Melissa Anelli
Encyclopedia
Melissa Anelli is an American
author
. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Harry, A History
, which chronicles the Harry Potter phenomenon with exclusive interview material and a foreword written by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. Anelli is also the full-time webmistress
of The Leaky Cauldron
, a commercial fansite
devoted to the Harry Potter franchise for fans.
Anelli also is one of three hosts of the Leaky Cauldron's official podcast PotterCast
, which talks about various aspects of the Harry Potter books, movies, video games and more. The podcast conducted a two-episode interview with Rowling in late December 2007, after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
, where she served as an editor for The Hoya
. She became fascinated with the Harry Potter
books in 2000, and active in Harry Potter fandom
the following summer — shortly before the September 11 attacks in the United States. She says she was drawn into the series by its underlying message of tolerance and love, which she believes was especially needed as the United States geared for war.
, a relatively new web site devoted to the Harry Potter universe. On her own initiative, Anelli began contacting individuals at Warner Brothers, which was producing the Harry Potter films
, and at Scholastic, which published the Harry Potter books in the United States. It took a year before the movie studio took her seriously and began answering her questions with reportable information, and a longer period of time before the publishers agreed to do the same. By the end of 2002, The Leaky Cauldron was receiving over 500,000 hits per day. By November 2008, largely under Anelli's influence, the site became the second most popular English-language Harry Potter fansite, with over 1 million hits per day.
In 2002, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced that she would release a single index card containing 93 words that were clues to the content of the unreleased fifth novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
. The index card would be auctioned, with all proceeds benefitting Book Aid International
. Anelli organized a campaign to have fans combine their money to purchase the card. She incorporated a nonprofit organization, Leaky, Inc., and became its first president. The card sold to an anonymous collector for $45,231, over six times the reserve price. Leaky, Inc. donated the $23,656 they had collected to Book Aid International. In 2005, Anelli established a for-profit entity, Leaky Net, LLC
, to serve as the legal entity representing her TLC website business. It is a private limited liability company
registered in the state of New York
, where she currently resides (as of 2009).
Rowling praised Anelli and The Leaky Cauldron on her personal website in May 2007. Anelli had instituted a strict policy against spoilers of the seventh book, saying, "We just don't want someone taking what J.K. Rowling has earned away from her, which is the right to tell us where these mysteries end." Rowling agreed, saying, "I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are going."
, the teenage webmaster of popular fansite Mugglenet
, to Edinburgh, Scotland for the release of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
. The two were granted an exclusive interview with Rowling the day after the book was released. The only other interview Rowling granted that weekend was to a group of 70 children, aged 8–16, who were selected in various contests for the honor. Anelli and Spartz were the only Americans included. The pair published an extensive, three-part interview on their respective websites. The interview caused some controversy within the Harry Potter fandom
. At one point, Spartz referred to fans who believed that characters Harry Potter
and Hermione Granger
would become a couple as "delusional", and Anelli and Rowling laughed. Both Spartz and Anelli received a large quantity of hate mail from fans who believed they had been insulted. One adult fan remarked that, "It was like Melissa and Emerson were our representatives, and you don't want to hear your ambassadors be so partisan. You hope that they're speaking for everyone." Anelli later commented that the irate fans had "lost the ability to divorce themselves between what J.K. Rowling is doing and what they'd like to see happen, and they've taken their disappointment and projected it onto her. I can totally understand how you could be upset if your preference didn't happen, but I can't understand or tolerate that people who claim to be her fans can be so mean to her."
, a Harry Potter-centered podcast
sponsored by The Leaky Cauldron. Episodes of the podcast average 30,000 downloads. The shows attract a slightly older audience than other Harry Potter podcasts, partly because its hosts are older, primarily in their twenties and thirties. PotterCast focuses primarily on news tidbits, with some celebrity interviews. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/pottercast/?p=1856
Warner Brothers invited, and paid all costs, for Anelli and Andrew Sims, host of MuggleNet
's podcast MuggleCast, to visit the set for filming of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
.
The show has interviewed many people integral to creating the Harry Potter books and films, including actors, directors, book editors, and author J.K. Rowling herself.
' Pages Online, a magazine for the entertainment industry. By 2004, she had become a full-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance
. Anelli is now a freelance journalist based in New York City.
Her first book, Harry, A History
was released in early November 2008 and debuted at #18 on the New York Times Best Seller List. It tells the story of the Harry Potter phenomenon through a superfan's eyes. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling wrote the foreword.
Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman
explains that "the book captures the flavour of Pottermania, where fans' e-mails fly...with the latest breathless news of the writer and her progeny." Another review in the same paper, by Ernie Waters, says, "Anelli unravels what lies beneath the Harry Potter phenomenon and how it feels to be so wrapped up in the mystical world. ...Crammed with details and facts, from Harry Potter's struggles with Voldemort through to Rowling's personal life as she developed her adored characters, this is a heartfelt, well-written book by a true insider. ...It tries, and largely succeeds, to explain just what it is about the boy wizard which inspires such deep-seated devotion."
At present, Anelli is working on a second book, the details of which she is loath to reveal until she is sure that she can finish it.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Harry, A History
Harry, A History
Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon is a 2008 book by writer and webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, Melissa Anelli. The book describes the Harry Potter phenomenon in detail. The book was published on November 4, 2008, by Pocket...
, which chronicles the Harry Potter phenomenon with exclusive interview material and a foreword written by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. Anelli is also the full-time webmistress
Webmaster
A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...
of The Leaky Cauldron
The Leaky Cauldron (website)
The Leaky Cauldron, also called Leaky, TLC, or Leaky News, is a Harry Potter fansite and blog. The site features news, image and video galleries, downloadable widgets, a chat room and discussion forum, and an essay project called Scribbulus, among other offerings...
, a commercial fansite
Harry Potter fandom
The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids...
devoted to the Harry Potter franchise for fans.
Anelli also is one of three hosts of the Leaky Cauldron's official podcast PotterCast
PotterCast
PotterCast is the official podcast of the Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron. Its episodes are posted once per month and are typically about an hour long. In every episode, the hosts discuss particular passages, themes, and questions from the Harry Potter books and films, and they go over the...
, which talks about various aspects of the Harry Potter books, movies, video games and more. The podcast conducted a two-episode interview with Rowling in late December 2007, after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Early life
Anelli was born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, New York. She is a graduate of Georgetown UniversityGeorgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, where she served as an editor for The Hoya
The Hoya
The Hoya, the oldest and largest student newspaper of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, was founded in 1920. The Hoya prints an edition every Tuesday and Friday during the academic year and has a circulation of 6,500...
. She became fascinated with the Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
books in 2000, and active in Harry Potter fandom
Harry Potter fandom
The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids...
the following summer — shortly before the September 11 attacks in the United States. She says she was drawn into the series by its underlying message of tolerance and love, which she believes was especially needed as the United States geared for war.
The Leaky Cauldron
In 2001, Anelli joined the all-volunteer staff of The Leaky CauldronThe Leaky Cauldron (website)
The Leaky Cauldron, also called Leaky, TLC, or Leaky News, is a Harry Potter fansite and blog. The site features news, image and video galleries, downloadable widgets, a chat room and discussion forum, and an essay project called Scribbulus, among other offerings...
, a relatively new web site devoted to the Harry Potter universe. On her own initiative, Anelli began contacting individuals at Warner Brothers, which was producing the Harry Potter films
Harry Potter (film series)
The Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...
, and at Scholastic, which published the Harry Potter books in the United States. It took a year before the movie studio took her seriously and began answering her questions with reportable information, and a longer period of time before the publishers agreed to do the same. By the end of 2002, The Leaky Cauldron was receiving over 500,000 hits per day. By November 2008, largely under Anelli's influence, the site became the second most popular English-language Harry Potter fansite, with over 1 million hits per day.
In 2002, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced that she would release a single index card containing 93 words that were clues to the content of the unreleased fifth novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
. The index card would be auctioned, with all proceeds benefitting Book Aid International
Book Aid International
Book Aid International is an NGO that exists to encourage literacy and access to books particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East by distributing books to libraries and other locations that increase community access. Book Aid International currently work in 12 countries in sub-Shahran...
. Anelli organized a campaign to have fans combine their money to purchase the card. She incorporated a nonprofit organization, Leaky, Inc., and became its first president. The card sold to an anonymous collector for $45,231, over six times the reserve price. Leaky, Inc. donated the $23,656 they had collected to Book Aid International. In 2005, Anelli established a for-profit entity, Leaky Net, LLC
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
, to serve as the legal entity representing her TLC website business. It is a private limited liability company
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
registered in the state of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, where she currently resides (as of 2009).
Rowling praised Anelli and The Leaky Cauldron on her personal website in May 2007. Anelli had instituted a strict policy against spoilers of the seventh book, saying, "We just don't want someone taking what J.K. Rowling has earned away from her, which is the right to tell us where these mysteries end." Rowling agreed, saying, "I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are going."
Exclusive interview
In 2005, Rowling personally invited Anelli and Emerson SpartzEmerson Spartz
Emerson Spartz is the founder of the #1 Harry Potter fansite, Mugglenet.com, and currently serves as CEO of Chicago-based Spartz Media...
