Radio Reject
Episode 1: A stop at the magic station

Welcome to Radio Reject.
This is Radio Reject, and we are Ayda. I’m Ayda Pakzad and I’m Aida Haghnajad. We are the hosts and creators of Radio Reject.

In each episode of this podcast, we will tell you a story. A story about rejection. Rejection that could have caused a brilliant book to be lost in today's literary world. We believe that rejection and dealing with it is a significant part of modern life, and Radio Reject aims to share stories where rejection played a pivotal role. Stories of books that you’ve probably heard of, or maybe even read.

Since this is the first episode, we won’t go into too much detail and spoil the excitement. Shall we jump straight into the first story of Radio Reject?

This Episode: A Stop at the Magic Station

This episode's story begins at a train station. At Manchester Train Station, to be precise. One day, a young woman around 24 years old heads to the Manchester train station to board a train bound for King's Cross Station in London. King’s Cross Station in London played a significant role in this young woman’s life since it was the place where her parents first met, and now it was about to mark the beginning of something important.

That day, something unusual happened at the Manchester train station. The train didn’t arrive on time like it usually did and was delayed for quite a while. What year was this? 1990. She probably didn’t have a mobile phone to keep herself entertained, no one to pass the time with, and perhaps she hadn’t even brought a book along. She sat at that train station for hours, lost in her imagination.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time this young woman had been lost in her own thoughts, creating stories. Ever since she was five or six years old, when she wrote her first story about a rabbit and its friend, a lady bee, she knew she wanted to be a writer. But she had never told her parents about it because they weren’t the type of people who supported their child's dreams. They likely thought, “It’s nice that she has a strong imagination, but this sort of thing won’t put food on the table. Better find a real job, kid.”

Because of that, this young woman, now around 24 years old, had never seriously pursued writing. Following her parents’ advice, she went to university and studied French, as they had told her that people who are bilingual are more likely to find secretarial work. So, she studied French, worked in research for a while, but she never forgot that her dream was to become a writer. She was always jotting down bits of stories in her notebooks and scribbling in the margins of her papers. She would always weave stories in her mind but had never seriously written a book.

Now, as she sat at King’s Cross Station, lost in thought, suddenly, an idea struck her. What if this train was taking a young boy to a magic school? (Music plays) And from that moment on, Harry Potter never left J.K. Rowling alone.

From then on, every chance she got, she developed the story in her mind, created the characters, and even came up with names for the spells. Naturally, you’d think she would sit down and write the book, and the first publisher to read it would exclaim, “Wow, this story is brilliant!” and publish it. In about a year or two, both the author and the book would be famous. But, like many stories, this one had a twist.

About a year after that important day at the train station, Rowling was still building the world of Harry in her mind, shaping it into a complete story. One morning, her father called her. As a side note, Rowling didn’t have a good relationship with her father. In a documentary about her life, she said, “I was afraid of my father.” We’ll talk more later about how this strained relationship influenced Harry Potter, but for now, let’s close that parenthesis.

On the morning after New Year’s Eve, her father called her early, and from that moment on, everything in Rowling’s life changed.

Imagine, it’s the morning after New Year’s Eve, and Rowling, who had probably had a good time the night before, had just woken up and was daydreaming. The new year had arrived, and she had high hopes and dreams for Harry. She was probably thinking about how many houses Hogwarts should have, which one Harry would be sorted into, and how he would meet Malfoy when suddenly, the loud ring of the phone interrupted all her thoughts. She quickly got up and answered the phone. On the other end, she heard her father’s voice, and that was all it took to know that something had happened. Without any preamble, her father said, “Joanne, your mother passed away yesterday.” And that became the worst moment of Rowling’s life. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Rowling mentioned something strange about her mother’s death in a documentary. She said her father told her not to see her mother. Now, I don’t know if her mother’s illness had physically affected her or what, but her father had advised her not to see her mother. Rowling said she wasn’t sure why she agreed and regretted not seeing her mother one last time before she was laid to rest. Rowling once said, “The story of Harry Potter became deeper and maybe darker in my mind after my mother’s death.”

This loss affected young Joanne Rowling in such a way that she decided to leave England and start a new life. She moved to Portugal and became an English teacher. Shortly after arriving in Portugal, she met a passionate journalist named Jorge Arantes, and a few months later, they got married. The marriage lasted about two years, and there’s a lot of speculation about it. Some sources have mentioned instances of violence from Arantes, although Rowling herself has neither confirmed nor denied these claims. Regardless, the details are unclear, but it seems that the relationship wasn’t ideal. When Rowling divorced him, she had a daughter from the marriage named Jessica. The fact that a young woman, alone in a foreign country, was willing to leave with her newborn daughter suggests that those rumors might not be entirely unfounded.

Eventually, Rowling separated from her husband and had nowhere to stay in Portugal. She decided to return to England. When she left Portugal, all she had was a small suitcase and Jessica. What was in that suitcase? A bunch of notebooks and papers with scattered notes about Harry Potter.

Rowling returned to her home country, but nothing was the same. Her mother was gone, so she had no one to lean on. She was now carrying a small child who was entirely dependent on her. Her relationship with her father wasn’t great, and after her mother’s death, it had worsened. The only person she had left was her sister.

So, Joanne and her daughter Jessica moved to Edinburgh for a while and lived with her sister and brother-in-law. At that time, Rowling had no money and no proper job. She survived on loans and help from friends and eventually managed to rent a small apartment. This was the time when her financial situation was truly dire. She survived on government benefits, something akin to unemployment benefits. She once said in an interview, “At that time, I was so poor that I was on the verge of homelessness.”

