Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol, a few miles south of the town of Dursley, where the Muggle family in the "Harry Potter" series resided. Her father, Peter Rowling, was an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol at the time of her birth, while her mother, Anne, was half-French and half-Scottish. The couple met on a train as it departed King's Cross Station in London. Joanne's sister, Diana, is approximately two years younger than her.
In 1971, Peter Rowling relocated his family to the nearby village of Winterbourne, still within the Bristol vicinity. During their residence in Winterbourne, Joanne and her sister were friends with neighborhood children, Ian and Vikki Potter. Three years later, the Rowling family moved again, this time to Tutshill, near the Welsh border-town of Chepstow in the Forest of Dean, and across the Severn River from the greater Bristol area.
As a child, Joanne was known to be a daydreamer and began writing stories at the age of six. After leaving Exeter University, where she studied French and Classics, she started working as a teacher but continued to daydream about becoming a writer. During a four-hour delay on a train between Manchester and London in 1990, she conceived the idea of a boy named "Harry Potter". It took her six years to write the book.
In the intervening period, she taught in Portugal, married a Portuguese television journalist, had her daughter Jessica, divorced her husband, and returned to Britain when Jessica was just three months old. She then moved to Edinburgh to be near her sister, Diana. Her financial struggles made her realize that it was "back-against-the-wall time" and she decided to finish her "Harry Potter" book.
She sent the manuscript to two agents and one publisher, looking up likely prospects in the library. One of these agents, Christopher Little, was captivated by the manuscript and signed her on as his client within three days. During the 1995-1996 timeframe, while hoping to get the manuscript for "Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone" published, Rowling worked as a French teacher in Edinburgh. Several publishers rejected the manuscript before Bloomsbury agreed to purchase it in 1996.
