j.k rowling biography

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Humble beginnings

Harry potter and success, harry on the big screen and on stage, writing for adults, honors and controversy.

What did J.K. Rowling write?

How did j.k. rowling become famous.

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J.K. Rowling

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• Official Site of J. K. Rowling
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What is J.K. Rowling famous for?

J.K. Rowling is the British author who created the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series (seven books published between 1997 and 2007), about a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

In addition to the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling wrote such companion volumes as Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2001) and cowrote a story on which the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) was based. Her adult fiction includes The Casual Vacancy (2012) and the Cormoran Strike series (as Robert Galbraith).

J.K. Rowling started writing about Harry Potter after graduating from the University of Exeter. After a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, Rowling settled in Edinburgh and lived on public assistance between stints as a French teacher and writing. After many rejections, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published to immediate success.

What is J.K. Rowling’s real name?

J.K. Rowling was born Joanne Rowling. After her publisher recommended she use a gender-neutral pen name, she chose J.K., adding the middle name Kathleen. She published her crime fiction series, which includes The Cuckoo’s Calling , under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Recent News

J.K. Rowling (born July 31, 1965, Yate, near Bristol, England) is a British author, creator of the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series, about a young sorcerer in training.

After graduating from the University of Exeter in 1986, Rowling began working for Amnesty International in London , where she started to write the Harry Potter adventures. In the early 1990s she traveled to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language, but, after a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, she returned to the United Kingdom, settling in Edinburgh . Living on public assistance between stints as a French teacher, she continued to write.

The first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997; also published as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ), was released under the name J.K. Rowling. (Her publisher recommended a gender-neutral pen name; born Joanne Rowling, she used J.K., adding the middle name Kathleen.)

The book was an immediate success, appealing to both children, who were its intended audience, and adults. Featuring vivid descriptions and an imaginative story line, it followed the adventures of the unlikely hero Harry Potter, a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book received numerous awards, including the British Book Award. Succeeding volumes— Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)—also were best sellers, available in more than 200 countries and some 60 languages. The seventh and final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was released in 2007.

The Harry Potter series sparked great enthusiasm among children and was credited with generating a new interest in reading. Film versions of the books were released in 2001–11 and became some of the top-grossing movies in the world. In addition, Rowling wrote the companion volumes Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2001), which was adapted into a film series (2016, 2018) that featured screenplays by Rowling; Quidditch Through the Ages (2001); and The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2008)—all of which originated as books read by Harry Potter and his friends within the fictional world of the series. Proceeds from their sales were donated to charity.

She later cowrote a story that became the basis for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , which premiered in 2016 and was a critical and commercial success, winning an unprecedented nine Olivier Awards, including best new play. In the production, Harry is a husband and father but is still struggling with his past, while his son Albus must contend with his father’s legacy . A book version of the script, which was advertised as the eighth story in the Harry Potter series, was published in 2016. Two years later the play transferred to Broadway, and in 2018 it won six Tony Awards , including best new play.

Rowling made her first foray into adult fiction with The Casual Vacancy (2012; TV miniseries 2015), a contemporary social satire set in a small English town. In 2013 it was revealed that the author had penned the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling , using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The Silkworm —the second book in the series, which centred on the detective Cormoran Strike, a down-on-his-luck war veteran—was released in 2014. Later installments included Career of Evil (2015), Lethal White (2018), Troubled Blood (2020), and The Ink Black Heart (2022). A television series based on the books premiered in the United Kingdom in 2017 and in the United States the following year. In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rowling began serializing a new children’s book, The Ickabog , for free online; it was published in November. She described the fairy tale , which was unrelated to Harry Potter, as an exploration of “truth and the abuse of power.” She later published The Christmas Pig (2021), about a boy who loses his favourite toy and then embarks on a fantastical quest to find it.

Rowling was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001. In 2009 she was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour .

However, in June 2020, Rowling drew unaccustomed criticism for taking exception on social media to an article that referenced “people who menstruate.” In part, Rowling tweeted “‘People who menstruate .’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out.” Rowling’s comments were seen as being unsympathetic to or out of touch with the transgender community . Some of the actors in the Harry Potter series, including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson publicly opposed the author, while others, including Ralph Fiennes , Helena Bonham Carter , and Robbie Coltrane expressed support.

Biography Online

J.K.Rowling Biography

J.K Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury, July 31st, 1965. Her childhood was generally happy, although she does remember getting teased because of her name, “Rowling” – She recalls often getting called “Rowling pin” by her less than ingenious school friends. J.K. Rowling says she never really warmed to her own name, although, she does remember having a fondness for the name Potter from quite an early age. J.K.Rowling studied at St Michael’s Primary School in Gloucestershire, before moving to Chepstow, South Wales at the age of nine.

From an early age, J.K. Rowling had the ambition to be a writer. She often tried her hand at writing, although little came from her early efforts. Aged six she wrote a book about a rabbit with measles. After her mother praised her effort. Rowling replied ‘well get it published then.’ She admits it was a ‘Bit of an odd thing for a child of six to think. I don’t know where it came from…”

In her own autobiography, she remembers with great fondness, when her good friend Sean became the first person to give her the confidence that one day she would be able to make a very good writer.

“he was also the only person who thought I was bound to be a success at it, which meant much more to me than I ever told him at the time” (1)

Sean was also the owner of a battered old Ford Anglia, which would later appear in one of the Harry Potter series as a flying car.

After having spent a year in Paris, J.K.Rowling graduated from university and took various jobs in London. One of her favourite jobs was working for Amnesty International; the charity, which campaigns against human rights abuses throughout the world. Amnesty International, is one of the many charities, which J.K.Rowling has generously supported since she attained a new found wealth.

It was in 1990 that J.K.Rowling first conceived of the idea about Harry Potter. As she recalls, it was on a long train journey from Manchester to London when she began forming in her mind, the characters of the series. At the forefront, was a young boy, at that time not aware that he was a wizard. The train was delayed for over four hours, but she didn’t have a pen and was too shy to ask for one nothing,

“To my immense frustration, I didn’t have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one.”

But she remembers being very enthusiastic, and excited about the ideas which were filling her mind.

On arriving at her flat in Clapham Junction, she began work on writing the book immediately, although, it would take several years to come to fruition.

It was also in December of 1990 that J.K.Rowling lost her mother, who died of Multiple Sclerosis. J.K.Rowling was very close to her mother, and she felt the loss deeply. Her own loss gave an added poignancy to the death of Harry Potter’s mother in her book. She says her favourite scene in the Philosopher’s Stone is, The Mirror of Erised, where Harry sees his parents in the mirror.

In 1991, J.K.Rowling left England to get a job as an English teacher in Portugal. It was here that she met her first husband, Jorge Arantes – and together they had a child Jessica. However, after a couple of years, the couple split after a fierce argument; where by all accounts J.K.Rowling was thrown out of the house.

In Dec 1993, Rowling returned to the UK, moving to Edinburgh where she tried to finish her first book. She was surviving on state benefits and bringing up her daughter as a single parent. She would often go to Edinburgh cafes to work on the book whilst her child had a nap.

Eventually, she finished her first copy of “ The Philosopher’s Stone ”, and sent it off to various agents. She found an agent, Christopher, who spent over a year trying to get a publisher. It was rejected by 12 major publishing houses. But, eventually, a quite small publisher, Bloomsbury agreed to take the book on. The editor Barry Cunningham also agreed to pay her an advance of £1500. The decision to take on the book was, in large part, due to his eight-year-old daughter’s enthusiastic reception of the first chapter (However she was advised to continue her training as a teacher because she was told writers of children’s books don’t tend to get very well paid.)

“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.”

– J.K.Rowling [1]

Within a few weeks of publication, (1996) book sales really started to take off. The initial print run was of only 1,000 – 500 of which went to libraries. First editions are now said to be worth up to £25,000 each. She also received a grant from the Scottish arts council, which enabled her to write full time. After the books initial success in the UK, an American company Scholastic agreed to pay a remarkable £100,000 for the rights to publish in America. In 1998, Warner Bros secured the film rights to the books, giving a seven-figure sum. The films have magnified the success of the books, making Harry Potter into one of the most recognisable media products. Under the close guidance of J.K.Rowling, the films have sought to stay close to the original plot; also at J.K.Rowling’s request, all the actors are British and are filmed in Britain.

