Skyhorse will publish what it calls “the first complete biography about J. K. Rowling” in 2025, the press announced in a news release.
The independent publisher will release Solomon Schmidt’s A Pen To Change the World: The Life of J. K. Rowling next winter. The biography will tell the story of the life and career of Rowling, whose Harry Potter series of children’s fantasy novels became a worldwide publishing phenomenon,and spawned a series of blockbuster films.
Rowling is one of the world’s most famous authors, but her reputation has declined among many readers for her frequent statements about transgender people, which some consider transphobic. In a recent anthology published in the U.K., The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, Rowling wrote, “Those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how truly despicable I find theirs.…I’ve witnessed supposedly progressive men arguing that women don’t exist as an observable biological class and don’t deserve biology-based rights.”
Skyhorse is one of the most controversial publishers in the U.S. It published a memoir by filmmaker Woody Allen, who has been accused of sexually abusing his daughter Dylan Farrow, after the book was dropped by Hachette. It has also published books by presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and through its recently acquired imprint Regnery, has released titles by right-wing U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
Schmidt runs the YouTube channel and book series History Bites; the Facebook page for the channel says he is 20 years old. He is the author of a biography of lawyer Alan Dershowitz, also published by Skyhorse.
A Pen To Change the World is slated for publication on Feb. 4, 2025.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
