J. K. (Jo) Rowling was born in 1965 and moved
house twice when she was growing up. The first move was from Yate
(just outside Bristol) to Winterbourne. The second move was when Jo
was nine and she moved to Tutshill near Chepstow in the Forest of
Dean.
Jo went to Tutshill Primary School, and then on to Wyedean
Comprehensive. She was quiet, freckly, short-sighted and not very
good at sports. She even broke her arm playing netball. Her
favourite subject by far was English, but she also liked languages
. . .
Jo always loved writing more than anything. 'The first story
that I ever wrote down, when I was five or six, was about a rabbit
called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends,
including a giant bee called Miss Bee. And ever since Rabbit and
Miss Bee, I have wanted to be a writer, though I rarely told anyone
so. I was afraid they'd tell me I didn't have a hope.' At school
she would entertain her friends at lunchtime with stories.
After school, Jo attended the University of Exeter in Devon
where she studied French. Her parents hoped that by studying
languages she would enjoy a great career as a bilingual secretary.
But Jo recalls that she never paid much attention in meetings
because she was too busy scribbling down ideas.
When she was 25, Jo was delayed on a train from Manchester to
London. On the train Jo says that the idea for Harry Potter simply
'strolled into her head fully formed'. But she didn't have a pen so
couldn't write all her thoughts down! But the idea had taken hold
and during the next five years she started writing and outlining
the plots for each book.
Jo went to Portugal to teach English. There she married and her
daughter Jessica was born. And she kept writing. When she returned
to the UK, Jo had a suitcase full of stories about Harry Potter.
She moved to Edinburgh with her young daughter and worked as a
French teacher. In 1996 Bloomsbury offered to publish Jo's first
novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
'The moment I found out that Harry would be published was one of
the best of my life,' says Jo.
Jo married Dr Neil Murray in 2001, and a brother for Jessica,
David, was born in 2003. A sister, Mackenzie, followed in January
2005. She lives with her family in Edinburgh.
The Harry Potter novels have now sold over 400 million copies
worldwide and been translated into 69 languages. Jo was the first
children's author to be voted the BA Author of the Year, and also
to win the British Book Awards Author of the Year.