Harry Potter - the author

About the Author - J. K. Rawlings

The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the

confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he

has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me."

Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's life has the

luster of a fairy tale. Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny

Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter, Rowling wrote Harry Potter and

the Sorcerer's Stone at a table in a café during her daughter's naps —

and it was Harry Potter that rescued her. First, the Scottish Arts

Council gave her a grant to finish the book. After its sale to

Bloomsbury (UK) and Scholastic Books, the accolades began to pile

up. Harry Potter won The British Book Awards Children's Book of the

Year, and the Smarties Prize, and rave reviews on both sides of the

Atlantic. Book rights have been sold to England, France, Germany,

Italy, Holland, Greece, Finland, Denmark, Spain and Sweden.

A graduate of Exeter University, a teacher, and then an unemployed

single parent, Rowling wrote Harry Potter when "I was very low, and I

had to achieve something. Without the challenge, I would have gone

stark raving mad." But Rowling has always written; her first book was

called "Rabbit." "I was about six, and I haven't stopped scribbling

since."

For Rowling, the change in her fortunes has been slightly bewildering.

But her daughter has no doubt about her mother's new career: when

asked what mommies do, she replies without hesitation, "Mommies

write!"