50 Fun Facts About J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling's parents first met on a journey to Scotland that began at which London railway station?

King's Cross is also where Rowling starts the Hogwarts Express on its run north; her parents were heading for navy postings at Arbroath.

The idea for Harry Potter came to J. K. Rowling on a delayed train heading to London from which city?

Manchester was the city she planned to move to, and with no pen or paper she spent the four-hour delay building the story in her head.

In which country was J. K. Rowling teaching English at night while she drafted the first Harry Potter book?

Portugal was her home from 1991 to 1993: she taught evening classes in Porto, wrote during the day, and her first child was born there.

Which London publisher took J. K. Rowling's first book after its chief's eight-year-old daughter read a chapter?

Bloomsbury said yes after twelve other publishers had turned the manuscript down, though her editor there warned she would never make money from children's books.

Under which pen name did J. K. Rowling publish the crime novel The Cuckoo's Calling, posing as an army veteran?

Robert Galbraith was presented as a first-time author with an army and security background, and the secret held for about three months after publication.

In which animated series did J. K. Rowling voice herself when a visiting American family toured London in 2003?

The Simpsons met her in the episode The Regina Monologues, and she recorded her lines by satellite link from her home in Scotland.

Besides Britain's high taxes, what did Forbes say cost J. K. Rowling her billionaire status in 2012?

Charitable donations put at about $160 million by then had shrunk her fortune, eight years after Forbes called her the first billion-dollar author.

J. K. Rowling named her charity for children in orphanages after which spell from Harry Potter?

Lumos grew from a newspaper report she read in 2004 about children kept in caged beds, and she pays its core costs so that other gifts fund the work.

On what object in her Edinburgh hotel room did J. K. Rowling sign a note that she had finished Harry Potter?

A marble bust of Hermes in room 552 of the Balmoral carries her note from January 2007, and it now sits in a glass case in a suite named after her.

At the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, J. K. Rowling read aloud from which classic children's story?

Peter Pan's copyright was given to Great Ormond Street Hospital, whose charity logo was picked out by 320 illuminated hospital beds in the same sequence.

Which first name, usually shortened to Jo, does the J in J. K. Rowling's pen name stand for?

Joanne is her only given name: she was born with no middle name, so the second initial was added just for the book cover.

J. K. Rowling gave Harry Potter her own birthday, which falls on the last day of which month?

July 31 is the date they share, though she maintains that Harry is not directly based on any real person.

J. K. Rowling's American publisher replaced the word Philosopher in her first book's title with which word?

Sorcerer was Rowling's own compromise after her American editor asked to rename the book Harry Potter and the School of Magic.

Which Hollywood studio bought the film rights to J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novels in 1999?

Warner Bros. had to accept her terms: Rowling kept final script approval and a rule that the studio could film only stories she had written.

Which Harry Potter actor did J. K. Rowling let in on his character's secret past years before the final book?

Alan Rickman used what she told him to shape his scenes, and when directors queried a choice he would say only that he knew something they did not.

Which British actor stars as the wizard Newt Scamander in the first film J. K. Rowling wrote as a screenwriter?

Eddie Redmayne, already a fan of the books, was cast in 2015 for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which opens in the New York of 1926.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a sequel J. K. Rowling helped devise, first reached audiences in what form?

A stage play in two parts, it opened in London's West End in 2016 with a script by Jack Thorne and won nine Olivier Awards the following year.

Which studious Harry Potter character has J. K. Rowling described as an exaggerated version of her younger self?

Hermione Granger exaggerates the know-it-all that Rowling says she was as a girl, and the author has called her bright, logical, upright and good.

Which Hogwarts character did J. K. Rowling reveal to be gay when a fan at Carnegie Hall asked about his love life?

Albus Dumbledore's secret reached the film set too: she crossed out a screenplay passage about his attraction to a woman and wrote in a correction.

J. K. Rowling funded an Edinburgh research clinic for which illness, which her mother died of in 1990?

Multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in her mother when Rowling was 15, and in 2010 the author gave £10 million to found the clinic that carries Anne Rowling's name.

J. K. Rowling has no middle name, so which relative, Kathleen, supplied the K on her book covers?

Her grandmother Kathleen was her father's mother; the publisher had asked for initials, fearing boys would not pick up a book written by a woman.

At which English university did J. K. Rowling study French and Classics, running up a £50 library fine?

