Well Done, J.K.Rowling!

A belated “happy birthday” to her as she celebrated yesterday, 31 July!

And “well done” to her because she certainly persevered.  She did not write her Harry Potter books and, pouff, all of a sudden they were an over night success.  She HAD.TO.PERSEVERE!

Rowling attended England’s University of Exeter, where she studied French, and later worked for human-rights organization Amnesty International in London and as a language instructor in Portugal. The idea for Harry Potter came to Rowling when she was riding a train from Manchester, England, to London in 1990. She began writing the first book that night. Rowling finished the book while living in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she struggled financially as a single mother and battled depression. Her completed manuscript was turned down by a number of publishers before she got a book deal with Bloomsbury Publishing in August 1996.

The first Harry Potter book debuted in Great Britain in 1997 under the title Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The book was released in the United States the following year and renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Children and adults alike were captivated by the story of the bespectacled boy wizard Harry, his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, their adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Harry’s struggles against his enemy, the evil Lord Voldemort.

Certainly, J.K. Rowling is now a household name and her books have been read by young and old and every age in between!

Currently, Universal Studios here in Los Angeles has a wonderful Harry Potter area where one can walk the cobbled streets, shop at all of the little shops for robes, owls, sweets and other such Harry Potter items, buy “magic” wands with which to then perform “magic” and generally have a really magical time.

Thank you, J.K. Rowling, for persevering!