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Its tea time, and we've gathered recent news and current events that are meant to inspire and enjoy. This week we are exploring J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. J.K. knew she wanted to be a writer from as early as 5 years old! Read about her life; her story is of an ordinary life turned into an extraordinary one! If you like writing, start a file, keep a journal! Keep every scrap!
Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrote down, when she was five or six, was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. Many of her favorite memories center around reading-- hearing 'The Wind in the Willows' read aloud by her father when she had the measles, enjoying the fantastic adventure stories of 'E. Nesbit', reveling in the magical world of C. S. Lewis's 'Narnia', and her favorite story of all, 'The Little White Horse' by Elizabeth Goudge.
When Joanne was nine the family moved again, this time to Tutshill near Chepstow in the Forest of Dean. Her parents were both Londoners and had a dream of living in the country. Wandering across the fields and along the river Wye with her sister was very pleasant to Joanne, but her new school was small and old-fashioned and the teacher was strict and frightening to the quiet, imaginative young girl. Her high school years were spent at Wyedean Comprehensive, where her favorite subject was English and she did not excel in sports; she actually broke her arm playing net ball. Her favorite activity was telling stories to her studious and serious friends over lunchtime--serial stories, in which they all performed heroic feats and good deeds. She was made Head Girl in her final year. At Exeter University Rowling took her degree in French and spent one year studying in Paris. After college she moved to London to work for Amnesty International as a researcher and bilingual secretary. The best thing about working in an office, she has said, was typing up stories on the computer when no one was watching. During this time, on a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990, the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard and doesn't know it. He attends a school for wizardry--she could see him very plainly in her mind. By the time the train pulled into King's Cross Station four hours later, many of the characters and the early stages of the plot were fully formed in her head. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs and cafes over her lunch hours. Rowling had been writing short stories and working on two unpublished novels for adults, but now the idea of Harry Potter took over her writing time. In 1992 Rowling left off working in offices and moved to Portugal to teach English as a Second Language. In spite of her students making jokes about her name (this time they called her "Rolling Stone"), she enjoyed teaching. She worked afternoons and evenings, leaving mornings free for writing. What is the secret of Rowling's remarkable success? Many articles in journals, interviews on television, and discussions on the Internet have tried to analyze the ingredients that make the Harry Potter books irresistible to readers of all ages--the fast-paced cliffhanger action, the sparkling humor, the Dickensian names. But perhaps the true secret lies in what Rowling herself said in an interview published in Book Links magazine: "The book is really about the power of the imagination. What Harry is learning to do is to develop his full potential. Wizardry is just the analogy I use." While magic and wizardry inform many plot elements, the books are ultimately about the innate human desire to be unique and special, to form lasting friendships and connections with others, and to see forces for good triumph over forces for evil. Jo Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her
daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the seven-book
saga of Harry Potter.
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!"
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The
family moved twice while she was growing up. The first move was
across Bristol to Winterbourne, where she and her sister played
with a group of children in the neighborhood. Two of the children
had the surname Potter, a name she remembers liking very much.
Her own name, pronounced "Rolling," led to annoying jokes about
rolling pins from the other children in school. 
