Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury,England in 1965. She began writing at the age of 6 with astory called 'Rabbit', which she never finished.

In high school her favorite subject was English. From HighSchool, Rowling went to Exeter University where she earneda degree in French.

After graduating, she spent a year studying in Paris andthen went back to London where she worked in a number ofjobs, including a year with Amnesty International and ashort time as secretary for a publishing company, where shewas responsible for sending out rejection slips.

In the summer of 1990, on a delayed train from Manchesterto London, she came up with the idea of a boy who discovershe is a wizard. But it would be 7 years before the ideabecame a book.

In that same year her mother died of Multiple Sclerosis andshe left for Portugal to teach English, hoping to find away to deal with her grief.

In October 1992 she married a Portuguese televisionjournalist, Jorge Arantes. But the marriage lasted justeleven months.

In 1993 she left her husband and returned to England, withthe one legacy of her failed marriage - an infant daughternamed Jessica.

Her life suddenly took a nose-dive. Fighting poverty anddepression, she lived in a mice-infested flat in Edinburghand struggled to raise her baby daughter on a welfare checkof 70 pounds ($100) a week.

Unable to heat her flat, she sat in caf