Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s third Cormoran Strike novel, Career of Evil. Nick and John debate whether Rowling crossed the line of “violence porn” that she worried she had approached and they discuss why, in one of the few surveys of Serious Strikers, Career seems unique among these mysteries in being considered the best or the very worst of the set. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick explores is Rowling’s personal experience of violence against women and her determination to push back against the misogynist age she believes we have been living in for decades. John details the litany of crimes committed against women in the third Strike novel and suggests that in time, when we have the series as a whole, appreciation of the artistry involved will counter-balance the shock first-time readers feel on entering this boucherie.

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.

The ten HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo’s Calling

* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Silkworm

Tomorrow? It’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the play written by Jack Thorne “based on an original new story by Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne. Neither John nor Nick has seen the play but both have some thoughts about its place in the oeuvre and about its virtues and failings.

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

Ian Rankin’s Rebus novel Black and Blue and Galbraith’s Career of Evil

The Transabled Characters in Career of Evil

Rowling Discusses the Planning of Career of Evil

Day of Publication Review at HogwartsProfessor

The Willy Wonka Golden Ticket Purchase of Career of Evil

The Ranking of the First Six Strike Novels:

* John Granger’s Choices of the Best and Worst

* Nick Jeffery’s Choices of Best to Worst

* The Final Survey Tally

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s second Cormoran Strike novel, The Silkworm. Nick and John discuss the date Rowling claims to have had her Lake inspiration for Silkworm, the first book idea she had for the series, and what that would mean, if true. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick reveals is the probable identity of ‘Jenkins,’ the mystery person to whom Strike 2 is dedicated, a revelation consequent to no little detective work (and a very close reading of Louisa May Alcott!). He also discusses some real-life literary infighting in contemporary London that might have been lifted from the pages of Silkworm. John argues that this ur-novel of the series, its point of conception, is Rowling’s not especially opaque guide to how to understand a novelist’s life and to appreciate their work, in short, her first ‘Lake and Shed’ discussion (albeit one embedded in story). He explores Kathryn Kent’s blog entry about Plot and Narrative as Rowling’s pointer to the syuzhet and Fabula distinction of the Russian Formalists, the key to understanding what writers do and create.

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.

The nine HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Casual Vacancy

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Cuckoo’s Calling

Tomorrow? It’s Career of Evil, the Comoran Strike novel unlike all others and one which Serious Strikers either love or love to hate.

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

Does Rowling Merit the Nobel Prize in Literature?

* Syuzhet and Fabula

* Poeima, Genre, and Influence

* Literariness

Kathryn Kent’s Plot-Narrative Distinction

First Thoughts on The Silkworm

Beatrice Groves on Early Modern Revenge Drama and The Silkworm

* John’s Thoughts on the Poisoned Skeleton in The Silkworm

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s first Cormoran Strike novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling. Nick and John debate the degree of Rowling’s dishonesty about writing a detective series before she was outed as ‘Robert Galbraith’ to include whether she really had any other plan than for the book to be published by the company and edited by the editor who handled Casual Vacancy. The ‘Lake’ point that Nick explores is the identity of the real Deeby Mac, namely, Di Brooks, Rowling’s former security director and currently her office manager, a veteran with years of experience in the SIB. John’s ‘Shed’ point is his pushback against the idea that Calling wasn’t really the first book in the series because Rowling has said she had the idea for it after Silkworm and only chose it because the case would make her detective famous. John argues that the many echoes that connect the first, fourth, and seventh books but especially Calling and Running Grave mean that Calling is the point of origin around which the ring of the first seven novels was constructed.

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.

The eight HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

* A Lake and Shed Reading of The Casual Vacancy

Tomorrow? It’s The Silkworm, the first Comoran Strike novel by conception, not publication, in Rowling’s oeuvre (or ‘in Robert Galbraith’s, if you prefer the second of Mrs. Murray’s pseudonyms), in which Nick reveals the real-life feuding authors behind the Strike2 bitter battles between book-men (and Jenkins!) while John talks about the metaliterary heft of Silkworm’s “novel inside a novel about novels.” See you then!

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

* Meet the Real ‘Deeby Mac:’ Evidence from the Amanda Donaldson Lawsuit

* Cuckoo’s Calling and Running Grave: The Essential Echoes and Parallels Between the First and Seventh Strike Mysteries

* Did Charlotte Campbell Commit Suicide or Was She Murdered? The Argument from the Faked Suicide-Murders in Cuckoo, Lethal White, and Running Grave

* Rowling Says The Silkworm was the First Cormoran Strike Novel

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about J. K. Rowling’s first adult novel and one Nick and John think she may have been writing before she was inspired to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s that autobiographical, a transparency of sorts for the several unhappy women Jo Rowling Murray has been. Nick explains all the projects we now know she was working on between 2007 and 2012, the dates of Deathly Hallows and Casual Vacancy’s respective publication dates, as well as the degree to which readers can assume that the novel’s Simon Price is a fictional portrait of her father, Peter Rowling. John describes the three Gospel parables embedded in Casual Vacancy and why he thinks the book was a project the author was working on before the Hogwarts Saga as well as why it reflects a religious crisis akin to Harry’s ‘struggle to believe’ in Deathly Hallows.

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.

