For our pre-Beedle the Bard release episode, we couldn’t think of a better person to talk to than Travis Prinzi, from the Hogs Head. As you may (or may not) know, Travis is an expert on fairy tales and he spoke to us about why Fairy Tales Matter and why they shouldn’t be dismissed. We also spoke about the concept of having a fairy tale within a fairy tale: specifically Beedle the Bard in Harry Potter. Travis had a whole lot of interesting information and we can’t wait for you to hear what he had to say.

Travis has a book coming out in several weeks titled: Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds. It is now available fore pre-order, so make sure you check it out!!

We also discussed the results of our Beedle the Bard Contest, which we wrote about in the last blog post.

And make sure you check out the information on helping out the HPEF while making holiday purchases (including Beedle the Bard!) at Barnes and Noble during the beginning of December.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or dowload it directly as an mp3.

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HPEF is celebrating Black Friday and CyberMonday for the first time!

You can save ten dollars on your new AZKATRAZ registration (full registration, MPA or Merlin’s Circle only), *or* on an upgrade from any lower-level registration (single-day or full registration) to a higher-level registration. This discount will last from a minute after midnight on Friday, November 28, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time) until 11:59 PM on Monday, December 1, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time).

To qualify for the savings, register or modify your registration this weekend and use the coupon code CYBRWKND when you check out. This offer can only be used for registrations paid by a credit card or PayPal. Payment must be recieved by 11:59 PM on Monday, December 1, 2008 (Eastern Standard Time).

Purchase a new registration for yourself or a friend, add the Masters of Potter Administration (MPA) session, or upgrade to a Merlin’s Circle registration and save.

Also, anyone who registers during the CYBRWKND sale period will receive a shiny AZKATRAZ keychain, which can also be used as an inventive Christmas tree ornament.

Click here to register, and happy shopping!

Make sure to write “hpprogs” in the referral area of the registration!

The folks over at the HPEF and Azkatraz 2009 have a unique opportunity for us to help support HPEF events:

From December 4th through 10th, 2008, Barnes & Noble will host a Bookfair benefiting HP Education Fanon. Every purchase made during those days and attributed as an HPEF purchase will have a portion of the sale donated back to HPEF. You may purchase anything in the store or anything available through the store to have shipped to your home* using the Bookfair voucher or number. And don’t forget that the Bookfair starts on the release day for The Tales of Beedle the Bard! Every Beedle purchase helps the Children’s High Level Group in addition to supporting our Bookfair.

Do you have books, CDs, or DVDs you want to buy this holiday season, whether for yourself or as a gift? Save your purchase for the December 4th through 10th! When you make a purchase at a participating Barnes & Noble during those days and use the Bookfair voucher or the HPEF Bookfair number 352096, a portion of your sale will go back to HPEF to help us continue our literacy endeavors.

Here’s how you can help…
Go to any Barnes & Noble and shop for any product you wish to buy, including The Tales of Beedle the Bard and other books, CDs, DVDs, gift product, magazines, and café items-or make a purchase for the store’s Holiday Book Drive.* When you go to the cash registers, give the cashier your HPEF voucher or the HPEF Bookfair number 352096, and make your purchase. You must have the voucher or HPEF Bookfair number 352096 to have your purchase count towards the HPEF Bookfair. Feel free to use your Barnes & Noble Membership card or Educator Discount card to save on your purchase. Don’t forget to use the voucher/ Bookfair number at the Barnes & Noble Café, too! Every purchase counts!

More information can be found at the Azkatraz Website.

You were all supposed to hear this information on our newest podcast but my program crashed when I was almost done editing the episode and I lost everything, so it will be a few days until the podcast comes out. In the meantime, we wanted to get this information out ASAP.

We’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news. Let’s do the bad news first.

While we loved all of the videos submitted for our Beedle the Bard contest, we didn’t get enough submissions to give away the Deluxe Edition of the book. We apologize for this. In solidarity, we will only be buying the standard book for ourselves as well.

And now for the good news.

We have decided to give a copy of Beedle the Bard to each of the people who entered the contest. So to quote Oprah, “You’re getting Beedle the Bard, and You’re getting Beedle the Bard and…..you know the rest….”

So if the following people could please e-mail us your mailing addresses ASAP (harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com), so we could order the book, please do so. We really appreciate it:

-Karl Kirby
-Michal and Akiva
-My Freezeray
-Amelia
-Lisa
-Becca A.

