Videos of JKR and Tom Felton presenting awards at the British Comedy Awards are now online and can be viewed below courtesy of Feltbeats and SS!

The Times newspaper has a new article listing the “Top 50 People of the Decade.”

J.K. ROWLING Author and philanthropist

Although the Boy Wizard first appeared in the late Nineties, it was in the Noughties that J.K. Rowling became a Muggle of international renown, when the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released as a film in 2001. By the time the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, appeared, Rowling had sold 400 million books in 67 languages. Child readers became teenagers along with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

An unwitting populariser of witchcraft and boarding schools, Rowling agreed to her publisher’s request to use initials of indeterminate sex so the name “Joanne” would not put off boy fans, and she controlled her burgeoning £4 billion franchise with an iron hand. She oversaw the film scripts, insisted on a British cast and tearfully defended herself in court when another author threatened to publish a Potter “Lexicon”. Rowling has successfully stayed out of the public eye by never courting personal publicity, and has two children with her second husband. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling’s personal fortune at £560 million, ranking her as the 12th richest woman in Britain. She gives £5 million a year to her charity, which supports many causes including one-parent families, which she herself was when she wrote the first Potter in an Edinburgh café with her baby at her side. Kate Muir

Thanks TLC!

As I posted earlier, Tom Felton would be presenting an awards at the British Comedy Awards.  We have also learned, thanks to TLC that JK Rowling presented an award at the event.

I will post photos and hopefully a video as soon as they are available!

UPDATE: you can see photos of Tom and JK Rowling here at SnitchSeeker!

Entertainment Weekly has posted up their 15 Entertainers of the 2000s, in their Best of the Decade series.  J.K. Rowling made the list at Number 3!

J.K. Rowling

As 1999 came to a close, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter were already household names — as long as those households contained literate children with a voracious appetite for fantasy fiction. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — the fourth book in the British author’s seven-book cycle — ignited a global pop phenomenon that got the attention of all readers, young and young at heart. By 2007, the planet was both eagerly anticipating and deeply dreading the release of the final Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When it finally arrived, it became clear that Rowling had nailed one of the decade’s greatest artistic achievements: finishing not just bloody well, but brilliantly. —Jeff Jensen

Harry Potter has come in at Number one for Entertainers of the Decade: Your Picks

Harry Potter

The Entertainer of the Decade is obviously Harry Potter — a franchise that covers all the cultural bases, selling books, movie tickets and merchandise. Fans whip up butterbeer batches, obsess over John Williams’ iconic score, even listen to ”wizard rock.” College students actually play Quidditch (and when someone comes up with the right jet-propulsion technology, they can play it for real). Millions of people all over the globe watched J.K. Rowling answer questions about Deathly Hallows on television. Unlike anything else, Harry Potter has literally taken over the entire world.

Heck, Harry Potter has actually inspired new entries into the Oxford English Dictionary! Muggle is now an actual, accepted word. If that doesn’t point to influence, I don’t know what does. And unlike the vast majority of names suggested by EW readers for this list, Harry Potter has actually been around (and consistently popular) for the entire decade. —James

Next come the best books of the decade!

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)

The fourth Potter novel was the darkest yet, forcing poor Harry to contend with Death Eaters run amok and the loss of a major character. That it also encompasses some of the series’ most purely fun moments of escapism is proof of Rowling’s versatile gifts.

J.K. Rowling donated a signed copy of the deluxe U.S. edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to the Little Auction that Could, the proceeds of which will benefit a shelter for abused and neglected children set up by the organisation’s head, Karla Preissman.

The collection of books, including Jo’s, will be auctioned through eBay from November 6-29. The set will be displayed during that time at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, Florida.

Thanks SS!

MTV has posted a preview of the JK Rowling Comic Book that will be released in December! Click the thumbnails below to see the preview!

Bluewater has provided Splash Page readers with an exclusive preview of “Female Force: J.K. rowling,” which hits shelves in December in a standard, 23-page comic and a “double-sized collector’s edition.” The comic is written by Adam Gragg with interior art by Matthew Filer (“Masque of the Dragons”) and cover art by Joshua Labello.