In 1999, J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series,
came to our small town for a book signing, and the event was as much like a
normal book signing as, say, a hot dog eating contest or a prison riot.


Rowling was then on the front-end of her seven-part set of
fantasy novels. She had written three of the books, with a fourth due out soon.
But, among literary sensations, she was a bit