“It’s difficult to hear criticism from people you consider your peers and who you believe are on the same side. But, you know, I just carried on, and some of the stuff made me more thoughtful and questioning of my approach. But some of it you just have to not engage with, and you become more robust. And, of course, sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Feminism can be humorous, and we all have a different way of approaching that. I often wonder what mischief I can make to spread the word in a playful way. You can’t take everything in life seriously, can you?”
For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture’. I have met fans that have my face tattooed on their body. I’ve met people who used the Harry Potter books to get through cancer. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Harry Potter phenomenon steps into a different zone.
“ I guess what really forms you as a person is what you do within your family to receive love or attention. In my family, what you had to do to receive attention was to have good conversation at the dinner table or for me to do well at school, and those were really my focuses because that was what was valued the most. “
