SUMMARY: J. K. Rowling ( b. 31 July 1965) British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series
J. K. Rowling Quotes
J. K. Rowling Books
J.K. Rowling or Joanne Murray Rowling is a British Writer most commonly known as the author of the very popular Harry Potter. Sometimes called “Jo”, she has written and gained world wide fame and attention through her fantasy series Harry Potter. She has sold over four hundred million copies and has become on of the richest people in the world. She has also been named by Time Magazine as a runner up for 2007 Person of the Year. With technology all over the world and the computer quickly becoming a popular past time, she has sparked an interest in reading for many young readers today. Harry Potter has been translated in sixty five different languages for the enjoyment of children and adult all over the world.
Life before Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling was born on July 31 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling nee’ Volant. She attended St. Michael’s Primary School where he headmaster Alfred Dunn proved to be her inspiration for the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore.
J.K Rowling loved writing fantasy stories even at a young age. She recalls her first story being about falling down a rabbit hole and feeding the rabbit family strawberries. When she was nine years old the family moved to Gloucestershire village of Tutshill where she became acquainted with the Hons and Rebels series by Jessica Mitford. Rowling claims that Mitford became her heroine after that.
Joanne Rowling went to secondary school at Wyedean School of College. It is here that she says she became friends with a boy named Sean Harris who would eventually play a role in the character Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter books, and realize that the character Hermione much resembled herself. After secondary school she moved to Paris to study and then moved to London to become a research worker and do secretary work for Amnesty International. It wasn’t until 1990 on a trip from Manchester to London that the idea of Harry Potter, a young boy attending a wizardry school started to piece itself together. She remembers thinking of the Harry Potter character and then the other characters just “came flooding into my head.” By the time she reached her home she immediately began writing. That same year Rowling’s mother died and this affected the portrayal of how Harry felt losing his parents in the first book.
After the death of her mother, J.K. Rowling moved to Portugal to teach English. She met a man name Jorge Arantes while teaching and they were married on October 16, 1992. They had one child together name Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes who was born on July 27 1993. The marriage would not last long as they separated in November of 1993. Rowling took her daughter and moved to Scotland to be near family. During this time Joanne was diagnosed with clinical depression and it was from this experience that brought to light the idea of Dementors from the book Harry Potter. She continued to write during her spare time and finally finished her first novel.
Life after Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone was finished in 1995 but publishing would seem a daunting task. Her book was submitted to twelve separate publishing houses but was rejected by all of them. A year later Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury (a small publishing house) finally agreed to publish. Cunningham’s daughter was the one to read the first chapter and ask for the next which was the reason for the agreement to publish the book. Though Cunningham told Rowling that there was little chance of making any money on another children’s book and to find a job to support herself. That next Spring Scholastic Inc. was the rights to publish her novel for $105 000 and J.K. Rowling was caught completely off guard.
The book pretty much took off from there. In 1997 Harry Potter won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize, and then in February it won the British Book Award for Children’s book of the year. In 1999 the third novel won the Smarties Prize once again making Rowling the first to win the award three times consecutively. She withdrew the fourth book from contention to give others a running chance. In 2000 the Prisoner of Azkaban won the Whitbread Children’s book of the Year award. Her next novel would be released that July of 2000 and would break sales records in Britain and in the United States. She was also named author of the year in 2000. Her next novels would be released in the years 2005, and 2007 that being the last of the Harry Potter series.
She not only wrote the books, but was the reason for the beloved Harry Potter movies that have won the hearts of millions of viewers and readers. She has no current plans to write an eighth Harry Potter book, but comments that no one ever knows what they will be doing in ten years.
