Dumbledore revelation 'a positive thing,' says J.K. Rowling

Author J.K. Rowling said she found it "freeing" to have revealed that a key character in her blockbuster Harry Potter series is gay, but she grew impatient with repeated questions about the issue during a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday morning.

Rowling spoke to reporters prior to a reading for hundreds of fans as part of Toronto's International Festival of Authors.

Last Friday, Rowling shocked Potter fans and the literary community when she revealed the sexuality of Albus Dumbledore, the heroic headmaster of the wizard school in her series, before a packed reading at New York's Carnegie Hall.

The elderly Dumbledore, Rowling revealed, had as a young man been in love with a colleague who later became evil.

"I know that it was a positive thing that I said it for at least one person because one man 'came out' at Carnegie Hall," Rowling told reporters in Toronto Tuesday morning.

Her revelation came because she "was asked a very direct question" by a young fan, Rowling added.

News greeted with praise, criticism

While those at Carnegie Hall responded to her pronouncement with applause and others have praised the writer's admission, Rowling's news has also garnered some criticism.

Many have questioned why she chose to make the revelation now, after her series is ended.

Rowling said Tuesday that she didn't feel it necessary to be explicit about Dumbledore's sexual preferences and that she focused instead on character development.

"The plot is what it is," she said.

"[Dumbledore] did have, as I say, this rather tragic infatuation, but that was a key part of the ending of the story, so there it is. Why would I put the key part of my ending of my story in Book 1?"

In the past, Rowling has said that early on she had envisioned a background portrait of almost every character mentioned in her Harry Potter books.

Tuesday's appearance, during which Rowling read from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is the writer's sole Canadian stop on her current tour.

Those in attendance, who scored tickets through a random draw, also got the opportunity to ask her questions and received an autographed copy of Deathly Hallows, Rowling's seventh and final Harry Potter novel.

The assembled fans, who ranged in age from young children to adult publishing industry representatives, didn't inquire about Dumbledore's sexuality during the audience Q&A.

Instead, questions emerged about whose death Rowling found most difficult to write (her answer: that of Dobby the house elf) and about the complicated rules for the wizard sport of Quidditch.

Rowling a record setter

Since publishing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stonea decade ago, Rowling has become one of the world's most successful authors and is believed to be thehighest-earning woman in Great Britain.

In recent years, each subsequent Potter release set new sales records for retailers, with more than 325 million copies of the first six books sold around the world. The series has also been translated into more than 60 languages.

In July, Rowling said that she is working on two new books, one for children and one for adults.