J.K. Rowling's Harvard commencement speech to be issued as book

A new book from J.K. Rowling will offer no wizards, wands or spells -- only words of wisdom.

Publisher Little, Brown and Company announced Tuesday that Rowling's 2008 Harvard University commencement speech will be released as the book "Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination."

Proceeds will be donated to Lumos, a charity for disadvantaged children that Rowling founded, and to a financial aid program at Harvard.

In her speech, the "Harry Potter" author spoke of her early struggles as a writer and the importance of failure as a "stripping away of the inessential."

"I have heard and read many commencement speeches, none more moving and memorable than J.K. Rowling's," Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. "Years after her visit to Harvard, people still talk about it and still find inspiration in her singular evocation of the idea that living a meaningful life so often means daring to risk failure."

The book, illustrated by Joel Holland, is due out in April 2015. You can read the full text of her speech here, or watch Rowling deliver it in the video below: