J.K. Rowling
- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol, a few miles south of a
town called Dursley ("Harry Potter"'s Muggle-family). Her father Peter
Rowling was an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol at this time. Her
mother, Anne, was half-French and half-Scottish. They met on a train as
it left King's Cross Station in London. Her sister Diana is about 2
years younger than Joanne. In 1971, Peter Rowling moved his family to
the nearby village of Winterbourne (still in the Bristol vicinity).
During the family's residence in Winterbourne, Jo and Di Rowling were
friends with neighborhood children, Ian and Vikki Potter. In 1974, the
Rowling family moved yet again, this time to Tutshill, near the Welsh
border-town of Chepstow in the Forest of Dean and across the Severn
River from the greater Bristol area. Rowling admits to having been a
bit of a daydreamer as a child and began writing stories at the age of
six. After leaving Exeter University, where she read French and
Classics, she started work as a teacher but daydreamed about becoming a
writer. One day, stuck on a delayed train for four hours between
Manchester and London, she dreamed up a boy called "Harry Potter". That
was in 1990. It took her six years to write the book. In the meantime,
she went to teach in Portugal, married a Portuguese television
journalist, had her daughter, Jessica, divorced her husband and
returned to Britain when Jessica was just three months old. She went to
live in Edinburgh to be near her sister, Di. Her sudden penury made her
realize that it was "back-against-the-wall time" and she decided to
finish her "Harry Potter" book. She sent the manuscript to two agents
and one publisher, looking up likely prospects in the library. One of
these agents that she picked at random based on the fact that she liked
his name, Christopher Little, was immediately captivated by the
manuscript and signed her on as his client within three days. During
the 1995-1996 time-frame, while hoping to get the manuscript for "Harry
Potter & The Philosopher's Stone" published, Rowling worked as a French
teacher in Edinburgh. Several publishers turned down the manuscript
before Bloomsbury agreed to purchase it in 1996.