On the 21st December 2006, J.K.Rowling finished her final book of the Harry Potter Series – “ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ” (Amazon). The book was released in July 2007, becoming one of the fastest selling books of all time. J.K.Rowling has said the book is her favourite, and it makes her both happy and sad. She has said she will continue writing but there is little chance of continuing the Harry Potter Series. She has published a dictionary of things related to Hogwarts and Harry Potter, that were never published in other books.

Since the end of her Harry Potter series, she says she has finished some short stories, she also hinted on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1st October 2010, that an 8th book in the Harry Potter series is a possibility.

On 27 September 2012, Rowling released the ‘Casual Vacancy’ an adult novel – to mixed reviews. In 2013, The Cuckoo’s Calling was published. Initially, the author was stated as being Robert Galbraith. But, this was a pseudonym used by J.K.Rowling. After her authorship was discovered, sales went through the roof.

J.K.Rowling and Media

J.K.Rowling has sought to protect her children from media intrusion. In 2011, she gave testimony to the Leverson enquiry about how unscrupulous reporters sought to intrude into her family’s privacy. After her books became best-sellers, reporters would often be camped outside her home. J.K. Rowling said:

“However, as interest in Harry Potter and myself increased, my family and I became the target of a different kind of journalistic activity. The effect on me, and our family life, truly cannot be overstated. We were literally driven out of the first house I had ever owned (which faced almost directly onto the street) because of journalists banging on the door, questioning the neighbours and sitting in parked cars immediately outside the gate. Old friendships were tested as journalists turned up on their doorsteps, and offered money for stories on me. “(J.K.Rowling’s Testimony to Leveson Enquiry Nov 2011.)

After finding a letter from a journalist in her child’s satchel, she remarked:

“It’s very difficult to say how angry I felt that my 5-year-old daughter’s school was no longer a place of complete security from journalists.”

J.K.Rowling currently lives in Scotland, on the banks of the River Tay, with her 2nd husband Neil Murray; J.K.Rowling has three children, two with husband Neil.

Inspiration to write

Speaking on a BBC Radio Programme “The Museum of Curiosity”, 23 December 2019, Rowling talked about the process by which she writes. She says she imagines she walks through a forest towards a lake. At the lake, she waits for an inspiration to emerge from its depth. Then she takes this back to her cottage where she has to polish the dream-like inspiration until it is in a fit state to publish. To Rowling, writing is a dual process – gaining inspiration from an unknown source and then working on the inspiration to make it a solid reality. She prefaced the story by saying she was reluctant to explain her process as it was difficult to explain.

Wealth of J.K.Rowling

In 2017, according to Forbes, her estimated wealth stands at $650 million, it would be higher but she has donated substantial sums to charity. The global Harry Potter brand is estimated to be worth £7 billion.

Charity Work of J.K.Rowling

J.K.Rowling has contributed considerable sums to charities she supports. This includes:

• Anti-Poverty . She is President of the Charity – One Parent Families
• Multiple sclerosis . She has contributed money to the research and treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, which her mother suffered from.
• Lumos – helping institutionalised children in Eastern Europe

Political Views

She has publically supported the Labour party. In 2008, she donated £1 million to the Labour party, saying she felt vulnerable families would be better off under a Labour government. She describes her political hero as Robert F.Kennedy.

Religious Views

J.K.Rowling states that she considers herself a Christian, and attends a local Church of Scotland congregation. She said, that unlike other members in her family, she often had a deep interest in religion, and would go to churches alone. However, she also says that although she believes in God, at times she doubts her faith.

“I feel very drawn to religion, but at the same time I feel a lot of uncertainty. I live in a state of spiritual flux. I believe in the permanence of the soul.”

– J.K.Rowling (2008, interview in El Pais – a Spanish Newspaper)

More facts about J.K. Rowling

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. “ Biography J.K. Rowling” , Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net – 12th Dec. 2016, Last Updated. 6th 28 December 2019.

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J. K. Rowling was born in 1965, and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent. She studied at Exeter University, where she gained a French and Classics degree, and where her course included one year in Paris. As a postgraduate she moved to London to work at Amnesty International, doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa.

She started writing the Harry Potter series during a Manchester to London King's Cross train journey, and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first novel.

This first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), was an unprecedented success. The novels in the series which have succeeded it have topped bestseller lists, won numerous awards, and been translated into over sixty languages. Worldwide, the Harry Potter books have exceeded sales of 300 million copies.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released as a film in 2001, adapted by Steve Kloves, and an adaptation of the second novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), was released in November 2002. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (directed by Alfonso Cuaron) followed in 2004, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , directed by Mike Newell, was released in November 2005 in the UK and US. The subsequent film adaptations - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince , and the two-parter Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - were directed by David Yates and released between 2007 and 2011.

J. K. Rowling's initial aim was to write seven books in the Harry Potter series. The fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,  was published in 2003, and the sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in 2005. The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , was published in 2007. She has also written two small volumes which appear as the titles of Harry's school books within the novels - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages, which were published in 2001 in aid of Comic Relief.

J. K. Rowling has honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, US, University of Exeter, University of St Andrews, Napier University, Edinburgh, and University of Edinburgh. She was awarded an OBE for her services to children's literature in 2001, and became an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002. In 2010 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award and in 2012, she was awarded the Freedom of the City of London.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels, published between 1997 and 2007, have become the biggest sellers in the history of children’s writing. She founded the children’s charity ‘Lumos’, which aims to end the institutionalisation of children in orphanages worldwide. In November 2013, The Independent newspaper reported that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) topped a poll to find Britain’s favourite children’s book.

Her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy , was published in 2012; she also published the crime novels  The Cuckoo's Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015) and Lethal White (2018) under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. In 2016 she collaborated with the playwright Jack Thorne and theatre director John Tiffany; together they created the story for the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , the script of which was written by Thorne.

Critical perspective

In the opening scene of harry potter and the philosopher’s stone (1997), an owl and a cat observe the safe arrival of an orphan baby at the door of the dursley family of number four, privet drive, little whinging, in surrey. the owl is headmaster dumbledore of hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, while the cat is professor mcgonagall, who re-assumes human form to declare of baby harry: ‘every child in our world will know his name’ could any author have ever written a more prophetic sentence its meaning unfolds over the course of seven volumes of epic adventures for the schoolboy wizard in the world of magic - and of course is now equally true in our own non-magical world of ‘muggles’. the unprecedented commercial success of the books, several big box-office films, and a great deal of merchandise and publicity have ensured that ‘harry potter’ continues to be one of the most recognizable brand names in the world – and j.k. rowling herself is no doubt the best-known british author worldwide..

The key factor in the ‘Harry Potter’ phenomenon seems in retrospect to have been the eagerness with which adult readers embraced a saga originally intended for the children’s book market. The supreme storytelling qualities of the books, crowded with quirky characters, developing year by school year towards a final climactic conflict between Good and Evil, the witty inventiveness and slyly satirical exchanges; all this, and much more, has vastly entertained readers of all ages and nations. The books have had a marked impact upon the publishing industry, promoting fantasy literature for both children and adults. Perhaps their most beneficial effect has been to make reading a fashionable activity again, whether in private or public. The journalist Allison Pearson commended ‘Harry Potter’ for what she called ‘the dense, knitted, pleasurable sound of children reading’ ( Daily Telegraph,  27 September 2012).