Thank you all so much for participating, Congratulations to you all!!

Well, the Holiday Season is right around the corner. Often, we at HPPRogs are flooded with questions and are asked for advice. *Especially* concerning relationships. At this time a year we can’t even begin to describe the countless e-mails we receive asking for advice on what presents our listeners should give to their loved ones. We wanted to put together a little HPProgs Potpourri (and if you listen to the show you know you have to pronounce it POT-Purri) list of great Harry Potter related gifts:

-First and foremost, we have found that you can NEVER go wrong with a genuine HPProgs designed t-shirt. >Our Always and Hogsmead Is For Lovers T-shirts never fail to tug at the heartstrings of your loved ones. Trust us when we say that if you give someone one of these t-shirts, you will be appreciated FOREVER (and ALWAYS). To order one of our t-shirts, either go to pottertees.com or email us at harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com with your request.

-If your loved one is more rational than emotional, you might want to think about getting them Travis Prinzi’s new book: Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds which is now available for pre-order. There is even an option to get the book signed by Travis. Trust me, the signature on that book will be worth a lot of money one day.

-So your loved one is a huge Wizard Rock freak? Well, it just so happens that “We Are Wizards”, the Documentary about the Wrock movement is NOW available for pre-order. Enjoy!!

Finally, the Scholastic website always has a wealth of Potter stuff for you to purchase.

Happy Shopping!!!

This isn’t really news but the Half Blood Prince Movie was supposed to come out tonight at midnight.

Oh well. I am going to propose a moment of silence. Show your support by *not* commenting below.

Enjoy Twilight everyone!

-Penny

Hey guys, as I mentioned in the last post, the folks over at Mugglecast asked me to join their live Half Blood Prince Trailer reaction show. We had a lot of fun and had some great trailer discussion.

The show is now up on the Mugglecast website so please feel free to head on over there and give it a listen!

Warner Brothers has released the newest Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer exclusively for fansites!

You can see the trailer here or on youtube here:

Ironically, the trailer will be debuting in theaters prior to the Twilight Movie next Thursday.

I will be joining the MuggleCast crew today for a live trailer reaction podcast at 12:30 pm EST. If you want to discuss the trailer with fellow fans, take a listen on Ustream!

In this week’s episode we discussed the idea of female role models in the Harry Potter series. It is somewhat ironic that JK Rowling, a female author, chose to create a wonderful male role model as her main character. Many people have complained that there is a serious lack of quality feminist role models in the Harry Potter Series. Whether you agree or disagree with that, it is an interesting discussion to have. One critic of the feminine characters in Harry Potter is Elizabeth Heilman who wrote the essay titled, “Blue Wizards and Pink Witches: Representations of Gender Identity and Power.” She presented this essay at the HPEF conference, Nimbus 2003. Obviously, the series wasn’t complete when she offered her thoughts, but excerpts from the essay are a great springboard for an interesting discussion on the female characters of Harry Potter.

As always we look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.

Remember, you can now pre-order Travis Prinzi’s Book: ““Harry Potter and Imagination”. Also, make sure you register for Azkatraz 2009 (remember to write hpprogs in the referral area!)- we can’t wait to see you there!

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at http://audiblepodcast.com/hp.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

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After almost four months, I have finally gotten around to uploading the video from my round table discussion at Portus. The reason I chose to do this is three fold. Or would that be tri-fold? I don’t know. In any event….here are the reasons why I am finally posting this video:

1. This round table discussion was standing room only. Not only was I proud of the fact that it was such a well attended session at Portus; but the conversation was great and I wanted everyone in the HPProgs world to be able to watch and hear it.

2. Some of you might be on the fence about attending Azkatraz 2009 and I wanted you all to be able to see an example of *some* (and believe me everything else is MUCH better than anything I could do) of the programming at an HPEF event. Also I truly believe that the HPProgs listeners are some of the most intelligent people in the HP fandom and I wanted you to see that if an idiot like me could do a session, so can you.

3. We got this snazzy video camera, I have a Mac with decent video editing software and I was in the mood to use them both:)

So without further ado, here is the video footage from the discussion, “Voldemort Understands Nothing: Why This Led To His Ultimate Downfall.” I apologize for the four videos- youtube only allows you to upload ten minutes of footage at a time. (The videos are best seen in high quality.)