J. K. Rowling, or Joanne Rowling was born July 31, 1965 in Yates, England.

   She had wanted to become an author from an early age and in 1987 she graduated from the University of Exeter after studying french. Rowling then moved to London and began to work multiple jobs, including working for Amnesty International, which is a charity group that Rowling still works for today. While riding on a train from Manchester to London in the early 1990s Rowling first got the idea for the Harry Potter series. However, she suffered a terrible loss when on Dec. 30, 1990 he mother lost her battle against multisclerosis. After her mother’s death Rowling moved to Portugal and began teaching. She then met her first husband Jorge Arantes and had her first child, a daughter named Jessica. The marriage soon ended and when the couple divorced in 1995, Rowling moved to Scotland, where she finally was able to finish the first Harry Potter Book, “The Sorcerer’s Stone.” The novel was picked up by the Bloomsbury Publishing Firm, which agreed to publish the first novel in August of 1996. However, Rowling quickly faced adversity in the form of a lawsuit, which claimed that Rowling had stolen the idea for her book from another novel which had been published in the late 80s.The case was eventually dropped due to the fact that it was found to be without merit. Furthermore, Rowling faced even more challenges when a group of parents worked to ban Rowling’s novel from their school libraries. However, the love for Rowling’s book persisted and the school eventually decided that Rowling’s book would be allowed. The series only grew from there and in 1998 Rowling received the Children’s Book of the Year Award. By the Fall of 1988 Warner Bros had secured the film rights of the series. In 2000 the fourth installment of the series, “The Goblet of Fire,” was published and it quickly became the fastest selling novel. The first movie was released in 2001, and stayed true to Rowling’s wishes to primarily cast British actors. On Dec. 26, 2001 Rowling married Dr. Neil Murray and eventually had two kids with him, David and Mackenzie. By 2005 the sixth book was released, and within its first 24 hours it had sold 6.9 million copies in the U.S. The series concluded with the release of the seventh and final book in July of 2007. The Harry Potter craze picked up steam again with the release of an eighth book in the series, “The Cursed Child,” which focused on Harry Potter’s child and the release of “Fantastic Beast and where to Find Them” movie. Due to her books and related merchandise, Rowling has become one of the richest people in the world although that has not stopped her from doing what she loves: writing.