difference between sadness, which is a healthy emotion I think, and depression, which um which is more of an absence of emotion.”
“I will be writing until I lose all my marbles, I know that. But there have been times when being published or being very much in the public eye Has been Not an enjoyable experience, shall we say.”