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Correcton: andPOP initially reported that Emma Watson was attending Columbia University while in fact she is attending Brown University.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson will be attending New York’s Brown University in the fall, reports Perez Hilton. The British star, 19, who plays Harry’s friend Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, will be living in a dorm room and says she’s looking for some “normality” in her life.

“As long as there are no Harry Potter posters on the wall, I will be fine and happy,” she said, adding she hopes her roommate isn’t a fanatic of the series.

“I really hope they are a really massive Harry Potter fan,” teased Watson’s co-star, Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry. “I hope you walk in and the first thing you see is your face on a duvet.”

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When asked about “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer Sci-fi author Stephen King said she “can’t write,” according to E! Online.

In an interview with USA Weekend, King was asked a question regarding the success of both Meyer and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling and responded with, “The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephanie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”

Although King criticized Meyer’s writing, he admitted the “Twilight” author knows how to make her stories compelling. “People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books,” King said to USA Weekend. “It’s very exciting and it’s thrilling and it’s not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual.”

It seems the author of the hugely successful Harry Potter series has stepped into the political arena.

According to CTV.ca, J.K. Rowling reportedly donated $1 million pounds ($1.8 million CAD) to Britain’s Labour Party.

Rowling accused Britain’s Conservative Party, headed by David Cameron, of working against poor parents.

Britain’s Prime Minister and head of the Labour Party, Gordon Brown said he was “delighted” with the donation.

In a statement Rowling said, “David Cameron’s promise of tax perks for the married is reminiscent of the Conservative government I experienced as a lone parent. It sends the message that the Conservatives still believe a childless, dual-income, but married couple is more deserving of a financial pat on the head than those struggling, as I once was, to keep their families afloat in difficult times.”

Rowling has publicized the fact that she was a struggling single mother prior to becoming wealthy from the success of the Harry Potter series.

Taking time off from entertaining the world’s youth with tales of wizards and witches, J.K Rowling and other prominent children’s writers published a letter calling for an end to the conflict in Darfur.

Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the ongoing civil feud in the Sudanese region, which has taken the lives of 200,000 people, the writers’ open letter appeared in newspapers in Britain on Saturday.

“It is time to change the narrative,” the letter says, according to CBC.ca.
“The world needs to wake up. For too long it has let these children suffer. Our politicians need to act on Darfur.”

The letter was written as a part of Sunday’s Global Day for Darfur, an international effort calling for an immediate ceasefire in the region and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force.
“Children in Darfur draw pictures of bombs and guns,” the authors write. “It is all they have ever known. Childhood is under attack in Darfur.”
It is estimated that more than one million Sudanese children have been affected by the constant violence the conflict has caused.
The letter concludes with a definitive and moving statement:

“The world needs to act now to give the children of Darfur a future.”

Harry Potter fans may just get another J.K. Rowling original novel- but they shouldn’t hold their breath.

The incredibly successful best-selling author told Time magazine that she’s thought of writing an eighth book. CBC reports.

The last and seventh book of the now infamous teen wizard series became the fastest-selling novel of all time, selling more than 15 million copies in a day.

The franchise is a pop-culture phenomenon and altogether has made more than 325 million worldwide.

But Rowling isn’t quick to promise another page-turning epic.

“If — and it’s a big if — I ever write an eighth book, I doubt that Harry would be the central character. I feel I’ve already told his story,” she said.

“But these are big ifs. Let’s give it 10 years.”

The last book in the series may have been released, but Potter-mania continues: A book of fairy tales mentioned in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and handwritten by J.K Rowling has sold for more than $4 million Cdn. at a London auction.

“The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” which was also illustrated by Rowling, had been expected to sell for about $100,000 Cdn.

But bidding at Sotheby’s auction house soon rocketed to £1.95 million ($4.04 million Cdn). The successful bidder was London art agent Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox on behalf of Amazon.com.

Amazon later announced that it is planning to take “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” on tour through libraries and schools.

Proceeds from the book’s auction will benefit Rowling’s charity The Children’s Voice, which campaigns for child rights in eastern Europe with plans to reach children in other parts of the world.

“This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help,” the author said in a statement about the book’s sale. “It means Christmas has come early to me.”

Rowling actually created seven copies of the fairy tale tome, but only one copy will ever be sold. According to the author, the other six have been given to the people “most closely connected to the Harry Potter books during the last 17 years.”

J.K. Rowling is ending a busy year on a bang, landing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the magazine’s Entertainer of the Year.

EW gave the Harry Potter author kudos for getting “people to tote around her big, old-fashioned printed-on-paper books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet.”

Rowling’s series has sold almost 400 million copies and been adapted into a massively successful movie franchise. 2007 saw the release of the seventh and last Harry Potter book as well as the fifth Potter movie.

EW editors separated their list of the year’s top entertainers into five other categories.

Canadian Seth Rogan was named a Class Clown along with Paul Rudd and director Judd Apatow. Apatow cast Rogan and Rudd in his hit comedies “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and this year’s “Knocked Up.” Other Class Clowns were Vanessa Williams, Tina Fey and “The Simpsons.”

George Clooney was named a Valedictorian for “deftly balanc[ing] box-office viability with personal responsibility,” said the magazine. Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and the cast of “The Sopranos” were among others also given the title.

Matt Damon made the Most Popular list, along with Carrie Underwood, Katherine Heigl, Johnny Depp and Kanye West.

This year’s Prodigies were Zac Efron, Shia LaBeouf, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus.

Finally, EW named Amy Winehouse, Gerard Butler, Tyler Perry and the TV series “Mad Men” as Most Buzz-Worthy.

Author J.K. Rowling has received an honourary doctorate for her help to multiple sclerosis researches, the Associated Press reports.

Rowling received a Doctorate of Laws by Aberdeen University in Scotland at the university’s awards ceremony today.

“J.K. Rowling is best known because of a book that she wrote in a cafe in Edinburgh which has made her a household name. However, what is less well known is Ms. Rowling’s significant contribution to many charitable causes,” Neva Haites, head of the university’s College of Life Sciences and Medicine, said at the award ceremony at Aberdeen’s Marischal College.

“I am thrilled … It is very exciting,” Rowling told reporters after receivng the honour.

Rowling’s mother died of MS in 1990, and she has been a huge supporter of the cause ever since. She is also president of the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation of Scotland.

Rowling has also received honorary degrees for literature from the Scottish universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Napier.

Author J.K. Rowling said on Monday that at least two characters will be killed off in the seventh and final installment of her Harry Potter book series.

“One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die,” she said in an interview broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4.

She didn’t give any further details about which characters might be exiting the story.

But Rowling also didn’t exclude her main character from a possible death at the end of the series.

“I’ve never been tempted to kill [Harry] off before the end of book seven, because I always planned seven books and that’s where I want to go,” she said. “I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks ‘Well, I’m going to kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels.”

The Harry Potter series was created by Rowling, 40, when she was an unemployed single mother. Over 300 million copies of the books have been sold, giving the author an estimated personal fortune of more than $1 billion US.

Worldwide orders for the upcoming sixth Harry Potter book have topped one million, according to online retailer Amazon.

With just 19 days to go until the book is released, 500,000 orders for J.K. Rowling’s book about the boy wizard have come from the United States and 200,000 from the UK. It’s possible the book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, could become the best selling novel ever.

The novel topped Amazon’s best sellers list just 24 hours after buyers were made aware they could pre-order the book.

The wizard love is global, with an amazing 265 million copies of the first five books sold in 200 countries worldwide and translated into 62 languages.

The book will be unveiled by Rowling at a ceremony at Edinburgh Castle at midnight on July 16.