J.K. Rowling Writing Detective Novels

Monday, August 20, 2007

J.K. Rowling, the author of the seven books on Harry Potter the boy wizard, has turned her pen to crime. Crime stories that is. Rowling has been seen writing in Edinburgh cafes, a habit she picked up when she was a single mother on the dole writing the Harry Potter stories in café’s to save on heating at her home.

J.K. Rowling is now one of the richest women in England according to Forbes and is worth about one billion dollars. Her Harry Potter series sold more than 335 million copies world-wide.

Ian Ranking, author and neighbor of Rowling’s said he was happy to see that Rowling was not giving up writing. Ranking is well known for his police novels focusing on the city of Edinburgh.

In an interview last month, Rowling said although it is unlikely that she will repeat the success she had with Harry Potter, she will continue to write and do what she always has done, “To write what I want to write.”

J.K. Rowling (her real name is Joanne) was born in Bristol, England in 1965. She has a degree in French Literature from Exeter University, has worked for Amnesty International and taught English in Portugal. She married a TV Journalist, divorced him and began writing the first drafts of the Harry Potter series in Edinburgh cafes while her daughter Jessica slept.

J.K. Rowling said she got the idea of Harry Potter while waiting for a train from Manchester to London, which was delayed for four hours.

“See, sometimes just a little change in plans can be creative and funny,” Rowling said.

J.K. Rowling said many of her ideas for characters and stories for her Harry Potter books were drawn from childhood memories and people that she met as a child.