J K Rowling
 Joanne Kathleen Rowling (pronounced Rolling) is the author of the wildly popular Harry Potter series about the experiences of a young boy with magical powers coming of age in a school for wizards and witches. Born on July 31st, 1965 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England, Rowling began telling stories as early as age five, a habit she would continue throughout her childhood. Self described as "quiet, freckly, short-sighted and rubbish at sports", Rowling's favorite subjects at school were English and
languages.
After studying French in University, she embarked on a short-lived career as a bilingual secretary. In 1990, at the age of 26, she moved to Portugal to teach English, working afternoons and nights and spending her mornings writing. While there she met and married a Portuguese journalist and in 1993 gave birth to her daughter. It was during this time that the concept of Harry and Hogwarts first came to her while she was stuck on a train delayed between Manchester and London
After her marriage ended in divorce, Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinborough, Scotland where Rowling continued to write the first Harry Potter novel, having set herself a goal to finish the book before starting work as a French teacher. It is this period of her life that has been over-romanticized by the media, who turned unsubstantiated rumor into legend. Often frustrated by stories labeling her with the stigma of being a welfare mother scribbling on napkins in the warmth of cafes to escape a cold flat, Rowling maintains that though she and her daughter did indeed live exclusively on welfare for six months, their flat was heated and the choice to write in cafes with her daughter by her side was never made out of necessity. Supplementing her welfare income by working a part time clerical job, she eventually returned to school to be certified to teach French in Scotland, and also received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council to complete her novel.
After a number of rejections, Rowling eventually sold Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone for the equivalent of about $4,000 US. The book was published in the UK in 1997 and a year later renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and published in the USA.
The sequel, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, was published in the UK in July 1998 and in the USA in June 1999. The third book, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, was published in the UK in July 1999 and in the USA in September 1999.
By 1999 Rowling had become an international literary celebrity when the first three books in the Harry Potter series all appeared on the top three positions of the New York times best sellers list. By Summer 2000, the first three books had sold over 35 million copies in 35 languages and earned approximately $480 million.
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