, the teenage webmaster of popular fansite Mugglenet
MuggleNet
MuggleNet is a Harry Potter fansite founded by Emerson Spartz. The site is composed of news, editorials and synopses of the Harry Potter books and films, an encyclopedia of the books, an IRC network, in which the fans of Harry Potter can discuss predictions and share thoughts, a discussion forum,...
, to Edinburgh, Scotland for the release of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling...
. The two were granted an exclusive interview with Rowling the day after the book was released. The only other interview Rowling granted that weekend was to a group of 70 children, aged 8–16, who were selected in various contests for the honor. Anelli and Spartz were the only Americans included. The pair published an extensive, three-part interview on their respective websites. The interview caused some controversy within the Harry Potter fandom
Harry Potter fandom
The Harry Potter fandom is a large international and informal community drawn together by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The fandom works through the use of many different forms of media, including web sites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art and songvids...
. At one point, Spartz referred to fans who believed that characters Harry Potter
Harry Potter (character)
Harry James Potter is the title character and main protagonist of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard...
and Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger
Hermione Jean Granger is a fictional character and one of the three protagonists in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. She initially appears in the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as a new student on her way to Hogwarts...
would become a couple as "delusional", and Anelli and Rowling laughed. Both Spartz and Anelli received a large quantity of hate mail from fans who believed they had been insulted. One adult fan remarked that, "It was like Melissa and Emerson were our representatives, and you don't want to hear your ambassadors be so partisan. You hope that they're speaking for everyone." Anelli later commented that the irate fans had "lost the ability to divorce themselves between what J.K. Rowling is doing and what they'd like to see happen, and they've taken their disappointment and projected it onto her. I can totally understand how you could be upset if your preference didn't happen, but I can't understand or tolerate that people who claim to be her fans can be so mean to her."
PotterCast
Anelli also serves as a host of PotterCastPotterCast
PotterCast is the official podcast of the Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron. Its episodes are posted once per month and are typically about an hour long. In every episode, the hosts discuss particular passages, themes, and questions from the Harry Potter books and films, and they go over the...
, a Harry Potter-centered podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
sponsored by The Leaky Cauldron. Episodes of the podcast average 30,000 downloads. The shows attract a slightly older audience than other Harry Potter podcasts, partly because its hosts are older, primarily in their twenties and thirties. PotterCast focuses primarily on news tidbits, with some celebrity interviews. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/pottercast/?p=1856
Warner Brothers invited, and paid all costs, for Anelli and Andrew Sims, host of MuggleNet
MuggleNet
MuggleNet is a Harry Potter fansite founded by Emerson Spartz. The site is composed of news, editorials and synopses of the Harry Potter books and films, an encyclopedia of the books, an IRC network, in which the fans of Harry Potter can discuss predictions and share thoughts, a discussion forum,...
's podcast MuggleCast, to visit the set for filming of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a 2007 fantasy film directed by David Yates and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the fifth instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Michael Goldenberg and produced by David Heyman and David Barron...
.
The show has interviewed many people integral to creating the Harry Potter books and films, including actors, directors, book editors, and author J.K. Rowling herself.
Career
Anelli's work at The Leaky Cauldron was voluntary. During the day, she worked to support herself. In 2001, Anelli began working at MTV NetworksMTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...
' Pages Online, a magazine for the entertainment industry. By 2004, she had become a full-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance
Staten Island Advance
The Staten Island Advance is a daily newspaper published in the borough of Staten Island in New York City. The only daily newspaper published in the borough, and the only borough to have its own major daily paper, it covers news of local and community interest, including borough politics. As of...
. Anelli is now a freelance journalist based in New York City.
Her first book, Harry, A History
Harry, A History
Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon is a 2008 book by writer and webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, Melissa Anelli. The book describes the Harry Potter phenomenon in detail. The book was published on November 4, 2008, by Pocket...
was released in early November 2008 and debuted at #18 on the New York Times Best Seller List. It tells the story of the Harry Potter phenomenon through a superfan's eyes. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling wrote the foreword.
Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
explains that "the book captures the flavour of Pottermania, where fans' e-mails fly...with the latest breathless news of the writer and her progeny." Another review in the same paper, by Ernie Waters, says, "Anelli unravels what lies beneath the Harry Potter phenomenon and how it feels to be so wrapped up in the mystical world. ...Crammed with details and facts, from Harry Potter's struggles with Voldemort through to Rowling's personal life as she developed her adored characters, this is a heartfelt, well-written book by a true insider. ...It tries, and largely succeeds, to explain just what it is about the boy wizard which inspires such deep-seated devotion."
At present, Anelli is working on a second book, the details of which she is loath to reveal until she is sure that she can finish it.