Cover of Li Po

An Interview

with the author of Travels with Li Po.

Interview with William Kelly

(Q) How do you explain the lack of interest in Travels With Li Po and your allegations about it?

(A) There are a number of reasons. First of all, I suspect Rowling’s legal hounds are deterring any interested party from investigating the whole Harry Potter thing. What they are saying to inquirers is designed expressly to stop them in their tracks.That is their job. A Gorilla would stop any man in his tracks just by roaring from a mile away. The Gorilla knows this of course. Likewise, defamation lawyers are usually heard to some affect by good citizens such as editors and journalists who are trying to hold onto their jobs, families and careers. Having the right to threaten with punishment that is backed up by the State gifts them with power over the little man in the street. They are very likely using the apology wrestled out of the Derry News to substantiate their ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ statements, an apology which we repudiate and which should never have been made in the first place and was only made because that paper was faced with extinction if the editor did not cry “enough!” from the power-grip he was under.

Violence takes many forms: just because it is delivered by fax instead of gunfire doesn’t fool anyone who has been targeted by it. Justice itself, of course, is impartial or so we all want to believe. In practice it is anything but, political interests usually holding sway over both reason and a plaintiff’s lawful democratic rights. That apology was to drive us off the pitch by discrediting us. The Bogside Artists were certainly damaged by it, regardless, and for the reason I have just given. Our gullible public bows to all things legal the way savages prostrate themselves before the witchdoctor and for the same reason – out of fear of reprisal by unknown forces. The other reason is that people have been weaned on Harry Potter and “there are none so blind etc….” Sad, but true. Lastly, and most of the responses I have received so far fall into this category. They all say the same thing; “This cannot be true”, we are told, because I took so long to make it public. If truth was determined by that criterion most of the history books in your library, including the gospels, would never have seen the light of day and a man may well feel free to act on the conviction that his wife is a liar because she should have told him sooner that she was pregnant…. but you cannot argue with such people. It is beyond them to imagine a world in which Harry Potter did not exist. I have no difficulty there because I lived in that world and could see all around me the crying need for a role-model for kids that could proffer a palliative for their pain and give insight and validation to their own confused experience of living. That is where the VISION came from. If you think it descended magically on a woman during a train journey who dreamt of becoming a writer…. you need to talk to somebody.

(Q) And the book itself?

(A) Those who get it, get it, because the magic is in the book itself and how it impacts you. That was one of the philosophical premises for writing it in the first place, to clarify for all the guiding principle I cherished then and still do …… that art itself is magic, or a form of it. And I believe you can experience this in Li Po…..if you let it, that is. What I must stress here is that Travels with Li Po was never intended to be anything but the mould from which the series would be cast. I would certainly not have published it in its present state. Its purpose was to showcase the VISION I had without giving too much away. I was dealing in simple ideas and themes that I knew full well could so easily be pilfered.  Li Po is conspicuously a BLUEPRINT of a VISION;  and I stressed  to just about every publisher to whom I sent my customary three chapters and synopsis, that it bore “little resemblance to the finished version.”  We published it as is because we wanted to make that abundantly clear. Its present form is its original form and would not have been its final form. It doesn’t follow, mind you, that I would have purged everything that is already there. The text  would have remained mostly, if not entirely intact, but certain features of it and especially the personality of the hero would have been amplified. That is because what I did and had to do at the time was underplay very significant elements of character and plot and often only hinted at things I intended to elaborate on greatly later once I had been given the green light.

As it transpired, certain people plied me with questions about it because they knew this was the actual BLUEPRINT for a series quite outside their usual experience of children’s stories and they wondered how they could make their own version. Like a bunch of delinquents who have spotted a Golden Eagle glide into their back yard, they just had to snare it. They smelled money in it and very little else and knew damn well that, given the critical approach to society that I intended to take and had already made clear, I would have problems getting into print. And with my central character an Irishman? Place your bets. In the end, they stole the entire VISION, scaffolding, tools, bricks, mortar, the lot.  “And they rejoiced in their wickedness,” as the Bible puts it. If you read Li Po again with all this in mind you might get the magic of it. If you are conditioned with Fugleman Potter you are likely beyond recall. If you care not for the truth you probably have other reasons for reading thus far. Whoever you are, take the advice of a wise old man; – “trust nobody in the publishing industry unless you can get them to sign a contract promising you their organs should you require one!” Even then…………….

