J.K. Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Chepstow, England, and grew up there. She studied French at the University of Exeter and graduated with a bachelor's degree. She worked for a charity called Amnesty International in London after college, among several other jobs. She had always wanted to be a writer since she was a child. In 1990, while riding the train from Manchester to London, she had the idea for Harry Potter. Rowling relocated to Portugal a year later to teach English. She married her first husband in Portugal, and they had a daughter called Jessica together.

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Joanne's marriage to her husband ended in divorce, and she returned to England. Her first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in June 1997 by Bloomsbury Children's Books, a small publishing house.

To appeal to a younger male audience, she published the novel under the name J.K. Rowling. She went on to write a total of seven Harry Potter books, as well as two sequels. The Harry Potter books have been adapted into eight commercial films. She also published two separate books under the name Robert Galbraith, titled The Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo's Calling.