J.K. Rowling

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, England into a solidly middle-class home. Her father, Peter, was an engineer at a Rolls Royce plant in Bristol, and her mother, Anne, was a lab technician at Wyedean School. Thanks to her parent's encouragement, Rowling developed an early love of books and knew at six years old that she wanted to be a writer. An attentive student, she attended state-run school in Chapstow, followed by enrollment at Exeter University, where she intended to study English. But in deference to her parent's wishes, Rowling took up French instead, as Peter and Anne wanted very much for their daughter to be a translator or interpreter, perhaps at the United Nations. After graduating Exeter, she went to work for Amnesty International, then the Chamber of Commerce in Manchester; both jobs she found dreadfully boring. All the while, however, she was writing - mostly stories in college - but like many writers, nothing ever reached conclusion.In 1990, Rowling's life took a turn for the worse. While on holiday with a former boyfriend, she received news that her mum had died after years of suffering from multiple sclerosis. From that moment on, life was never the same. Her dad revealed that he had been dating another woman while Rowling's mother was sick and dying; news that destroyed his relationship with his daughter. Distraught over her wrecked family life, Rowling fled to Portugal where she began teaching and while there, met struggling journalist Jorge Arantes, whom she married on Oct. 16, 1992. But that relationship, which spawned her first child, Jessica, was stormy and miserable and ended for good after a seven-hour fight that resulted in Arantes physically throwing Rowling out of the house. Rowling returned several hours later with the police to collect Jessica and a few personal items. She soon fled to Edinburgh to live with her sister Di and filed for divorce in June of 1995. Without a job and on the government dole, Rowling made a final stab at her dream of becoming a writer, sitting in her brother-in-law's café and churning out pages while her daughter slept or someone else took care of her. She spent the next nine months living hand-to-mouth, writing what would become the greatest literary sensation in modern times.It was while on a crowded train from Manchester to London in 1990 that the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into Rowling's lap. Though she began writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that very evening, it would be seven years before it would reach fruition, going through several incarnations along the way. Finally, with finished manuscript in hand, Rowling searched for an agent to represent her work. The first agent she approached turned her down flat. But the second agent took her on as a client and spent the better part of the next year looking for a publisher. In 1997, Philosopher's Stone was purchased by Bloomsbury Publishing and released in England later that year; though the initial print run consisted of only 1,000 copies. The book told the story about an 11-year-old orphan forced to live with his bullying Uncle Vernon and callous Aunt Petunia until he learns that he has magical powers as his parents once did. Against the demands of his aunt and uncle, young Harry goes to the mysterious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he embarks on an adventure of a lifetime, finding the home and family he never had.Word spread quickly about the Philosopher's Stone, creating a sensation despite the small first printing, and earning Rowling a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize in 1997, followed by the British Book Award for Children's "Book of the Year" in early 1998. The odd thing, however, was that adults as well as children were snatching copies off the shelves; a phenomenon that continued unabated for the rest of the series. Prior to its release in America, Rowling won an auction by Scholastic, Inc. for the company to publish her novel in the United States, which it did in October 1998 under the new, easier-for-children-to-understand title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Regardless of the title change, Harry Potter sold 17 million copies in the United States and close to 70 million worldwide. Rowling went to work on the next books, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which sold nearly 15 million copies in the States alone; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 1999 and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2000, which earned Rowling a Hugo Award in 2001. As with any series of books that shatter sales records and infuse themselves into the public's consciousness, Hollywood came knocking with bags of money to turn the beloved tales of the boy wizard into feature films. Warner Bros. snatched the rights to film all seven books - box office permitting - and went to work on "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001). Directed by Chris Columbus of "Home Alone" (1990) fame, the film stayed true to the book - too much so, according to some critics - but nonetheless became the box office smash the studio hoped it would be, taking in over $300 million domestically. It also made stars out of Potter look-a-like, Daniel Radcliffe and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint - Harry, Hermione and Ron, respectively - all virtual unknowns prior to their casting in the series. Meanwhile, Rowling became an international celebrity in her own right, a position uncomfortable to the slightly neurotic, chain-smoking author. She tried desperately to stay out of the limelight, but somehow she managed to find herself in it.In the late 1990s, Rowling found herself the target of a lawsuit filed by children's author Nancy Stouffer, who claimed that the Harry Potter books were based on her own series, published in 1984. Stouffer asserted that she coined the term 'muggles' - non-magical humans in Rowling's books, though in Stouffer's series it supposedly had a different meaning. Stouffer's original books, however, were impossible to find, leaving doubt in the veracity of her claims. Ultimately, the court ruled the case was without merit in 2002 and fined Stouffer $50,000 for filing a false claim. But the fun didn't stop there. Rowling faced controversy from the religious right, namely in Durham, SC, who wanted Harry Potter books banned from school libraries for promoting witchcraft and allegedly denigrating Christianity. The school boar