Okay folks,

                  Rowling’s camp, guided by spin-doctors reminiscent of Hitler’s propaganda ministers are very likely reading this. Why? Because they got a game going called “defamation of character”. Like moles they dig for evidence that will hold up in court. What character? Well…. you got us there. We believe there are primed and willing volunteers ready to take Rowling’s place on the defamation rap if only to divert any serious scrutiny being levelled at her and her other accomplices. They know who they are and the part they have played in what is probably the most obscene case of literary plagiarism in modern times. Take it as a given therefore that Rowling’s legal hounds forage diligently for whatever they can latch onto to convince a gullible and conditioned public of their client’s inviolable public image and its innate moral immaculacy. Anything will do incidentally, if the bullying of the Derry News who first mentioned the connection is anything to go by. As for the dreaded “defamation of character’ case hanging supposedly above our heads like the sword of Damocles – what has been keeping them? Didn’t we get a letter from Rowling’s agent’s lawyer from as far back as  October 2oo8 warning us to ’shut up…  or else’ - or, words to that affect?  Did we promptly gag ourselves therefore at this individual’s insistence? Of course not! Could it be that they are trying to avoid a scandal? What kept us so long you might well ask? It’s all in our website; http://www.travelswithlipo.com. Politics had something to do with it and Anglo-Irish politics indeed is very likely at the heart of the arrogant and self-righteous plagiarism of “Li Po” in the first place.

A man steals your car. He is caught and goes to court. He is found innocent. So much for the daily grind in august courts of so-called ‘justice’ everywhere. The felon is cut loose on a technicality or some such idiocy. Even though he may drive off in your car he now believes he is innocent and actually didn’t steal anybody’s car. That is the problem right there. There are people in this world who think like that. Truth means nothing to them because they know they are guilty but winning in court for that very reason becomes the only thing that really matters. If they are proven ‘innocent’ in a court of law then they truly are innocent in reality. So long, in other words, as a lot of people believe you have red hair then in reality you really do have red hair even if you have no hair at all. So, tired at last of arguing our case in the most reasonable fashion possible, let us finally state it as it really is.

J.K. Rowling, with the help of others, plagiarized the

character, themes, writing style and contents of “Travels with Li Po”. 

The vision was never hers. The character was never hers. The essential story was never hers. The style was never hers nor the themes or sub-themes with their philosophical reach, still less the deliberate aim to write a book that explores the spiritual common ground between adults and children. The insights into the psyche of a young boy that gave rise to the character were also never hers who based her work she tells us on an “idea” and who, most significantly, did not  have a brother to grow up with nor a son to refer to. Bloomsbury her publishers in fact saw fit to call her “J.K. Rowling” to give the impression that the books were written by a man. No deception intended of course. All above board! Words written by William to her in his correspondence and, not only to her let it be stated, but to others involved in the Potter ‘phenomenon” ended up being delivered by her verbatim in press conferences as pertaining to ‘her own’ work . Nothing of any worthwhile significance put in the balance against these overwhelmingly vital factors blatantly plundered from the pages of “Li Po” is worth talking about in our view. Or, put bluntly, she is welcome to them. What in fact is ‘hers’ will be for future academics to figure out, if they can.

She and her buddies have been avoiding scrutiny for years as we have tirelessly pointed out. What in fact motivated them to commit the crime, apart from greed, is for them to know and you to guess at. What on earth could justify it? But that is what is meant by the phrase “avoidance of scrutiny”, the very antithesis  of “transparency”. It is time to call their bluff. The broom folks stops right here;  http://www.travelswithlipo/com.

So, you’re a Literary Agent? Hmmm. That would be your degree in English Lit. on the wall? No books to your name alas, but we can’t be good at everything now, can we? It’s enough for you to know what sells.

