JK Rowling is the author of 15 books, including the seven

Harry Potter novels, The Casual Vacancy and, as Robert

Galbraith, three crime novels. Her first screenplay, for
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, is currently in
production; she is also collaborating on a new play, Harry
Potter And The Cursed Child, which sees Harry as a grown-
up father of three and opens in London next June. Lauren
Laverne was lead singer in Kenickie, and is a TV and radio
broadcaster, currently hosting the BBC 6 Music morning
show. She is also co-founder and broadcast director of the
website the Pool.
Rowling and Laverne meet on a grey day in east London,
Laverne on a flit between her radio show and an awards
ceremony, Rowling cabbing it from west London (she doesn’t
drive). It’s the first time they’ve met, though they’ve liked
each other on Twitter, where Rowling has nearly six million
followers and Laverne 380,000. Rowling wants to meet
Laverne because, she says, “she’s smart, funny, my kind of
woman” (and a name to impress her 22-year-old daughter,
Jess). Laverne, meanwhile, is deep in the Harry Potter years,
with eight- and five-year-old sons. The two women hit it off
straight away, Laverne with that DJ’s knack of filling a
silence, while Rowling – shyer, less comfortable in front of
the camera – laughs and gets louder and more than keeps up.
She shares a phone pic of her 12-year-old son, and recalls the
only photoshoot she really enjoyed (the one where Annie
Leibovitz scrubbed off all her makeup and shot her holding a
burning book, “and I love fire”). They could have gone on, but
here’s what we got...