They say that anyone who has ever succeeded failed first. J.K. Rowling is no exception.
After rebuffed author Dianne Brubaker tweeted that Rowling was her inspiration for keeping up the craft, the Harry Potter creator responded with her own rejection story: "I pinned my 1st rejection letter to my kitchen wall because it gave me something in common with all my fave writers!"
Upon her followers' request, Rowling then shared the rejection letters for her Cormoran Strike mystery novels, which she wrote under the pen name, Robert Galbraith. The best-selling author blurred out publishers’ names in order to protect their identities and explained that she shared the images for "inspiration, not revenge."
By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures.) pic.twitter.com/vVoc0x6r8W
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016
But Rowling did subtly shade one of the publishers, noting that, "Yes, the publisher who first turned down Harry also sent @RGalbraith his rudest rejection (by email)!"
When another writer asked how Rowling maintained morale in the wake of rejection, she replied, "I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen."
She later added: "I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try."
Her courage paid off.
Rowling's Harry Potter franchise has since inspired eight film adaptations. She's published three Cormoran Strike novels as well as the tragicomedy, The Casual Vacancy, and her two-part play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, will open in London this summer. Rowling is also behind the forthcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy, for which she's penned a four-part backstory series entitled History of Magic in North America.