They are not all the same are they, these literary agents? These purveyors of men’s souls. And not all singing from the same song book. I don’t know you from Adam but, as a writer, whenever I submit my anguished-over script, the sacred substance of my living experience, my life and my soul, to ‘you’, I must accept that ‘you’ are an honest man guided by the spiritual ethics of ‘your’ profession. But, the perpetual wrangling over intellectual property and the plethora of vague laws that govern it (Steven Spielberg got off scot free from pilfering another writer’s work even though is was clearly and blatantly obvious to all, even to the blind, that he was guilty as all hell) suggests the following scenario is by no means impossible or even unusual. If you are acquainted with Hollywood I am sure you will have less diffculty believing it than most. 

“Jeff?  Sorry to waken you up, old buddy. But I got this fantastic story here on my desk and I am sure you can do something with it. Yea, it’s got winner written all over it. It will  be huge if it’s let loose. Nah, nobody knows who he is. Never been published before. Yea, just what I thought. You could do something duh…  ’similar…’ duh,  I’m sure. Yea, I know but we are allowed to laugh…. So, my lawyer tells me. Yea, it’s a novel, not all that well written. But, it doesn’t have to be. We can all write for chrissakes! It’s what’s in it, Jeff!  What’s in it! The guy’s a friggin’ genius. What a film it would make! or even a whole bunch of them, or a television series or any sort of a series for that matter! You gotta read this!  Meet me for lunch. Nah. Don’t worry about that. I’ll tie him to a dumb contract or something until you get it done. I’ll get him to download the contract too from the net. Never fails. Just in case he gets the bright idea of starting a paper trail some time in the distant future. Idiot might be a better word. They’re out there Jeff. Told me all I need to know about it too. Can you believe it? How dumb is that? And there are more of them coming off the conveyor belt all the time. I have almost completly given up thinking for myself, it’s so easy. Don’t worry. It’s okay. I’m your acting editor. I just make more radical changes than most, that’s all. I have a business to run, godammit!”

Writers have no reason whatever to trust an agent and yet all of them have to. The elusive Christopher Little is an English agent bivouacked in London who is presently being sued (so far as we still know) by the relatives of the deceased writer Adrian Jacobs whose work he, or his publisher ‘associate’ Bloomsbury, or both, allegedly pilfered. Innocent until proven guilty is Christopher. The law is on his side. He is J.K.Rowling’s publishing agent: One who shuns the limelight, being supposedly shy and sensitive, we are to believe, even if it is reported that he held a massively expensive birthday party for himself not so long ago. You will notice how careful I am in choosing the words to tell you this. That’s because this particular agent has a lawyer working in his corner who takes no prisoners. Rowling’s own lawyers, Schillings, are even more notorious. It is not that either are merely practising sound economic prudence in guarding their vulnerable charge from prowling fraudsters and all that; what they are actually engaged in is avoiding public scrutiny at all costs. Indeed, establishing a norm by repetition in the process. Reminds you of the invasion of Iraq, doesn’t it? To them and their ilk this is the way of business. Do it often enough and people will eventually throw up their arms and cry. “Not again!” And then they stop throwing up their arms because such behaviour however odious and contemptible has become the norm. Not another case against Rowling! To you and I and the Man Above, such practice is  mind control, but more of that some other time. And if they want to contest this and make moves to gagg us three and clap us  all in irons, well ……..  Indeed, they are most likely reading these very words and adding them to the munitions pile they have been amassing for years to use against us. It ill behoves us to hold such a dim view of our fellow man, or woman indeed, but…………..It seems that in the name of democracy you can hold any views you like so long as you don’t get the dumb notion that you are free to express them. In modern times, Shakespeare, Shaw and Wilde would be impossible. Think about that. There’s freedom of expression for you!

Interesting isn’t it? Well it is rather… from our point of view.
How interesting can be learned from; http://www.travelswithlipo.com .

What we have to say via the above link is all true….if you can believe it, of course…. and we can tell you, even before you start…. you won’t. Why not? Not just because you have accepted the ‘norm’ and may be blissfully unaware that you have but , more imp0rtantly, because what you have to do is trust someone you have never met……….Me, the communicator of all this.  An Irishman. A bridge too far is that for many. The wise and the sceptics among you will surely find it easier.