Being a successful author herself, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling is happy to help other authors with their work.

Especially if you directed her Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets book to film adaptations.

Director Chris Columbus directed those two Harry Potter films and ultimately set the tone and cast for the rest of the series. Columbus is now an author. This week he published his first children’s book “House of Secrets,” and at an event in New York City last night, he explained how he received helped from Rowling.

“I sent Jo Rowling the manuscript of this when we finished it for some advice,” Columbus said. “She gave me some advice that we were moving too fast, and there was some character work that needed to be put in. Because [the story] was at too much of a rollercoaster pace. So we made some of those changes, and then a few weeks later I got an e-mail from her and it was the quote that’s on the back of the book. And I thought, ‘That’s an incredibly generous thing to do.’ She did not have to do that. And it really makes all the difference in the world because she rarely does something like that.”

Rowling’s quote on the back of House of Secrets reads as follows: “A breakneck, jam-packed roller coaster of an adventure about the secret power of books, HOUSE OF SECRETS comes complete with three resourceful sibling heroes, a seriously creepy villainess, and barrel loads of fantasy and fear.”

Watch Columbus make the comments above in the video below, thanks to Natasha who attended the event and uploaded the video for us:

You can purchase “House of Secrets” on Amazon, where it’s currently receiving very positive reviews from readers.

It’s a beautiful circle: Columbus helped bring her Harry Potter story to life, and now Rowling helped bring his first children’s book to life.