J K Rowling Biography, Bio, Profile, pictures, photos from Netglimse.com

Is a former English teacher.

She writes all of her books in longhand, rather than with a computer.

Daughter, Jessica Rowling Arantes was born on July 27, 1993.

Her book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", was the top-selling book of 2000, with 7 million hardcovers sold.

Graduated from Exeter University.

When the first "Harry Potter" novel was published, the publisher asked her to use initials rather than her first name, because boys would be biased against a book written a woman. Since she only had one given name, they then asked her to make up another initial; she took "K." from her favorite grandmother, Kathleen.

She was awarded the O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2000 Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday Honors List for her services to literature and received it from one of her fans, Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales.

Son, David Gordon Rowling, born March 24, 2003 in Edinburgh.

In 2002, she was sued for plagiarism in the District Court of the Southern District of New York by Pennsylvania-based author Nancy Stouffer, who claimed that J.K. Rowling had lifted ideas from her 1984 book "The Legend of Rah and Muggles", which includes a character called "Larry Potter". However, the case against J.K. Rowling was dismissed on 19 September 2002, when the judged ruled that Ms. Stouffer had lied to the court and doctored evidence to support her claims.

Is one of only two contemporary authors to have a novel spend more than a year on both the New York Times hardcover and paperback best-seller lists, the other author being Nicholas Sparks.

As of November 2002, the year and month of the second "Harry Potter" movie (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)) being released, her franchise of books have currently sold over 175,000,000 copies and printed in over 200 languages to become the biggest and fastest selling novels ever.

On 3 April 2003, she and Time Warner successfully sued Dutch publishing company Byblos in the Amsterdam High Court. This prevents Byblos publishing Russian author Dmitry Yemets' novel "The Magic Double Bass", which features a girl wizard "Tanya Grotter". It was deemed to plagiarize Rowling's novel "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and to infringe her copyright.

The fifth book in the Harry Potter series, entitled "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", was published on June 21 2003. It was approximately 896 pages long, containing 38 chapters and over 255,000 words, making it her longest "Harry Potter" book yet. The first U.S. printing was 8.5 million copies, an American publishing record.

In 2003, unauthorized Chinese-language "sequels" to the "Harry Potter" series appeared for sale in the People's Republic of China. These poorly-written books, written by Chinese ghost writers, contain characters from the works of other authors, including Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", and the title character from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz". Rowling's lawyers successfully took legal action against the publishers who were forced to pay damages.

She is a big fan of the rock band The Smiths and in 2003, she appeared on the Channel Four documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2002) (TV).

Is a huge fan of "Monty Python" and claims to put some of their humor into her books. Two apparent references to the "Monty Python" sketch "Crunchy Frog" can be found in her "Harry Potter" books: two of the sweets are a chocolate frog, and a cockroach cluster. "Monty Python" member John Cleese appears in the films.

One of her favorite movies is The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), which was written and directed by "Harry Potter" screenwriter Steve Kloves.

She received an honorary degree from Edinburgh University in recognition of the Potter books and her outstanding contribution to children's literature. [7 July 2004]

Her 3rd child, Mackenzie Jean Rowling, was born on January 23, 2005 in Edinburgh.

Character names in her books are often clues to their identities or secrets. For example, Professor Remus Lupin is a werewolf. According to myth, Romulus and Remus were the founders of Rome and were raised by wolves. His last name, Lupin, is derived from the Latin lupus, for wolf, and the English adjective lupine, meaning wolf-like. Lupin was converted into a werewolf by Fenrir Greyback, whose name is taken from Fenrir, the monstrous wolf son of Loki in Norse mythology. (His alias, Fenrisulfr, was the basis for Fenris Ulf, the American name for Maugrim in C.S. Lewis's "Chronciles of Narnia".) Sirius Black, who turns into a black dog, is named for the star Sirius, which can be found in the constellation Canis Major - the big dog.

Whilst at University she had little money so, for friends' birthdays, she wrote them personal little stories.

Shares the same birthday with Michael Klesic, Wesley Snipes, Ben Chaplin, Barry Van Dyke, Emilia Fox and Loren Dean.

After spending six years writing the first installment of her "Harry Potter" novels, Rowling was rejected by 9 publishers before London's Bloomsbury Publishing signed her on.

The day she signed her contract for the first "Harry Potter" novel, the publishing representative told her she would not make any money selling children's books.

Originally wrote "Harry Potter" to pay off her gas bills while living in a tiny flat with her then, baby daughter.

Although she incorporates characteristics of people she knows into "Harry Potter" characters, she says that the character "Gilderoy Lockhart" is the only character she purposely based on someone she knew. She would not say who she based the character on, only that it was not her ex-husband, and that whoever it was is probably so ignorant and so narcissistic, that he is probably claiming either to be the basis for "Albus Dumbledore", or the real author of the "Harry Potter" books.

Claims her first audience for "Harry Potter" was her daughter, to whom she would read parts of the story that she wrote as a bedtime story.

Is a huge fan of "Monty Python", and claims to put some of their humor into her books.

