J.K. Rowling sends super sweet reply to single parent who thanked her for 'Harry Potter'

'I'm truly honoured'
 By 
Sam Haysom
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The days may be a long way behind her now, but J.K. Rowling knows what it's like to be poor.

She's spoken about her former situation before in interviews.

"I was as poor as it's possible to be in this country," she told the Daily Mail back in 2013. "I was a single parent."

It's perhaps not too surprising, then, that she clearly has a large amount of empathy for people going through something similar.

On Thursday, Matt Burke from Tallahassee, Florida, sent the following tweet to the Harry Potter author.

The article linked to in that tweet is a Medium post written by Burke, in which he writes about his situation as a single parent -- and how he tries to be "constructively creative" when he's with his daughter to make the most of their time together.

One activity they do a lot of together is reading. And they've recently discovered Harry Potter.

"Now, if I’m being honest here, at first I was a little bit hesitant about getting involved in it because even in my mid 30s I still seem to think I’m too cool for some things, but I’m not too cool to admit when I’m wrong and here I am, admitting I was wrong," wrote Burke. "At the time of this writing, we’re halfway through the 2nd book, and we’re having an absolute BLAST reading them together."

A few hours after Burke posted the tweet, Rowling responded.

Burke sent the following reply.

Their exchange has had a lot of responses, but this one probably summed it up best:

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Sam Haysom

Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.

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