The seven HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read at the links below:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Tomorrow? It’s Cuckoo’s Calling, the first Comoran Strike publication in Rowling’s oeuvre (or ‘in Robert Galbraith’s, if you prefer the second of Mrs. Murray’s pseudonyms), in which Nick reveals the real-life Deeby Mac to whom the book is dedicated and John talks about the parallels between the first and seventh Strike novels. See you then!

Links from today’s Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:

* ‘Bad Dad:’ A History of Rowling’s Relationship with Peter Rowling, Her Father;

* ‘Christmas Pig 1: Jack Jones, Peter, and John,’ Rowling’s Use of the Names ‘Peter’ and ‘Simon’ for Bad Guys in Her Stories;

* ‘Exceptions to the Peter-John Rule: John Bristow, Dolores Umbridge, Matt Cunliffe;’

* Casual Vacancy: The Characters Derived from Rowling’s Life and Why the Book Should Not Be Read through a Biographical Lens;

* The Christian Hypocrites and Sympathetic Sikhs in Casual Vacancy;

* The Review of Casual Vacancy in Christianity Today (2012);

* The Casual Vacancy and the ‘Good Samaritan’ Gospel Parable; and

* J. K. Rowling on the ‘Good Samaritan’ Event in Casual Vacancy

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the seventh and final Harry Potter novels Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. John and Nick discuss the ‘Deathly Hallows’ symbol, a triangulated and vertically bisected circle, from both its biographical point of inspiration to its anagogical or sublime depths. Nick reveals Rowling’s story about how she was watching the 1975 John Huston film ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ the night her mother died and that believes the “Masonic tag” of the story-line was her sub-conscious source for the Deathly Hallows '“triangular eye.” John thinks Rowling is really reaching here, akin to her claim that the name ‘Hogwarts’ came from a trip to a public garden rather than the Molesworth books. He reviews the five eyes of Deathly Hallows and explains how Rowling embeds both a key to the four-level interpretation of symbols in how characters respond to that image and a model of how we are to interpret and understand her ‘transformed vision’ mission as a writer.

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 post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

The six HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Tomorrow? It’s Casual Vacancy, the first post-Potter publication in Rowling’s oeuvre, the most transparently auto-biographical, and the book Rowling Readers with few exceptions (I’m one!) deny ever re-reading. See you then!

Links from today’s Lake and Shed conversation:

* “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” Kipling, and the Origins of the Deathly Hallows Symbol (Beatrice Groves)

* Beatrice Groves Archive at HogwartsProfessor.com

* The Deathly Hallows Lectures (John Granger)

* ‘The Eyes of Deathly Hallows’ Lecture in NYC, 2010

Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the sixth of the seven Harry Potter novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Nick reveals the real life model for Severus Snape, Rowling’s Chemistry teacher at Wydean Comprehensive, and his remarkable story and melancholy end. John reviews Rowling’s version of the so-called ‘Hero’s Journey,’ how she re-makes it into a life-after-death ‘Harry’s Journey’ ten step dance we see in every book — except for Half-Blood Prince with its two chapters before we begin at Privet Drive and its ending without a Dumbledore Denouement or trip to King’s Cross.

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 post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

The five HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Tomorrow? It’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the penultimate novel and alchemical Rubedo of that series. See you then! Links from today’s Lake and Shed conversation:

Much more on John Nettleship, the ‘Real Life’ Severus Snape

How Harry Cast His Spell (John Granger)

Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Nick talks about the darkest period in Jo Rowling’s life, namely, her return to the UK from Portugal as a single mother in Edinburgh. John reviews Rowling’s tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn’ in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story. This involves, believe it or not, an explanation of why Harry meets with Sirius on 22 November between midnight and 1 AM, the dragons of Philosopher’s Stone, Goblet, and Deathly Hallows, and five of the twenty-five points of correspondence between the first, the fourth, and the seventh Harry Potter novels.

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 post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

The three HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Tomorrow? It’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the penultimate novel and alchemical Albedo of that series. See you then!

Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

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 source of her inspiration and 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 this birthday project at the first entry in this series of post: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.

Today’s video conversation is about the fourth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Nick talks about the trip Rowling made as a teenager to Cornwall as a young woman in which some Quidditch World Cup camping may have been involved and about her core beliefs about bigotry and prejudice. John reviews Rowling’s tagging Goblet as a “crucial” and “pivotal” part of the seven book series and introduces how the ‘story turn’ in a ring composition reflects the beginning and end of the story. This involves, believe it or not, an explanation of why Harry meets with Sirius on 22 November between midnight and 1 AM, the dragons of Philosopher’s Stone, Goblet, and Deathly Hallows, and five of the twenty-five points of correspondence between the first, the fourth, and the seventh Harry Potter novels.

The three HogwartsProfessor birthday videos posted thus far in this series can be read here:

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

* A Lake and Shed Reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Tomorrow? It’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Big Blue Book and alchemical Nigredo. See you then!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

The second of our daily examples of the lake and shed inspiration withing all of J. K. Rowling’s work. In this episode Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Read about the parallels between Prisoner of Azkaban and Career of Evil here. And listen to the Reading Writing Rowling team talk about the parallel series idea here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

The second of our daily examples of the lake and shed inspiration withing all of J. K. Rowling’s work. In this episode Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Check out Harry Potter and the Sexual Innuendos a Mugglenet Academia podcast here, and all about Sean Harris here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe