J.K. Rowling went to court today to try to stop someone from publishing a lexicon of Harry Potter characters. She says she wants to do it herself, but even if that gave her the right to stop others from doing it (which i surely hope is not what the court decides), Rowling misses the opportunity here to JOIN with Harry Potter fans in the sublime exercise of building on the story.
Reminds me of a koan i’ve been working on which goes like this:
old school authors commit to engage with a subject ON BEHALF of future readers.
new school authors commit to engage WITH readers in the the context of a subject.