Jk Rowling Essay, Research Paper

Joanne Kathleen Rowling is an author that people should take more serious. Also known as, J.K. Rowling, this fantastic author is one of a kind. She has moved all over the world, suffered poverty, had a mother die young, and still managed to take good care of her young daughter alone. She has done some remarkable feats in her shot time as a publicized author, some of which will be discussed. Imagine being poor and recently divorced and raising a young child alone, those are some serious shortcomings; this woman defeated all and rose to the top, she disserves to be recognized fully.

Joanne Rowling was born to Peter and Ann Rowling in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England. Born on July 31, 1965, this is where the journey begins. As a youth, Joanne and her sister Di, two years younger, had to move three times, first moving from her original birthplace to Yate, just outside of Bristol, then from Yate to Winterbourne. While in Winterbourne J.K. met some friends, a brother and sister whose surname happened to be Potter. Joanne recalls being quite freckly, short sighted, and rubbish at sports.

Once, question on the origin of her writing she recalls by saying that she has wanted to be an author as long as she can remember. In addition, while in school, English was her favorite subject. She says that still she does not remember why she got a degree in French. She wrote her first story at the age of 6, it was about a rabbit, and the story was called, Rabbit. In addition as a child, she said that her most memorable book was, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. Her mother bought her a copy when she was eight. Another book she enjoyed was, Manxmouse by Paul Gallico

J.K. attended Exeter University straight out of school and studied French, she trying to become a bi-lingual secretary. After graduation with a degree, she went out to become a secretary. She spent a few years as she says, the worst secretary ever! Then in 1990 at 26 years old she moved to Portugal to teach English, she loved doing this. While in Portugal Joanne met and later married a Portuguese journalist named, Jorge Arantes. While married Joanne gave birth to their daughter, Jessica Rowling. After the divorce, she moved with Jessica to Edinburgh, Scotland to be closer to her younger sister Di. During this time, J.K. started her Harry Potter books.

Joanne was from Brittan s university-educated middle class and now a single mother with no job. Once asked why did she want to become an author and she replied, if someone asked for my recipe for happiness, step on would be finding out what you love doing the most in life and step two would be finding someone to pay you to do it, I m very lucky to be writing. This was just the time in her life to pick up her love for writing. In addition, during this time, Joanne went through month of counseling for her depression, and in 1994, she recovered successfully. At an interview she was asked if she had and advise for struggling mothers and in return she said, I am never very comfortable giving other single mothers words of advice , Nobody knows better than I do that I was very lucky. I did not need money to exercise the talent I had; all I needed was a Brio and some paper. Nor do other single mothers need to be reminded that they are doing the most demanding job in the world, which isn t sufficiently recognized for my liking.

Most writers have their very own writing style and Joanne is one of them. She says that she still likes writing the first draft by hand even with computers being so popular in the 20th century, and then she does her first edit on her computer. She prefers writing in black ink and to use narrow feint writing paper. While writing the first Harry Potter story it is know that she was a very struggling mother. This is actually not true, she says that only in the final year of writing did she find her self at the lowest point financially ever. Since she was raising her daughter too, time was very important to her, she would take Jessica for a walk and wait until she fell asleep and hurry off to a caf and write as fast as she could. During the final stage of writing, the Scottish Arts Council gave her grant to Finnish the book and after a number of rejections, she eventually sold her novel, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, for $4,000 (US) dollars to Bloomsbury (UK) in 1997. The book won The British Book Awards Children s Book of the Year and the Smarties Prize. Then renamed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, in 1998 by Author A. Levine Books and Scholastic Press.

The sequel to the first Harry Potter book named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , this was published in the United Kingdom in July of 1998 and then in the United States in June of 1999, her third book was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and was published in the United Kingdom in July 1999 and then in the United States in September of 1999. She was asked what was needed for a good Harry Potter story and in reply, she said that it need humor, strong characters, and a watertight plot. In addition, she commented to say that it needs scariness but she never in tends to scare anyone. When asked where her ideas come from she has no clue and she hopes to never find out. Joanne says that it would ruin the excitement for her. Sometimes her idea come to her like magic she stated, and then sometimes she would have to sit for a week to come up with how something will happen. Harry Potter was all started when she was on a train traveling between Manchester and London and out of nowhere, it came. The named for the characters and places she says that she invented some and the others she would collect from medieval maps, dictionaries, plants, and war memorials; some are just different forms of people that had met before. She said that she has not consciously based anything in the Harry Potter series on her life, yet in chapter 12 in the first book, she noticed her own feeling on her mom s death sunk it.

By 1999 she became an international literary success, when the first three books took the top three spots in the New York Times bestsellers list, with similar success in the United Kingdom. By the summer of 2000 her books sold over 35 million copies in 35 languages and earned around $480 million. Her latest book and the most successful is named, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. J.K. Rowling says that even back on that train long ago she saw it as a series and would follow Harry to the end of his schooldays at Hogwarts, she plans on seven books.