Joanne Rowling was born on July 31st, 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire in England. As seen above, she had no middle name but chose “Kathleen”, after her paternal grandmother. When she first began writing she feared sexism as a female author so she penned the more unrevealing alias J.K. Rowling.

She began work as a researcher and secretary for a human-rights organization when she first had the idea that sparked her most famous works – The Harry Potter series, in 1990. The idea of a “young boy attending a school of wizardry” came “fully formed” into her mind.

From then to 1997 (when she finally out together the first Harry Potter book) she faced many challenges, including divorce, poverty, and the death of family. Her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by many publishers because most thought it was too long.

When Bloomsbury Publishing finally accepted the book it brought Rowling immense fame and she wrote 6 more books in the series, finally ending it in 2007. In under a decade, she went from living on state benefits to being a billionaire and in fact lost her status as a billionaire because of donations to charity.

The Harry Potter series is one of the most successful book series in history, selling over 400 million copies and turning it into the second highest-grossing movies series of all time.

Since the conclusion of the series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007, she has continued writing under the alias Robert Galbraith. Books she has written since are The Casual Vacancy, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and The Silkworm.