Critics were quick to point out the extent to which the books are indebted to previous classic children’s authors, from Ursula LeGuin to Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton to T.H. White and Tolkien (not forgetting Tom Brown’s Schooldays or Anthony Buckeridge’s amusing ‘Jennings’ books of boarding school life). A less-remarked precedent is the Gothic Novel. Hogwarts after all is a place haunted by ghosts, with monsters in its bowels, moving portraits, disappearing rooms and secret passageways, plus the ever-present threat of Dark Forces. Outside is the Forbidden Forest complete with centaurs, spiders the size of horses, hippogriffs and other magical creatures (the latter under the erratic control of kindly half-giant Hagrid, Harry’s special friend). What sets J.K. Rowling apart, however, is her ability to construct a fantasy realm in fantastic detail, alternate funny and scary episodes, while sustaining readers’ interest to the point of addiction. We really must know what happens in the next chapter, the next book. The years that Rowling reputedly spent in planning the overall architecture of the story were well spent. As author she acts as a good teacher, directing the lessons (we as readers learn wizardry alongside Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione, school bully Draco Malfoy and his cronies), ending each year with a satisfying competition between rival houses or schools.

Such a vast drama requires a good supporting cast: eccentric teachers (Snape, Slughorn, Lupin, Trelawney) and pupils variously appealing or objectionable. The latter naturally grow up over the course of seven years from childhood into teenagers, so romantic entanglements complicate the action of the last few books. Harry himself is attracted to Cho Chang and, more lastingly, to Ginny Weasley. The beauty of Hogwarts as a concept is that it is simultaneously old-fashioned (a steam train from Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross starts each year) and contemporary (in its co-educational and multicultural ethos). Pupils have to pass exams, cope with bullying, and have the latest items from Diagon Alley’s magical shopping. The school itself comes under increasing pressure from the Ministry of Magic.

Harry is the Arthurian hero, guided and protected by Dumbledore (Merlin by analogy) until he is able to undertake his destiny: to avenge the killing of his parents by arch-enemy Lord Voldemort. Essential to the saga is the progressive revelation of Voldemort’s own back-story, his family history, and his ambition: to not only rule the magical world but to defeat death itself. In his evil desires he thus becomes a true tragic hero. The parallels between these two orphans grow ever closer as their final confrontation looms in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007).

We recall that Harry began life in Little Whinging, suburban Surrey, being grudgingly raised for his first ten years by the awful Dursley family. Their grotesque domestic habits and class-conscious obnoxiousness seem to connect with at least some of the inhabitants of Pagford, the ‘picturesque’ village in which Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy (2012), is centered. But Pagford and its downmarket neighbour Yarvill contain no magic; what they do have is a myriad of serious domestic problems and troubled children. The plot concerns the sudden death of a popular teacher and councillor, Barry Fairbrother, and the machinations that ensue as factions on the local council seek to fill the vacancy to their advantage. It is fair to say that the novel has had a very mixed reception. Some commentators have praised its acute social satire and bold difference from Rowling’s previous fiction. Others, notably Allison Pearson, have called it ‘a shock’ to readers, ‘sometimes funny’ but by the conclusion ‘howlingly bleak’ ( Daily Telegraph , 27 September 2012).

Rowling’s skill at coordinating a large cast of adults and children is again evident. The opening scenes in which news of Fairbrother’s demise spreads around the village, and numerous infidelities revealed, are excellent. The most compelling characters are teenagers: feckless Krystal Weedon, self-harming but plucky Sukwinder, and especially Fats. His arrogant determination to disregard ‘restrictive morality’ and be ‘the baddest of them all’ is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Riddle. Indeed, as Allison Pearson points out, ‘Harry Potter’ too contains evil acts, deaths and sadness but also redemption. Joanne Rowling’s ‘powers of enchantment’ will no doubt be regenerated to enthrall her international readership in future books.

Dr Jules Smith, updated 2013

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How J.K. Rowling went from struggling single mom to the world's most successful author

J.K. Rowling 's life is a classic rags-to-riches story. Her parents never received a college education, she lived for years with government assistance as a single mother, and overcame a dozen rejections from publishers to become, almost overnight, one of the most successful and widely read authors in the history of the world.

After a couple of decades of "Harry Potter," Rowling has turned the boy wizard into an entertainment franchise including books , movies , a play , a theme park, and more. Here's how the author found her path to success.

J.K. Rowling — born Joanne Rowling — grew up in Gloucestershire, England, and always knew she wanted to be an author.

Rowling was constantly writing and telling stories to her younger sister, Dianne.

"Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit," Rowling said in a 1998 interview . "He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee. And ever since Rabbit and Miss Bee, I have wanted to be a writer, though I rarely told anyone so."

When she was nine, Rowling moved near the Forest of Dean, which figures prominently in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and spent the rest of her childhood there.

Her parents married when they were 20, and neither attended college: Her father was an aircraft engineer at Rolls Royce and her mother was a high school science technician.

"I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels," Rowling said in her 2008 Harvard University commencement speech . "However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

Rowling had difficult years when she was younger.

Rowling never had it as bad as Harry living with the Dursleys, but she described her teenage years as being filled with difficulty.

" I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life," she told the New Yorker .

When Rowling was 15, her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She died a decade later, before Rowling became a published author. Later on, one of her philanthropic projects was founding the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at the University of Edinburgh with a gift of $16 million.

After graduating from college, she had a stint working for Amnesty International.

The author studied French at the University of Exeter, graduating in 1986. According to her official biography , she "read so widely outside her French and Classics syllabus that she clocked up a fine of £50 for overdue books at the University library." Her Classics knowledge was later used when she came up with the names for spells in the "Harry Potter" series .

After graduating, Rowling worked at the research desk for Amnesty International, doing translation work. She found the work important — "I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them," she said — but it didn't suit her, as she said in a later interview .

" I am one of the most disorganized people in the world and, as I later proved, the worst secretary ever," she said. "All I ever liked about working in offices was being able to type up stories on the computer when no-one was looking. I was never paying much attention in meetings because I was usually scribbling bits of my latest stories in the margins of the pad, or choosing excellent names for the characters."

In 1990, she began planning out the "Harry Potter" series.

On a delayed train from Manchester to London's King's Cross station, Rowling came up with the idea for "Harry Potter." Over the next five years, she outlined the plots for seven books in the series, writing in longhand and amassing scraps of notes written on different papers. Separately, she also  started working on an adult novel that she never finished .

The most traumatizing day of her life, Rowling said , was on New Year's Day in 1991, when her mother died, when Rowling was 25.

"Dad called me at seven o'clock the next morning and I just knew what had happened before he spoke," she told The Telegraph in a 2006 interview . "As I ran downstairs, I had that kind of white noise panic in my head but could not grasp the enormity of my mother having died. ... Barely a day goes by when I do not think of her. There would be so much to tell her, impossibly much."

At 26, she moved to Portugal to teach English. There, she got married, and had a daughter.

Fed up with secretary work, Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, and taught English to students. There, she met and married  Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes and had a child, Jessica — named after Jessica Mitford, one of her favorite authors — in July 1993. (Rowling previously had a miscarriage, in 1992, according to The Scotsman .) By November of 1993, the couple had separated.

In Porto, Rowling started a "book [that] was about a boy who found out he was a wizard and was sent off to wizard school." When she moved back to Britain, at the end of 1993, she had "half a suitcase was full of papers covered with stories about Harry Potter."

She lived in a small flat while going to cafes to write "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Without a job, Rowling visited different  Edinburgh cafés and hunkered down to write her first novel on a typewriter . She often brought along Jessica, who slept in a pram next to her.

During that period, Rowling lived off government welfare.

"I couldn’t have written this book if I hadn’t had a few years where I’ d been really as poor as it’s possible to go in the UK without being homeless," Rowing said in 2012 . "We were on welfare, what we call welfare, I would call benefits, for a couple years."

The experience helped define her political activism later in life. She frequently criticizes politicians who attempt to cut back on government welfare programs. She's also talked about how the "single mother" label followed her throughout her career, and became the president of Gingerbread, a 100-year-old organization that supports single parents and their children.

"I was a Single Parent, and a 'Single Parent On Benefits' to boot. Patronage was almost as hard to bear as stigmatization." she wrote in an essay . "I would say to any single parent currently feeling the weight of stereotype or stigmatization that I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life."

She considered committing suicide.

It wasn't an easy period for her. In a 2008 interview with the Sunday Times, Rowling said she was severely depressed and sought professional help.