Owns two properties in the Perthshire and Edinburgh areas of Scotland. In 2003, she hired a former SAS officer as her bodyguard to patrol her Perth home and protect her family.

Doesn't actually have a middle name. She chose the "K" for her initials because she thought it sounded good in conjunction with her surname, and alphabetically it was the next letter after "J".

Was almost barred from boarding a plane from the U.S. to the U.K. when airport security personnel demanded that her manuscript for her final book be screened or placed in her checked luggage. Rowling refused to give up the manuscript, which was bound with rubber bands.

December 21, 2006: Announced that the last "Harry Potter" book will be titled "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

Finished writing the final book in the fantasy franchise three weeks ago - and marked the occasion by leaving graffiti in a Scottish hotel. Eagle-eyed guests at the five-star Balmoral Hotel spotted a line from the best-selling author scrawled in black pen on the back of a marble bust in a room Rowling occupied. She wrote, "J.K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on Jan 11th 2007."

One of her biggest fans is Stephen King.

Is an avid train buff.

Like her hero, she now lives in a castle.

Based Hermione on herself.

J. K. Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Volant on 31 July 1965 at Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home when J. K. Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four where she attended St Michael's Primary School, later moving to Tutshill, near Chepstow, South Wales at the age of nine. As a child, J. K. Rowling enjoyed writing fantasy stories, which she often read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it," she recalls, "Certainly the first story 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."

J. K. Rowling's surname is pronounced like "rolling". Her full name is "Joanne Rowling", not, as is often assumed, "Joanne Kathleen Rowling". Before publishing her first volume, Bloomsbury feared that the target audience of young boys might be reluctant to buy books written by a female author. They requested that Rowling use two initials, rather than reveal her first name. As she had no middle name, she chose K. for Kathleen as the second initial of her pseudonym, from her paternal grandmother, Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. The name Kathleen has never been part of her legal name. She calls herself "Jo" and claims, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry".

Joanne "Jo" Rowling BA (Exon.) OBE (born 31 July 1965) is an English fiction writer who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold over 325 million copies worldwide.

In 2007, The Sunday Times Rich List estimated her fortune at �545 million (about US$1 billion), making her the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books. She is ranked as both the 136th richest person and the 13th richest woman in Britain. In 2006, Forbes named J. K. Rowling the second richest female entertainer in the world and ranked her as 48th on the 100 most powerful celebrities list of 2007.

When J. K. Rowling was a young teen, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became J. K. Rowling's heroine and she subsequently read all of her books. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College. J. K. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was 11, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth [12th grade] owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish." Of her musical tastes of the time, she said "My favorite group in the world is the Smiths. And when I was going through a punky phase, it was the Clash."

J. K. Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter, which she says was a "bit of a shock" as she "was expecting to be amongst lots of similar people�thinking radical thoughts." Once she made friends with "some like-minded people" she says she began to enjoy herself.

With a year of study in Paris, J. K. Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. During this period, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip between Manchester and London, she developed the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.

On December 30, 1990, J. K. Rowling�s mother succumbed to a 10-year battle with the condition multiple sclerosis. Rowling commented, �I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter.�

J. K. Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there, she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes on 16 October 1992. They had one child, Jessica, who was named after Jessica Mitford. They divorced in 1993.

In December 1994, J. K. Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unemployed and living on state benefits, she completed her first novel. She did her work in numerous caf�s (e.g. Nicolson's Cafe and Elephant House Caf�), whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. There was a rumour that she wrote in local caf�s to escape from her unheated flat, but in a 2001 BBC interview J. K. Rowling remarked, �I am not stupid enough to rent an unheated flat in Edinburgh in midwinter. It had heating.�

In 1995, J. K. Rowling completed her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evans, a reader who had been asked to review the book�s first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent J. K. Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was handed to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected it. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a �1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from the small publisher Bloomsbury. The decision to take J. K. Rowling on was apparently largely due to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of the company�s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father, and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised J. K. Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children�s books. Soon after, J. K. Rowling received an �8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.

The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., who paid J. K. Rowling more than $100,000. Rowling has said she �nearly died� when she heard the news. In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher�s Stone with an initial print-run of one thousand copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are each valued at between �16,000 and �25,000.

Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestl� Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children�s Book of the Year, and, later the Children�s Book Award. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher�s Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer�s Stone: a change J. K. Rowling claims she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time.

In December 1999, the third Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making J. K. 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. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children�s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney�s translation of Beowulf.

To date, six of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter series, one for each of Harry�s school years, have already been published and all have broken sales records. The last three volumes in the series have been the fastest-selling books in history, grossing more in their opening 24 hours than blockbuster films. Currently, the series has sold over 325 million copies worldwide and been translated into 65 languages since the first book was published in 1997.

Rowling has completed the seventh and final book of the series. Its title was revealed on 21 December 2006 to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On 1 February 2007 J. K. Rowling announced on her website that its release date was to be 21 July 2007. Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had completed the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007; this was confirmed to be authentic by J. K. Rowling's and the hotel's representatives. In February 2007, Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling's literary agency, announced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will not be released as an e-book. J. K. Rowling has not allowed the first six Potter stories to be released as e-books and has no plans to change that for the seventh and final work.

