Budding young authors across Northern Ireland have been urged to create their own magical world as part of a new children’s competition launched today. The winner of the Coca-Cola story writing initiative will be offered the unique opportunity to visit the set of the next Harry Potter movie. They and their family will take part …read more!

A young composer with high-tech savvy, [Jeremy] Soule’s career is soaring in the video-game business, which is becoming a trendy industry for recording artists and musicians. Soule (rhymes with “goal”) created the score for this year’s hit “Harry Potter” games from Electronic Arts in Redwood City. … On Thursday, the Academy of Interactive Arts and …read more!

In an article from last November called “Harry Potter Owl Scenes Alarm Animal Advocates,” National Geographic also has a gallery of pictures of the different owls in the Harry Potter books, including some speculation on Pigwidgeon: “The species name of Harry’s friend Ron’s new (as of the end of the third book) owl, Pigwidgeon, is …read more!

Despite being a British Awards ceremony nominated by British Academy members, there were a number of disappointments in the evening for a couple of local films – two of the biggest British box office successes of the year, Harry Potter and Bridget Jones’s Diary, went home empty-handed. A recent BCC News poll asks readers if …read more!

Congratulations to BK deLong and my fellow editors at The Leaky Cauldron for winning “Best News Site” and to Rames and the team at HP Galleries for winning “Best Movie Site” at the Dark Mark‘s fandom website awards. And congrats to all the other winners too! (as this editor scurries back to the FictionAlley celebration).

Harry Potter fans got their last chance to glimpse a scene from the second film on Sunday. The last scenes at King’s Cross station were being shot, and platform four was once again turned into platform nine and three quarters. Every kid — and most adults — who’ve read a Harry Potter book have surely …read more!

Backed by $320 million in box office sales and a legion of worldwide fans, just putting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone into mass release this spring on DVD and VHS would be enough to create a major retail event. A major target of the retail effort will be in the supermarket channel, which has …read more!

Thanks to everyone who sent us the Official Newsletter from Warner Bros, including its links to “exclusive” footage cut from the movie. We’re still trying to determine whether they’re the same as the snips we’ve seen before (scroll down for more links), but there’s about 60 seconds worth of clips showing Petunia with Harry’s uniform, …read more!

Reader Annie writes to tell us that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has received the following nominations from the Young Artist Awards: Best Family Feature Film – Drama Best Ensemble in a Feature Film – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton Best Performance in a Feature Film, Leading Young Actor – Daniel …read more!

Four brothers are driving everyone Harry Potty – because they all look like the boy wizard. Aspyr Media has announced that its Macintosh version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has shipped and will soon be available in stores.