J.K. Rowling

The Magical World of Harry Potter's Creator

J.K. Rowling’s life and literary career has been something of a Cinderella fairytale to rival her own creation: Harry Potter.

It might sound like a cliché, but there is no beating around the bush. If you don’t know who Harry Potter is, you must have been living under a rock somewhere. The Harry Potter books were written by the British author, J.K. Rowling. And while her pen name sounds as fantastical as the tales she writes, it isn’t.

The author of one of the most popular children stories of all time, Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born on July 31,1965, in Chipping Sodbury, a village near Bristol, England, and lived a very ordinary life until her writing brought her fame and the adoration of millions of fans.

Her creation, Harry, lives a life quite out of the ordinary. After escaping his evil aunt and uncle -- who are in loco parentis -- Harry takes the train from platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross Station to attend a boarding school located in a castle. There, he joins classmates at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, learns sorcery and plays the traditional Hogwarts school game, "Quidditch," a lacrosse-like game played on broomsticks.

Penning such wild fantasies came easily to Rowling, who grew up in
rural, forested surroundings. "We couldn’t do what urban kids do, so
we were out making up ridiculous things in fields," she told an
interviewer once.

Rowling’s fictional savior

The idea for the Harry Potter books came to Rowling as she gazed out
of a train window while traveling between London and Manchester in
1990. At that time, Rowling had recently divorced, was a single
mother and lived on benefits in Edinburgh. She said creating Harry
Potter was her savior following the breakup of her marriage, a time
in which she suffered clinical depression.

"I was very low and I had to achieve something," she told an
interviewer. "Without the challenge, I would have gone stark raving
mad."

Rowling is a graduate of Exeter University, where she studied French
and classics. The choice of degree was in line with the advice her
parents gave her to become a bilingual secretary. Rowling said later
it had been a huge mistake: she was completely ill-suited for the
regiment of a 9-to-5 office job.

Though she initially followed a different career path, writing has
always come very naturally to her. Rawling penned her first book,
"Rabbit," when she was just six years old.

It was only when she was 26 that Rowling began to write more
seriously. Having given up on an office career, she moved to
Portugal, where she met her first husband, the Portuguese journalist
Jorge Arantes, and taught English.

But it wasn’t until she came up with the idea for the Potter epics
that Rowling felt her writing was good enough to offer to a
publisher.