Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born on the 31st of July 1965 in Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol. Rowling admits to having been a bit of a daydreamer as a child and began writing stories at the age of six.

In 1990, while stuck on a delayed train between London and Manchester, Rowling says that Harry Potter's character strode, "fully-formed" into her head. She began conceiving of the entire basis for the Harry Potter books while on this train journey, committing it largely to memory as she was without paper or a pen.

Rowling has said that bigotry is one of the things she detests most, and it is spotlighted in the HP series. "This world of wizards and witches, they're already ostracized, and then within themselves, they've formed a loathsome pecking order."