Harry Potter author JK Rowling has joined Oprah Winfrey and John Grisham on a US list of the 10 most influential people in publishing, Ananova reports. The list, in alphabetical, not ranking, order, will appear next week in the July/August edition of Book Magazine.

The ultimate reference source for the Harry Potter universe, Steve Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon, has just added three new reference books: The Bestiary, The Encyclopedia of Spells, and The Wizard’s Atlas.

Corona’s Coming Attraction tells us that the second trailer for Harry Potter will absolutely positively play in front of A.I., the new Steven Spielberg movie, to be released on June 29th in the U.S. (England: September 21st, Germany: September 13th). They also posted some details of its content: “It runs about 2 minutes+ and is …read more!

Promo Magazine posted some details about the upcoming Coca-Cola Marketing Campaign for Harry Potter. (Thanks to CountingDown for the alert) As exclusive promo partner for Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Atlanta-based Coke kicks off an aggressive four-part campaign in September, with some elements set to run for three years. The global effort …read more!

Empire Online and Dark Horizons both are jumping on a Z Review story today, who claim to have the world exclusive first pictures of Harry Potter Coins, that were produced for use in the forthcoming movie. Well, you guys over there at Z Review, this is just wrong – you should do some research first, …read more!

New books on the horizon – Coming later this summer to a bookstore or booksite to you: The Harry Potter Poster Book, to be released on July 31, 2001, and, it seems, 2 versions of each type of calendar. Amazon features the day by day and wall calendars in both “literary” and “movie” formats – …read more!

US publisher Scholastic will start an invitational Quiddich tournament in July. Participating teams include the famous “Chudley Cannons” of England and the American team “Fitchburg Finches.” No playing rules are published yet, but 1,000 sweepstakes winners will receive an official Quidditch backpack. Thanks to the HPFC.

Student registration for HOL – the virtual Hogwarts simulation has started this weekend. More than 800 students from about 50 different countries have joined HOL within the first 24 hours. Students of any age will be able to register for HOL until mid-August. The main goal of HOL is bringing people of any nation, culture …read more!

Hogwarts in Springfield? Well, not exactly Hogwarts, but The Simpsons will get the “Springfield Elementary School for Wizards”, where children are tutored in the fine art of transforming frogs into princes. The premier broadcast date for this season thirteen episode, titled “Treehouse of Horror XII”, has yet to be announced. Thanks again to Carla for …read more!

The June 18th edition of Maclean’s (Canada) includes an interesting snippet about a weeklong summer writing camp for children, co-sponsored by the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series, Raincoast Books. (Thanks to Carla) Thank Harry Potter for reviving the magic of the printed word. Joy Gugeler, editorial director of fiction for Vancouver’s Raincoast Books …read more!