[ How JK bumped into Bart Simpson... ]

Sunday Herald, The, Jun 22, 2003

How JK bumped into Bart Simpson... and 49 other things worth knowing

1. Joanne, the first born child of Pete and Anne Rowling, came into the world on July 31, 1965. Although she's now made Scotland her home, she was born in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire. She has one sister, two years her junior, named Di.

2. As a child Rowling says her dream was to be a ballerina, which she admits would have been a physical impossibility as she says she was "virtually spherical" as a child.

3. Harry wears the same thick, black, round-framed glasses that the young Rowling wore. She says that the NHS glasses given to her were like "bottle bottoms", inspiring her to give Harry a similar look. Rowling now wears contacts but millions of parents thank Harry for making it cool for kids to wear specs.

4. Rowling has said Harry's ability to fly allows her to vicariously fulfil her dream of being able to do something physical, really well. By her own admission, the author was never particularly good at sports at school, even breaking her arm playing netball.

5. Rowling went to "a very old-fashioned" school. Tutshill Church of England Primary, where she enrolled in 1974, came complete with roll-top desks and ink wells. No doubt this was of some inspiration when she describes life at Hogwarts.

6. As a child Rowling played with a brother and sister of surname Potter. Rowling admits to having always liked the name, although she has confessed that she prefers her own despite the teasing (it's pronounced "rolling") she used to get as a child because of it.

7. Chum Ian Potter managed to persuade her to taste a slug, pretending that it was an appetising snack.

8. Rowling enrolled in Wyedean Comprehensive in 1976. It is said that her chemistry teacher, John Nettleship, is the blueprint for the cold character of Professor Snape.

9. She insists she didn't enjoy school and was dreadful at maths, but Rowling was made head girl in her final year. It is no surprise to learn that her favourite subject was English.

10. After leaving school, Rowling enrolled at Exeter University in 1984 where she studied French, after her parents advised her to pursue a career as a bilingual secretary.

11. She worked briefly for Amnesty International in London in 1987, researching human rights abuses in French-speaking Africa.

12. Once she graduated, she began working as a secretary in the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, but felt she lacked organisation and quit at the age of 26.

13. Her first move abroad was to Oporto in Portugal, where she taught English to schoolchildren in the afternoons and evenings, keeping her mornings free to indulge in her passion for writing. She married Portuguese TV journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992, with whom she had her daughter, Jessica, in 1993.

14. The only food that Rowling refuses to eat is tripe, which caused great problems when she lived in Oporto for three years - the dish is a speciality there.

15. After leaving her husband, she returned to the UK and moved to Edinburgh with dreams of finishing the first Harry Potter book she'd already started. The tale of her writing the book in Nicolsons cafe in the capital while her young daughter slept has become a modern legend.

16. When she first moved to Edinburgh, the author suffered from clinical depression. She admits that the Dementors, depicted in The Prisoner Of Azkaban, are largely based on the dark feelings caused by her illness.

17. After she completed The Philosopher's Stone, it took Rowling a year to convince a publisher the book should be put into print. Publisher Bloomsbury snapped her up.

18. In 2001, she received an OBE for her writing. She has also been awarded an honorary degree from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, America.

19. On Boxing Day, 2001, Rowling was married, for the second time, to Dr Neil Murray in a quiet ceremony in Perthshire. She guards her private life closely and won a case against celebrity magazine OK after it published pictures of her on holiday.

20. Rowling was on a train from Manchesterto London when, she says, the idea forHarry (a boy who was unaware he wasa wizard) just popped into her head.

21. She admits to being a selfish writer, having penned the Harry Potter series forher own amusement and not that of other children, or even her daughter Jessica.

22. The strong-willed character of Hermione Granger is based on Rowling herself, as are many of the character's key attributes, such as being bossy and bookish.

23. Rowling has won many awards including the Smarties Prize in 1997, 1998, and 1999, and the Whitbread Children's Book Of The Year in 1999.

24. She describes herself as having a very visual imagination, and often pictures the scenes depicted in great detail before including them in her books. She's also said that she writes the characters' dialogue as though she had overheard a conversation.

25. She received a Scottish Arts Council grant of (pounds) 8000 to finish the first Harry Potter book, The Philosopher's Stone, after struggling to complete the book on benefits alone.