J K (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling was born in the summer of 1965 at Yate General Hospital in England and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent where she went to Wyedean Comprehensive. 

Jo 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 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. 

Jo then moved to northern Portugal, where she taught English as a foreign language.  She married in October 1992 and gave birth to her daughter Jessica in 1993.  When her marriage ended, she returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, where Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone was eventually completed and in 1996 she received an offer of publication. The following summer the world was introduced to Harry Potter.

Jo married Dr. Neil Murray in 2001, and a brother for Jessica, David, was born in 2003. A second sister, Mackenzie, followed in January 2005.

Information copied from: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/books/author/index.htm

 

I enjoyed the entire series of Harry Potter.  J.K. Rowling was such an inspiration because she came from nowhere, she wrote the beginning of Harry Potter on a napkin from a resturant.  She lived in a car most of the time.  She brought all her characters to life with her words. 

A lot of parents banned their children from reading these books, and as a fan I was dumbfounded.  This book was not trying to get the children to worship witchcraft and wizardry, it was about the mischief a young boy and his friends have to overcome. 

I was so excited when I seen the demand for these books, because it means that children were reading and that in itself is worth all the praise to J.K. Rowling.