It’s the Day Before Rowling’s 60th birthday so Nick and John tackle by reader request the never before discussed subject of the Lost Child theme in the author’s more than twenty published works. They re-introduce the Golden Threads idea — see their Pregnancy Trap podcast or the two Kanreki series on this subject (here and here) — then they do a deep dive into the crowded waters of Lost Children in her work, and then they go out out on a high-wire to speculate about what specific spring in her Lake subconscious mind is responsible for this recurrent inspiration. Enjoy!

New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here’s what we’re doing:

On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth’ in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR’s Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling’s twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author’s writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphor. The ‘Lake’ is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed’ is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

Tomorrow? John and Nick pull out all the stops on Rowling’s 60th birthday to challenge the status quo of Rowling Studies with a reading of her work in light of a possible inspiration for the ubiquitous ‘Lost Child’ Golden Thread in her work. Stay tuned!

Links to posts mentioned in today’s Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:

'Pregnancy Traps' in the Works of J. K. Rowling: A Rowling Studies Podcast

* The Golden Thread of Coercive Love that Runs Through Everything She has Written

* The seven Hogwarts Professor weblog posts that John and Nick reference in that conversation can be found here:

* Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Merope Gaunt

* Rowling Pregnancy Traps: Casual Vacancy’s Krystal Weedon, Kay Bawden

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Bellatrix Lestrange and the Cursed Child Delphini

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Leda Strike

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Four Strikes

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Last Strikes

* Rowling’s Pregnancy Traps: Fantastic Beasts, The Ickabog, The Christmas Pig

Rowling’s Real Reason for Going to Portugal in 1991?

Where was Rowling for her 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, and 50th birthdays?

Strike Fans!

* Emily Pirbright

* Josh Blay

* Edie Ledwell

* Alexander Graves

* Cherie Gittins (Carine Makepeace)

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