2. J.K. Rowling is the author of Harry Potter books.
J.K. Stands for Joanne Kathleen.
3. Rowling was born on 31 July 1965, to Peter James
Rowling,
a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling ,
a science technician, in Yate, Gloucestershire,
England.
4. J.K. Rowling’s parents, Peter James Rowling and
Anne Volant, met on a train that was travelling
from King's Cross, from London to Scotland.
They were just 18.
Joanne lived with her parents and her sister. The
Rowling family was not rich. Joanne did not go to
special schools. She was a quit child.
5. She attended St Michael's Primary School
She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and
College, where her mother worked in the science
department.
6. Inspiration and mother's death
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed
train trip from Manchester to London, the idea
for a story of a young boy attending a school of
wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind.
7. Inspiration and mother's death
In December, Rowling's mother Anne died
after ten years suffering from multiple
sclerosis.
Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the
time and had never told her mother about
it.
Her death heavily affected Rowling's
writing and she introduced much more
detail about Harry's loss in the first book,
because she knew how it felt.
8. Marriage, divorce and single paren
An advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move
to Porto in Portugal to teach English as a foreign
language.
After eighteen months in Porto, she met
Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes.
9. Marriage, divorce and single paren
They married on 16 October 1992 and their child,
Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes, was born on 27 July
1993 in Portugal.
The couple separated on 17 November 1993.
Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered
domestic abuse during her marriage.
10. Marriage, divorce and single paren
Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling
saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and
she was jobless with a dependent child.
She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café
(owned by her brother-in-law, Roger Moore), and The
Elephant House; wherever she could get Jessica to fall
asleep.
11. Harry Potter
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual
typewriter.
The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses,
all of which rejected the manuscript.
A year later she was finally given the green light (and a
£1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from
Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.
12. Harry Potter
In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's
Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of
which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies
are valued between £16,000 and £25,000
Five months later, the book won its first award, a
Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.
In February, the novel won the British Book Award for
Children's Book of the Year, and later, the Children's
Book Award.
13. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the
Smarties Prize.
14. In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize,
making Rowling the first person to win the award
three times running. She later withdrew the fourth
Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other
books a fair chance.
15. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8
July 2000 and broke sales records in both countries.
372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in
the UK, almost equaling the number Prisoner of
Azkaban sold during its first year.
In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first
48 hours, smashing all records.
16. A wait of three years occurred between the release of
Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.(2003)
17. The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince, was released on 16 July 2005.
It too broke all sales records, selling nine million
copies in its first 24 hours of release.
In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the
Year prize at the British Book Awards.
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on
21 July 2007 and broke its predecessor's record as the
fastest-selling book of all time.
It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in
the United Kingdom and United States.
19. Financial success
In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list,
claiming that her US$160 million in charitable
donations meant she was no longer a billionaire.
In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the 1,062nd richest
person in the world.
20. Philanthropy
Rowling donated the handwritten history of the family
of Sirius Black to a fundraiser for Book Aid
International.
The author has said that her favorite charity is One
Parent Families.
She co-founded Lumos to work at a political and
practical level to ensure that UN minimum standards
for the care of children are implemented across the
whole of Europe and beyond. She also founded the
Volant Trust in memory of her mother.
21. Philanthropy
• Catie Hoch Foundation
• Children with AIDS
• Dyslexia Action
• Gingerbread
• Haven Foundation
• Heifer International
• Lumos
• Make A Child Smile Appeal
• Multiple Sclerosis Society
• PEN
• Book Aid International
• Raisa Gorbachev Foundation
• Women's Fund for Scotland
• XP Support Group
Charities & foundations supported
22. marriag
e
J.K. Rowling married Dr. Neil Murray on
26th
December 2001, in a private ceremony
at their
country home in Scotland.
23. “It matters not what
someone is born, but
what they grow to be”
-J.K.Rowling
