2001 JKR interview

Q. Did the books take you a long time to write?
J.K. Not a very long time: I wrote them right after I’d finished Book 4, so compared to Book 4, which
as you probably know is a very, very long book, they didn’t take long at all.
Q. One of them has extra stuff written in it by Harry. What’s all that about?
J.K. That’s Harry and Ron graffiti-ing the book, as you do to your schoolbooks. You do doodle on
them, I always wrote all over mine. Teachers reading this will not be happy that I’m saying it but you
do, don’t you? So they’ve just scribbled things on them and said rude things in them, the name of
their favourite Quidditch team and stuff in the book.
Q. Can you tell me where and when Quidditch was invented?
J.K. Quidditch started in the 11th century, at a place called Queerditch Marsh which you probably
won’t find marked on maps. But obviously that’s because wizards have made the place unplottable
(which means you can’t plot them on the map). Originally it was quite a crude game played on
broomsticks, and over the subsequent two centuries they added more balls until it became the game
we know now.
Q. Is Quidditch just as popular as it is in England all around the world?
J.K. It’s popular nearly everywhere, but not so much in the Far East as they prefer the flying carpet to
the broomstick, so it’s a real minority sport over there. But in most other places it’s fairly popular.
Q. How many beasts are there in Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them?
J.K. There are 75 but that’s not including the 10 different species of dragon. So that would be 84 if
you counted them.