"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable,'" Rowling said . "Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted."

Elsewhere, Rowling said that she used her experience of depression to describe the Dementors in her "Harry Potter" books.

"It was entirely conscious," Rowling told The Times . "And entirely from my own experience. Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced."

Rowling has attended therapy sessions to treat her depression at other times in life as well, she told The Guardian , like during the period where she became very famous very quickly.

"For a few years I did feel I was on a psychic treadmill, trying to keep up with where I was," she said. "I had to do it again when my life was changing so suddenly — and it really helped. I'm a big fan of it, it helped me a lot."

In 1995, Rowling finished the first "Harry Potter" book and sent it to publishers — where it was roundly rejected.

Like many other authors, Rowling received a lot of rejection letters. Her book was accepted by Christopher Little, an "obscure London literary agent," according to the New Yorker . Twelve publishers rejected it .

Rowling finally signed a deal with a small publisher that made her pick a pen name.

After a year, Little made a deal to print 500 copies of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" with Bloomsbury, a relatively young publishing company, and secured her a £2,500 advance.

The publisher anticipated that boys may not want to read books written by a woman, so it suggested she pick a pen name with two initials. The "J" stands for Joanne, her real name. She has no middle name, so she picked "K" for "Kathleen," which was the name of her paternal grandmother.

"Philosopher's Stone" appeared in print in 1997.

The book was a hit.

By March of 1999, 300,000 copies were sold in the UK . "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" won numerous awards, including the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, which is voted by both adults and children. In the United States, Rowling sold the book to Scholastic, which distributes it under the title "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," for more than $100,000, an unprecedented amount at the time. Then she bought her own apartment.

In 1998, Warner Bros. bought the film rights to the first two "Harry Potter" books.

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the second book in the series, was sold in the UK in July of 1998, also to huge acclaim and sales. (It took another year for Scholastic to publish it in the United States.) In October, Rowling announced that she signed a seven-figure deal with Warner Bros. to adapt the books into movies.

By the time the movie series finished its run with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2" in 2011, it was the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time . But it was still a risk for the movie studio: No one knew when or how the series would end, and Rowling made significant demands over details like licensing toys with fast food companies.

The release of "Goblet of Fire" in 2000 represented a huge jump in popularity.

Rowling's first three "Harry Potter" books — "Sorcerer's Stone," "Chamber of Secrets," and "Prisoner of Azkaban" all made Rowling even more popular.

Writing her next book, "Goblet of Fire," was an intense experience. At 636 pages, it was twice as long as "Azkaban" yet written in the same one-year timespan. Her publishers coordinated to release the book simultaneously around the world for the first time, putting pressure on her to finish it on deadline. During that period, Rowling was also involved in making the movie version of the first "Harry Potter" book.

After the book's release, Rowling slowed down her writing pace. She told Bloomsbury she couldn't write her next book in just one year.

"The pressure of it had become overwhelming," she told the New Yorker . "I found it difficult to write, which had never happened to me before in my life. The intensity of the scrutiny was overwhelming. I had been utterly unprepared for that. And I needed to step back. Badly needed to step back."

Rowling also later talked about how she hadn't had time to process the level of her fame. She hadn't (yet) purchased an expensive mansion or yacht; she'd been focusing on finishing her books and on her personal relationships. Taking some time to breathe was necessary for her mental health.

"I needed to stop and I needed to try to come to terms with what had happened to me," Rowling told the Times of London in 2003 . "I couldn’t grasp what had happened. And I don’t think many people could have done. The thing got so huge."

After "Goblet of Fire," Rowling kept writing, though. She published two short supplementary books in 2001 — "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and "Quidditch Through the Ages" — the profits of which went to charity. "Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix," her longest book, was released in 2003.

The first "Harry Potter" movie made nearly $1 billion.

The 2001 movie adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (or "Philosopher's," depending on where you lived) was a box office juggernaut. Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, and a stable of classically-trained British actors rounding out the cast, it was an enormous undertaking. The Christopher Columbus-directed movie grossed $974.8 million at the box office and paved the way for what would become the most successful movie franchise in history.

A month after the movie's release, she got remarried.

In a private ceremony, Rowling married Neil Murray, a Scottish doctor. (They had a son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, in 2003.)

She was so famous that she wore a disguise when she bought her wedding dress.

"I just wanted to be able to get married to Neil without any rubbish happening," she told The Guardian .

Rowling makes sure she isn't a billionaire.

In 2004, Forbes reported that Rowling was the first person to become a billionaire (in US dollars) by writing books. Later, she dropped off the list because she gave so much money to charity.

In addition to her creative work, she's a major philanthropist.

Rowling has founded and supported dozens of charities with her fortune. In 2003, she said she sets aside one day a week to do "charity stuff."

One of them is Comic Relief, an anti-poverty charity that gets the proceeds from sales of the "Quidditch Through the Ages" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" books. She is also the president of Gingerbread, which supports single parents, and she has donated millions to the study of multiple sclerosis, which her mother suffered from before her death.

Her biggest effort may be Lumos, named for the "Harry Potter" spell that conjures light. The organization seeks to end the institutionalization of children. All of the proceeds from sales of "Tales of Beedle the Bard" go to the charity.

Rowling also wrote and auctioned off a prequel short story from the "Harry Potter" universe, about James Potter and Sirius Black escaping a few muggle cops. The copy was later stolen .

She finishes the book series in 2007.

In 2007, Rowling finishes the series with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." It is the fastest-selling book of all time. The seven books, in total, have sold more than 450 million copies  and have been translated into 67 languages.

The year also sees the release of the "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" movie adaptation, and Rowling publishes "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," a companion book to the series, in December.

Rowling was heavily involved with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, Orlando.

In 2010, Universal Studios opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter , a theme park that recreated Hogsmeade, let attendants pick a magical wand, and ride a roller coaster through Hogwarts or on a Hippogriff. It's so popular that attendance at Universal Studios increased by 66% at its first full year, and it's now within striking distance of Disney, which ruled the theme park industry for decades.

Bloomberg reported that Rowling involved herself in every minutiae of the project, banning hamburgers, pizza, and Coca-Cola and instead ensuring that only British-style food would be served. Engineers proclaimed Rowling's sketches for Hogsmeade's wonky, surrealistic buildings as architecturally impossible, but eventually they figured it out anyway.

2011 is another major year for her: The last "Harry Potter" movie is released.

The eighth and last "Harry Potter" movie, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2," (the final book was split into two movies) is released and breaks the record for the biggest opening weekend of all time. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint say goodbye to the roles that will define their careers for the rest of their lives. It's the end of a major chapter for "Harry Potter" and for millions of fans.

Then she released a treasure trove of trivia.

Rowling had long promised an encyclopedia that would index every factoid from her wide-ranging magical universe. In late 2011, it came in a different form than expected: as a website. Pottermore launched as a sort of hybrid game and "Harry Potter" Wikipedia, where users could sign up, get sorted into a Hogwarts house, and win points while also reading bits of information about different elements of the "Harry Potter" universe.

Some of the entries were illuminating, like the tragic backstory on Professor McGonagall . Others, like the ingredients that go into different potions, were more trivial. Still, it delighted hardcore fans. Since 2011, Pottermore has moved away from the game component and acted more as a depository for Rowling's material. She's expanded it , and added things like short stories about the founding of Ilvermorny, the American wizarding school , and a family history for Harry Potter .

The next year, Rowling released her first non-"Harry Potter" novel.

The release of "A Casual Vacancy" was anticipated with some uncertainty and trepidation. It was said to be about local politics in a small British town , and be decidedly about adult life and sex and other stuff that never made it into the books she wrote about child wizards. When it was released in September 2012, the reactions were mixed but mostly positive . Some dismissed it as an example of the limits of Rowling's imagination, others praised it for an incisive, if sprawling, look at social issues that effect people living in the U.K.

She secretly wrote a book under a male pseudonym.

Reports surfaced in 2012 that Rowling was working on a crime novel, but the author stayed silent about what she'd write next.

