J.K. Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England. Her full name is Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

J.K. Rowling was divorced and living on public assistance in Edinburgh, Scotland with her infant daughter when she wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  The Scottish Arts Council gave her a grant to finish the book which she sold to Bloomsbury and Scholastic Books.  Harry Potter won The British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Smarties Prize and also received great reviews in England and in America.  She graduated from Exeter University.  She was 26 years old when she moved to Portugal to become an English teacher.  She married a journalist in Portugal and they had a daughter named Jessica who was born in 1993.  Rowling moved back to Edinburgh and she was unemployed when she wrote the first Harry Potter book.  Rowling sold the novel, Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, to Bloomsbury in England for about $4,000.  In 1997 the book won The British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Smarties Prize.  The Harry Potter books have been printed in 35 languages and have sold over 30 million copies.