Her financial and emotional situation was so bad that she fell into depression, and it wasn’t just a passing phase. She described it as having suicidal thoughts. She was so unwell that she realized she needed help and went to a doctor, only for Jessica's sake. If something happened to her, what would happen to Jessica? At that time, the only things she had in her life were Jessica and Harry Potter, and both of them were quite mischievous. One of them was just learning to walk, talk, and cause trouble, requiring constant attention and care, while the other was growing so large in Rowling’s imagination that he wanted to burst into the real world and introduce himself to everyone.

In those circumstances, when she had almost nothing left to lose except Jessica and Harry Potter, she made an important decision. She decided to start writing her book seriously and systematically. During the day, she had no time to write because of Jessica and work, so only the nights were available to her – those hours when Jessica would finally fall asleep. What would she do? She would go to a café, and while Jessica slept in her arms, she would write the chapters of Harry Potter. Though she had started writing earlier, it was during this time that she wrote with determination to finish the book. She had a favorite café in Edinburgh, which was called Nicholson’s at the time, though now it has turned into a Chinese restaurant. Rowling once said she wrote an entire chapter of Harry Potter there, one of those chapters that didn’t change much in later drafts.

Eventually, after all the hardships and sleepless nights, she finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and gave it to a literary agent named Christopher Little. Now, in Iran, we don’t really have this role, but over there, authors didn’t send their manuscripts directly to publishers. It was the agent’s job to submit them. Rowling, like many other writers, handed her book to an agent to find a publisher for her.

Now, there are a few key characters in this story who played a crucial role in the process, and Mr. Little was one of them.

So, as I was saying, Rowling gave her book to Christopher Little, who was her agent. Little's job was to find a publisher willing to take on the book, and as you can imagine, this wasn't an easy task. In the 90s, fantasy novels weren’t as popular as they are today. The publishers thought that children's books needed to be simple and didn’t believe that a 300-page fantasy novel would appeal to kids. Even worse, Harry Potter wasn’t just any long book; it was a slow-burner that took its time to develop the story and characters. It wasn't your typical fast-paced, action-packed adventure.

Little, as an experienced agent, believed that the book had potential, so he decided to send it to various publishers. This was the beginning of a series of rejections. The manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers, all of whom thought the same thing: "It’s too long, too complex for children." At this point, Rowling might have started to doubt herself. She had just emerged from a series of personal hardships and was still navigating a tough life as a single mother. Now, the one thing she had poured her heart into, the one thing that had given her hope, was facing rejection after rejection.

After a year of trying, when things were looking bleak, Christopher Little sent the manuscript to one last publisher, Bloomsbury.

Now, let me pause here and introduce another important figure in this story: Nigel Newton. He was the chairman of Bloomsbury Publishing. Newton received the manuscript and, like the others before him, wasn’t particularly excited at first. He thought it was too long and too niche. But something happened. Nigel Newton had an eight-year-old daughter named Alice. That evening, he took the first chapter of Harry Potter home with him and gave it to Alice, asking her to read it and give her thoughts.

Alice started reading, and soon after, she came back to her father with a single sentence: "Dad, where’s the rest of the book?"

Nigel Newton realized that he might be sitting on something special, so he decided to give the book a chance. He offered Rowling a modest advance of £1,500 for the book's rights, and in 1997, Bloomsbury published Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in a print run of just 500 copies, half of which were sent to libraries. These early copies now sell for tens of thousands of pounds in auctions.

But even though the book had finally been published, it didn’t immediately turn Rowling’s life around. At first, the book didn’t attract much attention, and it seemed like it might fade into obscurity. But things soon started to change.

Word-of-mouth praise began to build. Children, much like Alice Newton, who read the book, were captivated by the world of Harry Potter, and they spread the word. The book started winning awards. One of the first was the prestigious Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, followed by the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year. These recognitions helped to boost the book's profile, and soon, the momentum became unstoppable.

By 1998, an American publisher, Scholastic, bought the U.S. rights to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for $105,000—an unprecedented amount for a children’s book by a relatively unknown author at the time. The title was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the U.S. market, and the rest is history.

The series grew into one of the best-selling book franchises of all time, with over 500 million copies sold worldwide, translated into more than 80 languages, and adapted into a globally successful film franchise.

But what makes the story of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s success even more remarkable is how rejection played such a central role in it. If she had given up after the first or even the twelfth rejection, the world would never have known about Harry, Hogwarts, or the magic within its pages. Rowling’s journey from rock bottom to one of the wealthiest and most successful authors in history is a testament to resilience, perseverance, and the belief in the power of one’s imagination.

But more than just a story about success, this is a story about rejection. It’s about how every rejection that J.K. Rowling faced only strengthened her resolve to finish her book, to tell her story, and ultimately, to find her audience. If anything, her story reminds us that rejection is not the end; it's often just the beginning of a long, winding road to something much greater.

And with that, we come to the end of our first episode. We hope you enjoyed the journey of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, a story that began at a small, delayed train station and traveled the world over, touching the lives of millions.

If you liked this episode and want to hear more stories like this, stay tuned for the next episode of Radio Reject. In the next episode, we’ll be talking about another famous rejection story that nearly buried one of the 20th century’s most famous authors. Any guesses? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for listening to Radio Reject. Until next time, remember, rejection is just a part of the journey.