In April of 2013, Little Brown published "The Cuckoo's Calling," about the fictional detective Cormoran Strike and his ambitious assistant Robin Ellacott. It was purported to have been written by a guy named Robert Galbraith. Reviews were good and sales were unremarkable.

A family friend of one of Rowling's lawyers let slip that Galbraith was, in fact, a pen name for J.K. Rowling. On Amazon, sales of "The Cuckoo's Calling" rose by more than 150,000% .  She's since written two more "Cormoran Strike" novels, "The Silkworm" and "Career of Evil," and said she plans to write more "Strike" novels than "Harry Potter." The books are being adapted into a miniseries for the BBC.

Throughout her career, Rowling has been politically active.

Rowling is known for her leftist political views, generally supporting Britain's Labour Party (though she is not supportive of Jeremy Corbyn, the party's current leader). She donated £1 million to the party in 2008 and frequently cites her experience living off of government benefits while she was writing "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" when politicians threaten to cut funding for similar programs.

In 2014, Rowling, a citizen of Scotland, vocally opposed Scotland leaving Great Britain in the Scottish referendum. She donated  £1 million to the campaign to stay. And in 2016, she campaigned against Brexit.

In 2016, Rowling released a "Harry Potter" prequel play and sequel movie.

Last year was another landmark year for "Harry Potter." The play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" premiered in London, with a book version released around the world in July. Finally, "Harry Potter" fans had another chance to go to a bookstore at midnight and buy a new entry in the series.

The play was written with John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. Its story begins 19 years after the events of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and it concerns the next generation of wizards that followed in the wake of Harry , Ron , and Hermione .

"It was 17 years and just because I’ve stopped on the page doesn’t mean my imagination stopped," Rowling told The Guardian . "It’s like running a very long race. You can’t just stop dead at the finishing line. I had some material and some ideas and themes, and we three made a story."

Later that year, the first movie in a spinoff series, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," was released.

Instead of outsourcing screenplay duties to Steve Kloves, who wrote the "Harry Potter" movies, Rowling wrote the screenplay for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" herself. (Kloves remains a producer for the new series.) It takes place 70 years earlier than "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and concerns the adventures of Newt Scamander, a "magizoologist" whose magical animals escape his enchanted briefcase while he's on a trip in New York.

Starring Eddie Redmayne as Scamander, the movie was a box office and critical success . In the movie , Rowling expanded her universe even further , introducing new magical concepts and characters .

She plans four more movies in the series , and signs indicate that the storyline will eventually end up with Albus Dumbledore (to be played by Jude Law) dueling Gellert Grindelwald (played by Johnny Depp) , an important event that foreshadows the "Harry Potter" series . Her screenplay was also published as a book.

Up next: More "Fantastic Beasts" movies, "Cuckoo's Calling" books, and a worldwide tour of "Cursed Child."

The next Cormoran Strike book, "Lethal White," will arrive on September 18, followed by "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" on November 16. The most successful author alive isn't stopping anytime soon.

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Who Is J.K. Rowling?

J. K. Rowling is the author of the hugely popular Harry Potter books.

Dates: July 31, 1965 --

Also Known As Joanne Rowling, Jo Rowling

J. K. Rowling's Childhood

J.K. Rowling was born at Yate General Hospital as Joanne Rowling (with no middle name) on July 31, 1965, in Gloucestershire, England. (Although Chipping Sodbury is often mentioned as her birthplace, her birth certificate says Yate.)

Rowling's parents, Peter James Rowling and Anne Volant, met on a train on their way to join the British navy (the navy for Peter and the Women's Royal Naval Service for Anne). They married a year later, at age 19. At age 20, the young couple became new parents when Joanne Rowling arrived, followed by Joanne's sister, Diane "Di," 23 months later.

When Rowling was young, the family moved twice. At age four, Rowling and her family moved to Winterbourne. It was here that she met a brother and sister who lived in her neighborhood with the last name Potter.

At age nine, Rowling moved to Tutshill. The timing of the second move was clouded by the death of Rowling's favorite grandmother, Kathleen. Later, when Rowling was asked to use initials as a pseudonym for the Harry Potter books to attract more boy readers, Rowling chose "K" for Kathleen as her second initial to honor her grandmother.

At age eleven, Rowling began attending the Wyedean School, where she worked hard for her grades and was terrible at sports. Rowling says that the character Hermione Granger is loosely based on Rowling herself at this age.

At age 15, Rowling was devastated when given the news that her mother had become seriously ill with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease. Instead of ever entering remission, Rowling's mother grew increasingly sick.

Rowling Goes to College

Pressured by her parents to become a secretary, Rowling attended the University of Exeter beginning at age 18 (1983) and studied French. As part of her French program, she lived in Paris for a year.

After college, Rowling stayed in London and worked at several jobs, including at Amnesty International.

The Idea for Harry Potter

While on a train to London in 1990, having just spent the weekend apartment-hunting in Manchester, Rowling came up with the concept for Harry Potter. The idea, she says, "simply fell into my head."

Pen-less at the time, Rowling spent the remainder of her train-ride dreaming about the story and began to write it down as soon as she arrived home.

Rowling continued to write snippets about Harry and Hogwarts but wasn't done with the book when her mother died on December 30, 1990. Her mother's death hit Rowling hard. In an attempt to escape the sorrow, Rowling accepted a job teaching English in Portugal.

Her mother's death translated into more realistic and complex feelings for Harry Potter about his parents' deaths.

Rowling Becomes a Wife and Mother

In Portugal, Rowling met Jorge Arantes and the two married on October 16, 1992. Although the marriage proved a bad one, the couple had one child together, Jessica (born July 1993). After getting divorced on November 30, 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinburgh to be near Rowling's sister, Di, at the end of 1994.

The First Harry Potter Book

Before starting another full-time job, Rowling was determined to finish her Harry Potter manuscript. Once she had completed it, she typed it up and sent it to several literary agents.

After acquiring an agent, the agent shopped around for a publisher. After a year of searching and a number of publishers turning it down, the agent finally found a publisher willing to print the book. Bloomsbury made an offer for the book in August 1996.

Rowling's first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ( Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the U.S. title) became hugely popular, attracting an audience of young boys and girls as well as adults. With the public demanding more, Rowling quickly got to work on the following six books, with the last one published in July 2007.

Hugely Popular

In 1998, Warner Bros. bought the film rights and since then, extremely popular movies have been made of the books. From the books, the films, and the merchandise bearing Harry Potter images, Rowling has become one of the richest people in the world.

Rowling Marries Again

Between all of this writing and publicity, Rowling remarried on December 26, 2001, to Dr. Neil Murray. In addition to her daughter Jessica from her first marriage, Rowling has two additional children: David Gordon (born March 2003) and Mackenzie Jean (born January 2005).

The Harry Potter Books

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (June 26, 1997, in U.K.) (called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S., September 1998)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (July 2, 1998, in U.K.) (June 2, 1999, in the U.S.)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (July 8, 2000, in both U.K. and U.S.)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (June 21, 2003, in both U.K. and U.S.)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 16, 2005, in both U.K. and U.S.)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (July 21, 2007, in both U.K. and U.S.)
• J. K. Rowling Family Tree
• 28 Lighthearted Quotes and Dialogue From the Harry Potter Series
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• Top Colleges for Harry Potter Fans
• The Harry Potter Controversy
• Are, Hour, and Our: How to Choose the Right Word
• 10th (or 11th) Grade Reading List
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J. K. Rowling

British author and philanthropist (born 1965) / from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, dear wikiwand ai, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:.

Can you list the top facts and stats about J. K. Rowling?

Summarize this article for a 10 year old

Joanne Rowling CH OBE FRSL ( / ˈ r oʊ l ɪ ŋ / ROH -ling ; [1] born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling , is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter , a seven-volume fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600   million copies , been translated into 84   languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games . The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike , an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith .

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire , Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author.

