Once again MuggleNet is on a new talent search. We are teaming up with Magical Tours to find the perfect intern for their 2010 Harry Potter themed tours in Britain. The person selected will participate in all four Magical Tours itineraries - all expenses paid! Go here for full application details.

After the initial selection rounds the finalists will be invited to post video "auditions" on YouTube. The videos will be on MuggleNet for our visitors to vote for their favorites. Visit MagicalTours.org to check out the fantastic 2010 tour schedule. All tours are now open for reservations.

For full details and how to apply, download this Word document.

You can now get the latest in Harry Potter directly on your Tumblr dashboard via MuggleNet's tumblelog. Follow us!

Besides Twitter, MuggleNet is also on Facebook. We'd feel really warm, fuzzy, and appreciated if you became a fan. :)

Although October is over, we want to remind our visitors the importance in maintaining good breast health. Maggie Smith, the actress who portrays Profess McGonagall in the films, is herself a breast cancer survivor. She is not alone as one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime and 40,000 women perish each year from the disease.

Preventative care is essential in fighting this disease. A BeMitt is a preventative care tool designed to assist women in performing their monthly self-breast exams. Beth Bromberg, creator of the BeMitt, had several benign lumps removed from her breasts yet still wasn't doing her monthly exams. When her then 20 year-old daughter Jenna, a Harry Potter fan and MuggleNet visitor, discovered a lump in her breast, she decided it was time to spread awareness to make self-exams not just easier but more effective. She invented the BeMitt, a mineral oil-filled mitt that magnifies texture - allowing women to better know their breasts and increase the likelihood of early detection.

Early in October we announced our goal of raising $10,000 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. We didn't quite meet our goal, but remember it is never too late to take action when it comes to your health. You can still show your support by purchasing a BeMitt.

Remember, every month should be breast cancer awareness month!

It's a holiday frequently celebrated in the Potter books, and we're all for celebrating it too! Be sure to switch MuggleNet over to any of our three Halloween themes to get in the spirit:

- 2009 Halloween Theme
- 2008 Halloween Theme
- 2007 Halloween Theme

Don't forget that we're looking for pictures of your Potter-related Halloween costumes! Take a picture of yourself in costume today and send it in to halloween09 at staff dot mugglenet dot com. Also please include your name and location. We'll post them on the site in a few days!

In September, we gave you a handy link to help you follow all the Harry Potter stars - from JK Rowling to Tom Felton - in one easily click using a third party service.

Since then, Twitter has created their own Lists feature which is now available to a good amount of Twitter users.

So we went ahead and created a Twitter List of Potter stars. It can be accessed right here. If you're logged into Twitter you'll be able to easily follow all the Potter stars in one easy click! You'll also be able to follow the MuggleNet and MuggleCast Twitter accounts.

If the link above does not work for you, it means you don't have the Lists feature yet. Don't worry... Twitter will give it to you soon!

A list of MuggleNet staffers on Twitter can be found here. To the 168 people who have already put us in their own Lists: thank you!

We've reached the final part of our Top MuggleNet Moments series! To wrap things up, we're looking at the Top 5 Moments in MuggleNet's history.

This part highlights MuggleCast releasing its first episode and defining a future for Harry Potter podcasting, Emerson insulting a group of Potter shippers across the world, and various MuggleNet interviews with the creators of the books and films - including JK Rowling.

You can view Parts 1 and 2 of this series right here and right here respectively.

We hope you've enjoyed this series, and thanks to EVERYONE for their support over the past 10 years! There are many great things for MuggleNet and the Harry Potter fandom to come.

Your home is decorated (hopefully), so why not dress up MuggleNet with our Halloween 2009 layout? We have two other Halloween layouts from previous years at this link and this link.

Also, are any of you dressing up in Potter-related costumes this Halloween? If so, please take a picture of yourself on Halloween night and e-mail it to halloween09 at staff dot mugglenet dot com. We'll take our favorites and post them here! Please include your first name and geographical location. Thanks!

In celebration of MuggleNet's 10th Anniversary, Fan of the Week is back with three huge updates! More fan contribution! Staff member featurettes! MuggleNet's first ever Fan of the Year!

Head over to Fan of the Week to find out more!

DON'T FORGET: MuggleNet is also celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month throughout October. For more information on how you can help the fight against breast cancer with MuggleNet, please click here.

Without any doubt, MuggleNet's success has been built by our loyal visitors. Some of you have been visiting since 1999, while others just discovered us a few weeks ago (see the poll on the right for those results).

Today, as part of celebrating 10 years online, we present to you this group of stories from MuggleNet visitors across the globe. The stories explain what MuggleNet has meant to so many people over the years. We were sincerely touched after reading these.

We hope you enjoy them too. Thanks to EVERYONE who submitted stories. We read and greatly appreciated them all. Next week, look for the Top 5 MuggleNet Moments!

Last week we kicked off a special series looking at the past 10 years of MuggleNet.

Part 2 of our 'Best Moments' feature is now available at this link! In this new installment, we dive into more of our Best Moments: MuggleSpace opening, the release of MuggleNet's two books, and other bittersweet memories!

Next week we'll be sharing the MuggleNet stories you all wrote in with, and the final week will look at our Top 5 Moments. Enjoy!

As we have mentioned previous, throughout October MuggleNet will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary! As part of the celebration, we will be featuring the top 15 moments in the site's history.

