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Joanne Rowling ( ROH-ling); born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith. Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author. The novels follow a boy called Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts (a school for wizards), and battles Lord Voldemort. Death and the divide between good and evil are the central themes of the series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school stories, fairy tales, and Christian allegory. The series revived fantasy as a genre in the children's market, spawned a host of imitators, and inspired an active fandom. Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers see Rowling's writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series. Rowling has won many accolades for her work. She has received an OBE and made a Companion of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her wealth and recognition, which she has used to advance philanthropic endeavours and political causes. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. In politics, she has donated to Britain's Labour Party and opposed Scottish independence and Brexit. She has publicly expressed her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017. These views have been described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations. They have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors. Name Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling, or Jo. At birth, she had no middle name. Staff at Bloomsbury Publishing suggested that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating that young boys – their target audience – would not want to read a book written by a woman. She chose K as the second initial, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Rowling, and because of the ease of pronunciation of two consecutive letters. Following her 2001 remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. Life and career Early life and family Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 at Cottage Hospital in Yate, Gloucestershire, to a middle-class family. Her parents Anne (née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous year on a train, sharing a trip from King's Cross station, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. Rowling's mother was with the Wrens and her father with the Royal Navy. Pete Rowling was the son of a machine-tool setter who later opened a grocery shop. They left the navy life and sought a country home to raise the baby they were expecting, and married on 14 March 1965 when both were 19. The Rowlings settled in Yate, where Pete started work as an assembly-line production worker at the Bristol Siddeley factory. The company became part of Rolls-Royce, and he worked his way into management as a chartered engineer. Anne Rowling later worked as a science technician. Neither of Rowling's parents attended university. Rowling is two years older than her sister, Dianne. When she was four, Rowling's family moved to Winterbourne, Gloucestershire. She began at St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Winterbourne when she was five. The Rowlings lived near a family called Potter – a name Rowling always liked. Rowling's mother liked to read and the family's homes were filled with books. Her father read The Wind in the Willows to his daughters, while her mother introduced them to the animals in Richard Scarry's books. Rowling'a first attempt at writing, a story called "Rabbit" composed when she was six, was inspired by Scarry's creatures. When Rowling was about nine, the family purchased the historic Church Cottage in Tutshill. In 1974, Rowling began attending the nearby Church of England School. Biographer Sean Smith describes her teacher as a "battleaxe" who "struck fear into the hearts of the children"; she seated Rowling in "dunces' row" after she performed poorly on an arithmetic test. In 1975, Rowling joined a Brownies pack. Its special events and parties, and the pack groups (Fairies, Pixies, Sprites, Elves, Gnomes and Imps) provided a magical world away from her stern teacher. When she was eleven or twelve, she wrote a short story, "The Seven Cursed Diamonds". She later described herself during this period as "the epitome of a bookish child – short and squat, thick National Health glasses, living in a world of complete daydreams". Secondary school and university Rowling's secondary school was Wyedean School and College, a state school she began attending at the age of eleven and where she was bullied. Rowling was inspired by her favourite teacher, Lucy Shepherd, who taught the importance of structure and precision in writing. Smith writes that Rowling "craved to play heavy electric guitar", and describes her as "intelligent yet shy". Her teacher Dale Neuschwander was impressed by her imagination. When she was a young teenager, Rowling's great-aunt gave her Hons and Rebels, the autobiography of the civil rights activist Jessica Mitford. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and she read all her books. Anne had a strong influence on her daughter. Early in Rowling's life, the support of her mother and sister instilled confidence and enthusiasm for storytelling. Anne was a creative and accomplished cook, who helped lead her daughters' Brownie activities, and took a job in the chemistry department at Wyedean while her daughters were there. The three walked to and from school, sharing stories about their day, more like sisters than mother and daughters. John Nettleship, the head of science at Wyedean, described Anne as "absolutely brilliant, a sparkling chara.... Discover the Ray Bradbury Philip K Dick Robert A Hein popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ray Bradbury Philip K Dick Robert A Hein books.