The novels follow a boy called Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts (a school for wizards), and battles Lord Voldemort . Death and the divide between good and evil are the central themes of the series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school stories , fairy tales , and Christian allegory . The series revived fantasy as a genre in the children's market, spawned a host of imitators, and inspired an active fandom . Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers see Rowling's writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series .

Rowling has won many accolades for her work. She has received an OBE and made a Companion of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her wealth and recognition, which she has used to advance philanthropic endeavours and political causes. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. In politics, she has donated to Britain's Labour Party and opposed Scottish independence and Brexit . Her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017 have been described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations . They have divided feminists , fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture , and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors.

J.K. Rowling

• Born July 31 , 1965 · Yate, Gloucestershire, England, UK
• Birth name Joanne Rowling
• Height 5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
• Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol, a few miles south of a town called Dursley ("Harry Potter"'s Muggle-family). Her father Peter Rowling was an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol at this time. Her mother, Anne, was half-French and half-Scottish. They met on a train as it left King's Cross Station in London. Her sister Diana is about 2 years younger than Joanne. In 1971, Peter Rowling moved his family to the nearby village of Winterbourne (still in the Bristol vicinity). During the family's residence in Winterbourne, Jo and Di Rowling were friends with neighborhood children, Ian and Vikki Potter. In 1974, the Rowling family moved yet again, this time to Tutshill, near the Welsh border-town of Chepstow in the Forest of Dean and across the Severn River from the greater Bristol area. Rowling admits to having been a bit of a daydreamer as a child and began writing stories at the age of six. After leaving Exeter University, where she read French and Classics, she started work as a teacher but daydreamed about becoming a writer. One day, stuck on a delayed train for four hours between Manchester and London, she dreamed up a boy called "Harry Potter". That was in 1990. It took her six years to write the book. In the meantime, she went to teach in Portugal, married a Portuguese television journalist, had her daughter, Jessica, divorced her husband and returned to Britain when Jessica was just three months old. She went to live in Edinburgh to be near her sister, Di. Her sudden penury made her realize that it was "back-against-the-wall time" and she decided to finish her "Harry Potter" book. She sent the manuscript to two agents and one publisher, looking up likely prospects in the library. One of these agents that she picked at random based on the fact that she liked his name, Christopher Little, was immediately captivated by the manuscript and signed her on as his client within three days. During the 1995-1996 time-frame, while hoping to get the manuscript for "Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone" published, Rowling worked as a French teacher in Edinburgh. Several publishers turned down the manuscript before Bloomsbury agreed to purchase it in 1996. - IMDb Mini Biography By: [email protected]
• Spouses Neil Murray (December 26, 2001 - present) (2 children) Jorge Arantes (October 16, 1992 - November 30, 1993) (divorced, 1 child)
• Children Jessica Isabel Rowling-Arantes David Gordon Rowling-Murray Mackenzie Jean Rowling-Murray
• Parents Peter Rowling Anne Rowling
• Relatives Diana Rowling (Sibling)
• Was inspired to create the character of Hagrid after overhearing a muscular biker worry that the petunias he cared for were not doing very well.
• When the first "Harry Potter" novel was published, the publisher asked her to use initials rather than her first name, because boys would be biased against a book written by a woman. Since she only had one given name, they then asked her to make up another initial; she took "K." from her favorite grandmother, Kathleen.
• Is the first author billionaire, according to Forbes magazine (2006).
• After spending six years writing the first installment of her "Harry Potter" novels, Rowling was rejected by nine publishers before London's Bloomsbury Publishing signed her on.
• Finished writing the final novel in the fantasy franchise three weeks ago - and marked the occasion by leaving graffiti in a Scottish hotel. Eagle-eyed guests at the five-star Balmoral Hotel spotted a line from the best-selling author scrawled in black pen on the back of a marble bust in a room Rowling occupied. She wrote, "J.K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on January 11, 2007.".
• [Asked by an interviewer about the next "Harry Potter" novel] Well, it will be a papery object with pages inside.
• [on her daughter, Jessica] Kids at her school will sidle up to me and say, "Does Jessica know what happens in book 4? Does Jessica know the title of book 4?" And I keep saying, "No! There is no point kidnapping her, taking her around back of the bike shed, and torturing her for information."
• Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most. Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
• I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them."
• I gave my hero a talent I'd love to have. Who wouldn't want to fly?

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Introduction

(born 1965). British author J.K. Rowling captured the imagination of children and adults alike with her best-selling series of books about Harry Potter , a young sorcerer in training. The books were critically acclaimed as well as wildly popular around the world and were credited with generating a new interest in reading among children, the books’ intended audience.

Joanne Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Yate, near Bristol, England. She grew up in England and in Chepstow, Gwent, Wales. She loved reading and wrote her first story at the age of six. After graduating from the University of Exeter in 1986, Rowling began working for Amnesty International in London, England. The idea for the Harry Potter stories came to her during a train ride in 1990, and she began writing the magic adventure while sitting in cafés and pubs. In the early 1990s she traveled to Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. After a brief marriage and the birth of her daughter, she returned to the United Kingdom, settling in Edinburgh, Scotland. Living on public assistance between work as a French teacher, she continued to write, often on scraps of paper and napkins.

Harry Potter

After being rejected by several publishers, Rowling’s first manuscript was purchased by Bloomsbury Children’s Books in 1996. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997), which was known in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , was an immediate success. It was released under the name J.K. Rowling. (Her publisher recommended a gender-neutral pen name; she used J.K., adding the middle name Kathleen after her grandmother.) Featuring vivid descriptions and an imaginative story line, the book followed the adventures of the unlikely hero Harry Potter, a lonely orphan who discovers that he is actually a wizard and enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book received numerous awards, including the British Book Award. All six succeeding volumes— Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)—were also best sellers.

While working on the Harry Potter books, Rowling wrote the companion books Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages (both 2001) as well as The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2008). They all originated as books read by Harry Potter and his friends within the fictional world of the series. Rowling later cowrote a story that became the basis for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , which premiered in 2016 and was a critical and commercial success. A book version of the script, which was advertised as the eighth story in the Harry Potter series, was published in 2016.

Movie versions of the first seven Harry Potter books appeared between 2001 and 2011. They were as successful as the books and became some of the top-grossing movies in the world. Rowling wrote the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (2016) and for the second movie in the series, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).

Other Works

In 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, Rowling began to release free online installments of a new children’s book,  The Ickabog . Later that year it was published as a book. The fairy tale was unrelated to Harry Potter. She later published  The Christmas Pig  (2021), about a boy who loses his favorite toy and embarks on a quest to find it.

Rowling also wrote fiction intended for adults. In 2012 she published The Casual Vacancy , a contemporary social satire set in a small English town. It was turned into a TV miniseries in 2015. In 2013 it was revealed that Rowling had written the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling , using the pen name Robert Galbraith. The book centered on the detective Cormoran Strike, a down-on-his-luck war veteran. Other books in the series include The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015), Lethal White (2018), and Troubled Blood (2020). A television series based on the books premiered in the United Kingdom in 2017 and in the United States the following year.

Rowling was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2001. In 2009 she was named a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.

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5 Little-Known Facts About How J.K. Rowling Brought Harry Potter to Life

Rowling owes her success to an 8-year-old girl

Like many first-time authors, Rowling struggled to get her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone published. (The name was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States.) The book was rejected by over a dozen publishers. Finally, a small British publisher, Bloomsbury, said yes. Bloomsbury saw the potential of the book because the chairman of the publishing house gave the first chapter to his then 8-year-old daughter, Alice, to read. Upon finishing, she immediately demanded the rest of the book. However, Bloomsbury was not convinced that it had a bestseller on its hands. Rowling’s editor, Barry Cunningham, warned her that she needed to get a day job because it was impossible to make a living writing children’s books.

Rowling made up her middle initial in response to her publisher’s sexism

In addition to assuming that the book would not sell well, the editorial team at Bloomsbury advised Rowling that she should not publish under her real name, Joanne Rowling, because boys would not read a book written by a woman. That sexist assumption certainly did not give much credit to boys, and took it for granted that girls would read a book written by men. Rowling, eager for success, agreed to write under the name J.K. Rowling. The J was her first initial. But Rowling does not have a middle name, so she used K as a tribute to her grandmother, Kathleen.

