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Joanne K. Rowling (b. July 31, 1965, Yate, England, UK) is an English author best known for her best-selling Harry Potter novels. The enormous success of the novels has made Rowling the world's first billionaire author and among the wealthiest women in the world. Rowling has won the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Whitbread Award for Best Children's Book and has also been named an Officer of the British Empire.

After graduating Wyedean Comprehensive, Rowling attended Exeter University where she studied French. Following college, she became a secretary but her natural tendency towards disorganization and daydreaming caused her to move on to a new career. She moved to Portugal at 26 where she taught English and began working on her story ideas. In Portugal, she met her husband, a journalist and the two had a daughter Jessica. They divorced a short time after their daughter's birth and Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to be close to Rowling's sister, Di.

She continued to work on her wizard novel and requested a grant from the Scottish Arts Council in order to complete her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which she sold to Bloomsbury. Rowling began teaching French and some months after the initial sale of her first novel, Arthur A Levine Books/Scholastic Press bought the American rights to the novel. It was renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The success allowed her to give up teaching and devote herself to writing.

Her first novel was so great a success she was showered with awards and accolades including the 1997 British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, and the Smarties Prize. She immediately began working on a sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was published in July of 1998 in the UK, and in June, 1999 in the USA. The successes of the books had Hollywood knocking at her door. A film based on her first novel, debuted in 2001 and starred Daniel Radcliffe in the tile role. The film was a huge critical and financial success. Plans immediately were underway to transform every book in the series into a film.

Rowling's final book in the Harry Potter series was published in 2007 and the film version is slated for a 2010 release. Rowling began working on a hand written set of fairy tales. The book was auctioned off at Sotheby's and sold to Amazon for £1,950,000. The proceeds went to The Children's Voice campaign, a charity Rowling co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.

Novels

Harry Potter

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) (1997)

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

• The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007)

External links

• Official website
• Rowling bio

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