Harry Potter writer: J.K. Rowling

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was an author only in potential when she sat at a table in an Edinburgh cafe writing of Harry Potter, the boy who lived. The first of the fantastically popular Harry Potter books was completed with the aid of a grant from the Scottish Arts Council. Nobody could ever have forseen the worldwide following which sprang from those humble origins. Four books into the series of an intended seven, and J.K. Rowling is a household name across the USA and much of Europe.

Born in Chepstow, Gwent in 1965, J.K. Rowling attended Exeter University, worked as a secretary and then a teacher before a period of unemployment gave forth the first in the Harry Potter series. She and her husband divorced shortly after her daughter's birth, and during the writing of The Philosopher's Stone mother and daughter lived in a tiny Edinburgh flat.