The names of the houses at Hogwarts were originally written on a barf bag

Rowling likes to write her first drafts in longhand, preferably in black ink. Sometimes she found herself inspired, but short on paper. So she wrote on anything she could find. She told Amazon UK that she used a truly novel paper substitute when she was concocting the name of the Hogwarts houses: “The names of the Hogwarts Houses were created on the back of an aeroplane sick bag. Yes, it was empty.”

The increasingly dark tone of the series was inspired by Rowling’s life experiences

The Harry Potter series becomes considerably more sophisticated as it progresses, grappling with serious issues like death and bigotry. Rowling has been open about the fact that much of the darkness is autobiographical. She told Oprah Winfrey that, though she did not realize it when she began writing the series, making Harry an orphan, along with his subsequent experiences with death, was her way of dealing with the death of her mother, who died of multiple sclerosis when Rowling was 20: “If she hadn't died, I don't think it's too strong to say that there wouldn't be Harry Potter . The books are what they are because she died.”

The Dementors, among the most frightening creatures in the franchise, were inspired by her struggles with depression during her 20s: “It's so difficult to describe to someone who's never been there because it's not sadness. I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling — that really hollowed-out feeling. That's what Dementors are."

Quidditch was based on basketball

Quidditch, the sport of choice at Hogwarts, resembles flying lacrosse in the Harry Potter films. One might imagine that the British Rowling thought of cricket when creating the game. After all, the Quidditch brooms look a little bit like bats. Actually, her inspiration was the all-American basketball. In her Amazon interview, Rowling explained, “I wanted a sport for wizards, and I'd always wanted to see a game where there was more than one ball in play at the same time. The idea just amused me. The Muggle sport it most resembles is basketball, which is probably the sport I enjoy watching most.”

Thanks to the popularity of the books, Quidditch has become an actual sport, with teams at many universities and its own world cup tournament . Rowling approves since she put a lot of effort into making it a fully realized sport: “I had a lot of fun making up the rules and I've still got the notebook I did it in, complete with diagrams, and all the names for the balls I tried before I settled on Snitch, Bludgers and Quaffle.”

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JK Rowling will 'struggle to support' Labour with Starmer's stance on gender

Rowling, who has always denied being transphobic, has been widely condemned in recent years for her views on transgender rights, having claimed that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.

Political reporter

Friday 21 June 2024 23:09, UK

JK Rowling has said she will "struggle to support" Labour if Sir Keir Starmer keeps his current stance on gender recognition.

The Harry Potter author has authored a 2,000-word essay in The Times in which she outlines her dissatisfaction with the Labour Party 's current position.

In the piece, she criticises Sir Keir , as well as shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, shadow equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry.

Election latest: Starmer makes 'Swift pit stop'

Rowling has been outspoken in her belief that biological women should be able to have separate spaces, and trans women - who were born male - should not be allowed access.

She has been criticised for her position, being widely condemned in recent years for her views on transgender rights, for example claiming that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.

Transgender newsreader India Willoughby recently responded to comments by Rowling as "genuinely disgusted".

She added: "Grotesque transphobia, which is upsetting. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling."

Daniel Radcliffe, who became a worldwide star after playing schoolboy wizard Harry in the blockbuster adaptations of the novels, has also criticised her views, and said in an interview last month that the fallout with Rowling " makes me really sad ".

In the article, the author speaks about how she thought she "misheard" Sir Keir in 2021 when he criticised Labour candidate Rosie Duffield for saying only women have a cervix.

Sir Keir was asked about this statement in a recent leaders debate, at which point he said he agreed with Sir Tony Blair that women have vaginas and men have penises.

Rowling says she felt the Labour leader gave "the impression that until Tony Blair sat him down for a chat, he'd never understood how he and his wife had come to produce children".

She added that she "really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt".

In her article, Rowling claims to "have been a Labour voter, a member (no longer), donor (not recently) and campaigner (ditto) all my adult life" - and she wants to see the end of the Conservative government.

According to Electoral Commission records, she gave £1m to the party in 2008, and £8,000 in 2015.

Read more: Troll who threatened to kill Rowling and Duffield avoids jail Rowling accuses Starmer of 'misrepresenting equalities law' Starmer says 99.9% of women 'haven't got a penis'

In the article, the author highlighted Ms Dodds for saying what a woman is "depends on what the context is".

Ms Cooper is criticised for saying she was "not going to get into rabbit holes on this".

Rowling points to Ms Thornberry for saying: "some women will have penises. Frankly, I'm not looking up their skirts, I don't care".

And Mr Lammy draws ire for saying women like Rowling are "dinosaurs hoarding rights".

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The Harry Potter author also claims Mr Lammy said that a cervix is "something you can have following various procedures and hormone treatments".

Rowling wrote: "It's very hard not to suspect that some of these men don't know what a cervix is, but consider it too unimportant to Google."

The NHS definition of the cervix is the opening between the vagina and the womb.

Rowling says the debate for "left-leaning" women like herself "isn't, and never has been, about trans people enjoying the rights of every other citizen, and being free to present and identify however they wish".

Instead, she says it is "about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries".

She adds: "It's about freedom of speech and observable truth.

"It's about waiting, with dwindling hope, for the left to wake up to the fact that its lazy embrace of a quasi-religious ideology is having calamitous consequences."

The author says she met a mother of a girl with learning difficulties who was "smeared as a bigot and a transphobe for wanting female-only intimate care" for her.

"I cannot vote for any politician who takes issue with that mother's words," Rowling adds.

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She concludes: "An independent candidate is standing in my constituency who's campaigning to clarify the Equality Act.

"Perhaps that's where my X will have to go on 4 July.

"As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I'll struggle to support them.

"The women who wouldn't wheesht didn't leave Labour. Labour abandoned them."

Earlier in the day, Sir Keir ruled out lifting the block on the Scottish government's controversial gender reforms.

Sky News has approached the Labour Party for comment.

Related Topics

• Keir Starmer

JK Rowling accuses Labour of abandoning women

• Published 22 June 2024

JK Rowling has criticised Labour for "abandoning" women over its stance on the rights of transgender people.

Writing in the Times , external , the Harry Potter author said she would struggle to vote for Sir Keir Starmer, saying she had a "poor opinion" of his character.

The former Labour donor accused the party under Sir Keir's leadership of a “dismissive and often offensive” approach to women's concerns.

Asked about Rowling's comments, Sir Keir said: "I do respect her and I would point out the long track record Labour has in government of passing really important legislation that has enhanced the rights of women."

He added that "these challenges are never over" and "further progress" was set out in Labour's election manifesto.

Rowling's comments come after Sir Keir appeared to shift his position on transgender rights in Thursday's BBC Question Time election special.

Last year, the Labour leader said "99.9% of women" do not have a penis and in 2021 stated it was "not right" for Labour MP Rosie Duffield to say that "only women have a cervix".

On Thursday night, he said he agreed with former Labour leader Sir Tony Blair's position on the issue, saying "biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis".

Asked about his previous comments on Ms Duffield, he said the debate at the time had become “very toxic, very divided, very hard line”.

In her Times article, Rowling said: "The impression given by Starmer at Thursday's debate was that there had been something unkind, something toxic, something hard line in Rosie's words, even though almost identical words had sounded perfectly reasonable when spoken by Tony Blair."

She added: "For left-leaning women like us this isn't, and never has been, about trans people enjoying the rights of every other citizen and being free to present and identify however they wish.

"This is about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries. It's about freedom of speech and observable truth."

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The author donated £1m to Labour in 2008 but in recent years has been critical of the party's position on gender.

"As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I'll struggle to support them," she wrote in the Times.

Reacting to her comments, a Labour spokesperson said: “Sex and gender are different, as Labour’s Equality Act makes clear.

"That’s why we have consistently said that we will not introduce self ID and that we will protect single sex spaces for biological women."

Under the Equality Act 2010, it is illegal to discriminate against anyone because of "protected characteristics".