In October 1998, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum. A film version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on 16 November 2001 and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on 15 November 2002. Both were directed by Chris Columbus. The 4 June 2004 film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was directed by Alfonso Cuar�n. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by yet another new director, Mike Newell. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on 11 July 2007. David Yates is the film's director, and Michael Goldenberg is its screenwriter, having taken over the position from Steven Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is in pre-production, and is scheduled for release on 21 November 2008. David Yates will once again direct the film, and it has been confirmed that Kloves will return to screenwrite it. Nothing has been announced regarding the film version of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

In contrast to the treatment of most authors by Hollywood studios, Warner Bros took considerable notice of Rowling's desires and thoughts in their attempt to bring her books to the screen. One of her principal stipulations was the films be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has so far been adhered to strictly. In an unprecedented move, J. K. Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the victor in the race to tie-in their products to the film series, donate $18 million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental, as well as a number of community charity programs.

The first four films were scripted by Steve Kloves; Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series. She says she has told him more about the later books than anybody else, but not everything. She has also said that she has told Alan Rickman (Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters that have not yet been revealed. Steven Spielberg was approached to direct the first film, but dropped out. The press has repeatedly claimed that J. K. Rowling played a role in his departure, but Rowling stated on her website that she has no say in who directs the films. J. K. Rowling's first choice for the director of the first Harry Potter film had been Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam, being a fan of Gilliam's work. Warner Bros. studios wanted a more family friendly film, however, and eventually they settled for Chris Columbus.

Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing after the publication of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She declared in a recent interview that she will most likely not use a new pen name as the press would quickly discover her true identity.

In 2006, J. K. Rowling revealed that she had completed a few short stories and another children's book (a "political fairy story") about a monster, aimed at a younger audience than Harry Potter readers.

She is not planning to write an eighth Harry Potter book, but has suggested she might publish an "encyclopedia" of the Harry Potter world consisting of all her unpublished material and notes. Any profits from such a book would be given to charity. When asked, in an interview on the 6 July 2007 episode of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, whether she would ever write an eighth Harry Potter novel J. K. Rowling confirmed that she only ever planned to write seven books in the series but also that she could not rule it out entirely. "Um, I think that Harry's story comes to quite a clear end in Book Seven but I've always said that I wouldn't say "never". I can't say I'll never write another book about that world just because I think what do I know, in ten years time I might want to return to it but I think it's unlikely."

In 2001, J. K. Rowling purchased a luxurious 19th century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a Georgian house in London, on a street where, according to The Guardian, the average price of a house is �4.27 million ($8 million), including an underground swimming pool and 24-hour security.

On 26 December 2001, J. K. Rowling married Neil Michael Murray, an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her home in Aberfeldy. Their son David Gordon Rowling Murray was born on 24 March 2003. Shortly after J. K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, she took a break from working on the novel to care for him in his early infancy. J. K. Rowling's youngest child, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was born in January 2005.

J.K. Rowling, once a single parent herself, is now President of One Parent Families. Rowling has supported the charity since 2000 when she became its first Ambassador.

J.K. Rowling contributes substantially to charities that combat poverty and social inequality. She also gives to organizations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research.

According to The Guardian, J. K. Rowling is a friend of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, with whom she collaborated on a book of children's stories to aid the charity One Parent Families. Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, of which the proceeds are being donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory.

In 2001, the UK fundraiser Comic Relief asked three bestselling British authors, (Rowling, cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, and Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding), to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication. For every pound raised, a pound would go towards combatting poverty and social inequality across the globe. J. K. Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library, and are written under the names of their fictional authors, Newt Scamander and Kennilworthy Whisp. Since going on sale in March, 2001, the books have raised �15.7 million (US$30 million) for the fund. The �10.8 million (US$20 million) raised outside the UK has been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis. She has also personally given �22 million to Comic Relief.

J. K. Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother died in 1990. This death heavily affected her writing, according to Rowling. In 2006, J. K. Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University. For reasons unknown, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the highest rate of MS in the world.

On 1 August and 2 August 2006 she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO M�decins Sans Fronti�res. In May 2007, J. K. Rowling gave US$495,000 to a reward fund of over $4.5 million for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who was kidnapped in Portugal. In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to raise funds for the Children's High Level Group, an organization devoted to enforcing the human rights of mentally ill children in Eastern Europe, particularly the continued use of caged beds in mental institutions.

In June 2000, Queen Elizabeth II honoured J. K. Rowling by making her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

In April 2006, the asteroid (43844) J. K. Rowling was named in her honour. The name was submitted to the International Astronomical Union by astronomer Dr. Mark Hammergren, who has been a fan of the Harry Potter series since 2004.

In May 2006, the newly-discovered Pachycephalosaurid dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia, currently at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, was named in honour of her world.

In June 2006, the British public named J. K. Rowling �the greatest living British writer� in a poll by The Book Magazine. Rowling topped the poll, receiving nearly three times as many votes as the second-place author, fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.

In July 2006, J. K. Rowling received a Doctor of Laws (LLD) honorary degree from University of Aberdeen for her "significant contribution to many charitable causes" and "her many contributions to society".