J K Rowling
J K (Joanne) Rowling has written fiction since she was a child and always aspired to be an author.
She was born in the summer of 1965 at the Chipping Sodbury General Hospital in England and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent. J K Rowling's parents were avid bibliophiles who stocked their house with books.
Jo enjoyed telling her made-up stories to her younger sister and wrote her first 'book' at the age of six - a story about a rabbit called Rabbit! She adored reading E. Nesbit, Noel Streatfield, Paul Gallico's "Manxmouse", C.S. Lewis' Narnia series and Elizabeth Goudge's "Little White Horse". At Wydean Comprehensive, Jo enjoyed English classes, reading books written by Jane Austen, Elizabeth Goudge, Clement Freud, Paul Gallico, Ian Fleming and Roddy Doyle for pleasure and studied languages.
She left Chepstow for Exeter University, where she earned 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 after the idea occurred to her on an interminable Manchester to London train journey where she admits Harry "just strolled into her head fully formed" and she started to create the whole world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry around him. She rushed home to jot down her ideas as soon as the train reached King's Cross station and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the novel. She wrote during her lunchtimes in cafés and pubs and prayed that none of her workmates would have birthdays so that she'd have to go to the pub with them instead.
Jo then moved to north Portugal to teach English as a foreign language and returned to live in Edinburgh in 1993 where she continued to write in cafés and where "Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone" was eventually completed. The Scottish Arts Council gave her a substantial grant - the largest literary award offered by the group to a children's author.
Several publishers rejected the novel, saying it was too long and literary, but in 1996 she received an offer of publication. It was published in the UK in June 1997 to great critical acclaim and almost immediately Harry Potter became a cultural phenomenon. It is now a worldwide phenomenon and Philosopher's Stone has been translated into over 40 languages to date.
"I have always had a sneaking desire to write "Fantastic Beasts & where to find them" and "Quidditch through the Ages", so when Richard Curtis of Comic Relief wrote to me, I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to help a charity I have always supported." - J K Rowling