These are a set of identifying traits that are protected by law and include age, disability, religion, race, sex and sexual orientation among others.

Some interpret sex in this context as referring strictly to biological sex, while others believe it also applies to people with a gender recognition certificate; a legal document that allows someone to change the legal sex on their birth certificate.

The Conservatives have said they would change the act to apply to biological sex , and say single-sex spaces, such as public toilets and hospital wards, and services such as rape crisis centres do not have to be open to those who are biologically male but identify as female.

Labour says such a change is not needed as the Equality Act already protects single-sex spaces for biological women but the party says it would produce "clearer guidance" on the issue if it wins the general election.

Rowling also accused Sir Keir Starmer of offering no support to Rosie Duffield over the threats and abuse she has received "some of which has originated from within the Labour Party itself".

Last week, Ms Duffield, who is standing for re-election in Canterbury, said she had not attended election hustings due to "constant trolling" and has spent £2,000 on bodyguards while campaigning.

Labour peer Lord Cashman was suspended from the Labour Party in Parliament by Sir Keir after calling Ms Duffield "frit or lazy" for withdrawing from the events, in a social media post.

The former EastEnders actor and Labour MEP apologised "unreservedly" for the post.

Earlier this month, an internet troll who posted online messages threatening to kill Ms Rowling and Ms Duffield was given suspended jail sentences .

Glenn Mullen, 31, of Clyde Road, Manchester, admitted uploading audio clips in Gaelic threatening to kill Ms Rowling "with a big hammer" and said he was "going to see Rosie Duffield at the bar with a big gun", Westminster Magistrates' Court heard.

The full list of candidates standing in Canterbury is:

Luke Buchanan-Hodgman, Social Democratic Party

Rosie Duffield, Labour

Louise Harvey-Quirke, Conservative

Bridget Porter, Reform UK

Henry Stanton, Green Party

Russ Timpson, Liberal Democrats

Related Topics

• Keir Starmer
• General election 2024
• Labour Party
• Transgender people

The best audiobook narrators are true artists. Let’s celebrate them.

Voice actors like Bahni Turpin and David Aaron Baker bring something special to books like “The Underground Railroad” and “The Dog of the South.”

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month, a time to celebrate the great art of audiobook narration in this, the Golden Age of Audiobooks — as it will be remembered once AI takes over. This month, AudioFile magazine honored three narrators — Dominic Hoffman (“Homegoing,” “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”), Robert Petkoff (“Barkskins,” “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore”) and Kate Reading (“A Conspiracy in Belgravia,” “Dust”) — with the Golden Voice honor, for their contribution to the “audiobook art form.” It is wonderful to see voice actors, who are often snubbed at the Grammys in favor of celebrities, recognized for their work. As audiobooks have evolved, narrating them has demanded more and more creativity and skill. Transforming the pages of a book into a listening experience goes beyond simply reading aloud, and some people are better at it than others.

Audiobooks began their reign in 1975, the brainchild of former Olympic champion rower Duvall Hecht , founder of Books on Tape. He was specific in his requirements: no abridgments, no emoting, just straight, traditional reading aloud — which still has, for me, an old-fashioned appeal. Soon enough, other companies and products entered the field for better (Recorded Books) or worse (abridgments). Thanks to CDs, and especially streaming, abridgments are now comparatively rare. But the most momentous development has been narrators’ increased engagement with the text, especially fiction, moving from simply reading aloud to an active rendering, akin to interpretation.

Just how a narrator affects the ambiance of a story can be heard in comparing the two audio versions of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series (both from Pottermore Publishing). Jim Dale’s rambunctious, supercharged delivery is what most Americans have heard — and, indeed, is so closely identified with the books that his narration of other high-adventure fantasy novels makes them sound like supplements to the Potter canon. This is startlingly so in his narration of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s “Peter and the Starcatchers” (Brilliance, 8⅔ hours) and John Stephens’s “The Emerald Atlas” (Listening Library, 11⅔ hours). In Britain and Ireland, however, a more restrained Stephen Fry narrated the Potter series (now available in this country). His manner leans toward the snobby, giving more play to the social comedy that arises from the English obsession with social class.

Among the dozens of narrators I admire as true artists, I will mention two: Bahni Turpin and David Aaron Baker. Agile in dialogue, they move smoothly from speaker to speaker, distinguishing among them without giving the impression of “putting on” voices. Both are extraordinarily responsive to the mood of the books they deliver. While Turpin’s voice is always recognizably hers, she tailors it to each book. Narrating, for instance, Colson Whitehead’s harrowing “The Underground Railroad” (Random House, 10¾ hours), her tones are plangent with the horror, gravity and compassion of that novel; but, turn around, and there she is, upbeat and inquisitive, narrating Andrea Beaty’s “Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants” (Dreamscape, 1¼ hours), her voice bouncing with youth and infectious humor.

For his part, David Aaron Baker is a true chameleon, adapting himself so thoroughly to a book that the two become one. He handles the dry, deadpan comedy of Charles Portis’s comic masterpiece “The Dog of the South” (Recorded Books, 8 hours) without blowing it up. Merging his voice with the earnest mind of Ray Midge, the novel’s hapless hero, he captures the young man’s single-mindedness, ingenuousness and incredulity over his errant wife Norma’s baffling desire to have fun — to give a party or join a cycling club.

After listening to that, it is hard to believe that this is the same David Aaron Baker who delivers Leif Enger’s “I Cheerfully Refuse” (Recorded Books, 13¼ hours) with such verisimilitude. Here we have a dystopian vision of a future United States — grim and unrelenting in its descriptions of cruelty and oppression. Miraculously, however, it is told in the voice of a musician, Rainy, a man who refuses to knuckle under and whose tones remain kind and more hopeful than despairing. You could not imagine two more different characters than Ray and Rainy, and yet here they are, fully formed in their voices.

In earlier days, authors narrating their own books often sounded pretty clunky, so it is a great and joyful surprise to hear the voice of the late Melissa Bank from 1999 reading her own sequence of linked stories, “The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing.” In celebration of the 25th anniversary of this truly wonderful book, it has been made streamable (Penguin, 9 hours). The stories follow Jane Rosenal from age 14 observing her brother’s romantic misfortunes, on through her own tribulations including an on-and-off relationship with a much older man (we wish she would dump him) and ending with her galling experiment in following a self-help book’s iron-fisted instructions on how to nab a man. Bank’s wry, matter-of-fact tone makes the stories’ many rueful asides, exquisitely funny similes and snappy one-liners all the more effective. But under the humor there is in her voice, as in the stories, a poignant understanding of the ways in which life doesn’t work out — something beyond the grasp of AI.

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J K Rowling has achieved almost total victory over the trans lobby

Her courage and integrity should be praised, not mocked

It’s not easy being right these days, especially when it’s a view that infuriates the woke as much as J K Rowling has with her insistence on the biological basis of sex . But the Harry Potter creator has guts and strength and she hasn’t budged – not through years of the most heinous threats and abuse – and now, at last, she seems to have won.

A play set to debut at the Edinburgh Fringe has been seeking to cast women for parts. The initial working title: TERF C---. Terf, of course, stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”, a mouthful that could only have taken off in today’s deranged, diversity-obsessed cultural sphere.

But the casting has not been going well, with 90 actresses refusing to take roles as either Rowling or Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Potter blockbusters. It’s not surprising: many people have found the attacks on Rowling deeply distasteful.

Barry Church-Woods, the creative producer of the play, told The Telegraph of his casting travails. “I’ve been generally surprised by how difficult it has been for us to recruit the female cast in particular. It’s a well-paid gig meeting industry standards and the script is terrific.”

That, of course, is a matter of opinion. I can’t say that I am personally enthralled by the prospect of viewing a fictional intervention staged for Rowling by Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe, presumably attempting to save Rowling from her woke-unfriendly views about gender.

In my opinion, the play has simply misread the room. J K Rowling’s victory over the trans lobby has been almost total. A story about her courage, and how she won out despite the way the stars she made abandoned her, might have had better luck.

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