Today, we are releasing moments 11 through 15, including some April Fool's pranks, the midnight book release parties, as well as a few of MuggleNet's most notorious sections. Moments 1 through 10 will be revealed in the coming weeks.

And don't forget: you can share your stories with us about how you first found out about the site or how it has impacted you by e-mailing them to mn10stories@staff.mugglenet.com.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and MuggleNet would like to encourage prevention and early detection, as one in eight women will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer in her lifetime. This issue is close to the Potter community, as Dame Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall) is herself a breast cancer survivor.

A BeMitt is a new tool designed to assist women in performing their monthly self-breast exam. Beth Bromberg, creator of the BeMitt, had several benign lumps removed from her breasts yet still wasn't doing her monthly exams. When her then 20 year-old daughter Jenna, a Harry Potter fan and MuggleNet visitor, discovered a lump in her breast, she decided it was time to spread awareness to make self-exams not just easier but more effective. She invented the BeMitt, a mineral oil-filled mitt that magnifies texture - allowing women to better know their breasts and increase the likelihood of early detection.



If you have a Twitter account, please help us spread the word by clicking here and Re-Tweeting our goal.

As we announced yesterday, October marks 10 years since MuggleNet was founded by little Emerson. We have several features planned throughout the month to celebrate the occasion, and today we need your help for one of them!

MuggleNet's success is thanks in large part to YOU - the visitors. Do you have a story about finding MuggleNet? About what MuggleNet has meant to you? About what MuggleNet has done for you? Then we want your stories! Please e-mail them to mn10stories@staff.mugglenet.com. Please keep your stories limited to no more than 3 paragraphs.

We'll take as many stories as possible and post them on MuggleNet later this month. Thanks!

More celebrating to come this weekend...

Once upon a time, a 12-year-old kid was suffering from crushing boredom. He thought it would be fun to make a website. So he did. And at first, it completely sucked. Then he got really, really obsessed. He quickly found other obsessed fans -- and you know the rest!

HarryPotter.com just wasn't giving us enough of what we wanted, so we took matters into our own hands: MuggleNet is a 10 year long project of collective success involving millions of passionate Harry Potter fans from every corner of the Earth. Every fan contributed in some way - whether it was posting news, submitting fan fics, or engaging in discussion on forums while we went delusional waiting for each book. WOW, has it been fun!

We'll be posting fun new features throughout the month looking back at the past 10 years, so stay tuned. Embarrassing baby photos of Andrew Sims are likely. T-shirts possible. Thank you, MuggleNetters, for your continued support!

How long have you been with us?

Twitter is a very popular social networking site that allows you to follow people's "tweets" (short messages that explain what they're up to, etc).

As it turns out, many Potter stars use Twitter! In the past we've learned cool info through the tweets of Tom Felton, Warwick Davis, and others.

Recently we discovered a cool service that lets you create a list of people on Twitter so they can all be followed in one click. We used this service to create a list of Potter stars on Twitter. Click here to check it out and follow all their official accounts instantly! The list also includes the official Harry Potter Film and MuggleNet accounts.

We also made a list of MuggleNet staff members that you can easily follow (we all tweet Potter stuff from time to time). Check that list out right here.

UPDATE: The kitties were having some issues in our image gallery so we moved them to their own area of the site. View them starting right here!

Kitty Cats. We love them. They're adorable, fluffy, sometimes innocent, and most of all: exploitable.

That's why we've opened up a new section on MuggleNet today that was inspired by the internet phenomenon affectionately titled "lolcat".

We call ours: I Can Haz Pottur! Visitors have been submitting their best Potter-related lolcat images and we now have them online. You can also visit the page to find out how to submit your own images. This area will be permanently accessible from the link under "Fun" on the left side of MuggleNet. Enjoy!

It was only a few months ago we first told you about MuggleNet FanFiction's wonderful AudioFiction feature (link goes to their iTunes listing), and now we're pleased to report that they've hit their 100th episode!

The landmark episode actually featured this news poster reading the FanFic. It was a ton of fun recording it and I hope you all enjoy it too!

In case you don't know what AudioFics are: they're Harry Potter fanfictions read aloud by MuggleNet FanFiction staff and then released in podcast form. They're lots of fun to listen to whether you love Fan Fiction, love listening to audiobooks, or just love Harry Potter in general!

Senior staff member, MuggleCast co-host, teen icon, Kansan, entrepreneur. These are a few titles Ben Schoen has collected since he started working on MuggleNet several years ago.

Unfortunately Ben lost the "teen icon" title today (he'll always be our idol though). He's now the big 2-0 and I'd like to be the first to welcome him out of the teenage years.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN! Be sure to leave your birthday wishes in the comments, or wish him well via his Twitter or Facebook.

MuggleNet's very own Micah Tannenbaum, the beloved news anchor of our podcast MuggleCast turns 27 today. Micah is known for his segments such as, "What's Buggin' Micah?" and more recently, "Micah's Dungeon" where he imprisons fanfic writers until they let him read their stuff on the air in his smooth, certain voice. Micah recently kicked a lot of butt in the news-posting position on the main site here and should probably have a ninja turtle named after him, well, just because. Happy birthday, buddy!

Great news for fans attending MuggleMayhem: we have some last minute guest updates for you. Joshua Herdman (Gregory Goyle) and Robbie Jarvis (young James Potter) will both be attending the convention. Also, Natalie Tena's (Tonks) band will be playing a set on the Saturday night themed party.

For those of you not attending, you still have time to buy a ticket!