Jo Rowling always wanted to be a writer but never told anyone while she was at school because she thought that they would laugh at her. She wrote her first book when she was six.

At school, Jo was quite hard working (although she hated sport) and a very keen reader. She loved Little Women, Black Beauty and, above all, Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse. When she was 14 her aunt gave her Jessica Mitford's Hons and Rebels. It made a huge impression on Jo, so much so that she called her own daughter Jessica.

When she left university, Jo did a bilingual secretarial course and a few different jobs around the country before she went off to teach in Portugal. While she was there she got married and had a baby, before returning to Edinburgh.

The idea for the Harry Potter books came to Jo on a train from London to Manchester. She envisaged a seven-book series that would take Harry from his arrival at Hogwarts as a new boy to the end of his schooldays. She drew on all her reading and her imagination to provide the brilliant details that have captivated readers everywhere.