Exeter took her after Oxford had rejected her application, and her course there included a year living in Paris.

Before Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling researched abuses in French-speaking Africa for which human rights organisation?

Amnesty International hired her in London after she took a bilingual secretarial course, and she was writing unpublished novels for adults at the time.

J. K. Rowling wrote her first story at age six about which animal, inspired by Richard Scarry's books?

A rabbit, named simply Rabbit, was the hero of that first tale, and by eleven she had moved on to a story about seven cursed diamonds.

Which make of car, owned in turquoise by J. K. Rowling's sixth-form friend Sean Harris, flies in her second novel?

A Ford Anglia was her escape from a difficult home life, and its owner later lent her £600 for the flat where she finished her first book.

Which American publisher won the auction for J. K. Rowling's first book, paying $105,000 for the US rights?

Scholastic's payment let her buy a flat in Edinburgh, and its American edition reached bookshops in September 1998.

Which character was J. K. Rowling considered for in the film of Philosopher's Stone, a part she turned down?

Lily Potter, seen only fleetingly on screen as Harry's late mother, went to Geraldine Somerville once the author had said no.

Which 2012 novel about a parish council election was J. K. Rowling's first book written for adults?

The Casual Vacancy was promoted as a black comedy of village life, and the BBC and HBO later turned it into a miniseries.

Which British charity received J. K. Rowling's royalties from Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages?

Comic Relief received all her royalties from the two slim companion books of 2001, each published under the name of a fictional wizard author.

Which Harry Potter novel won J. K. Rowling a Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Convention?

Goblet of Fire took the 2001 Hugo for Best Novel, and it is the only book of the seven to have won one.

Which actor stars in the BBC series as J. K. Rowling's Denmark Street detective, Cormoran Strike?

Tom Burke took the role in 2017 opposite Holliday Grainger, whose character Robin Ellacott rises from temporary secretary to business partner.

J. K. Rowling's detective Cormoran Strike had half his right leg taken off by a bomb while serving with the army where?

Afghanistan ended his career as a military investigator, and Rowling gave royalties from his first case to a charity for soldiers.

In J. K. Rowling's The Cuckoo's Calling, a fatal fall ends the life of Lula Landry, a famous what?

Model Lula Landry's death is ruled a suicide by police until her adoptive brother, a lawyer, hires Strike to look at the case again.

Which magical object from her first novel has J. K. Rowling said is about her mother's death?

The Mirror of Erised shows Harry what he most desires, his dead parents alive and beside him; Rowling's mother died soon after she began the book.

Which fairy tale did J. K. Rowling release free online in daily instalments during the 2020 lockdown?

The Ickabog was drafted while she was still writing Harry Potter and then left in her attic, and its printed edition used children's own illustrations chosen in a competition.

Which online retailer paid £1.95 million at auction for J. K. Rowling's handwritten Tales of Beedle the Bard?

Amazon bought one of only seven copies she wrote and illustrated by hand; Sotheby's had expected about £50,000, and the money went to her children's charity.

At which American university did J. K. Rowling give a 2008 commencement speech later published as Very Good Lives?

Harvard also gave her an honorary degree, and the speech was published in 2015 to raise money for student financial aid and her children's charity.

Whose Beowulf translation competed with J. K. Rowling's Prisoner of Azkaban for the Whitbread Book of the Year?

Seamus Heaney was already a Nobel laureate, and the judges gave Rowling the children's prize instead, worth half the cash.

Which French order made J. K. Rowling a knight in 2009, at a ceremony led by President Nicolas Sarkozy?

The Legion of Honour joined a list of awards that runs from Spain's Prince of Asturias Award to a Blue Peter Gold Badge.

Which punk singer's back-combed hair and black eyeliner did J. K. Rowling copy as an unhappy teenager?

Siouxsie Sioux was her style icon in years she has called unhappy, when she also took up smoking and a taste for alternative rock.

Which rebellious writer, J. K. Rowling's heroine since the age of fourteen, is her eldest daughter named after?

Jessica Mitford entered her life when a great-aunt gave her Hons and Rebels, the memoir of a woman who ran away at 19 to the Spanish Civil War.

Which fictional West Country town does J. K. Rowling's first novel for adults divide with a parish council election?

Pagford is thrown into turmoil when councillor Barry Fairbrother dies suddenly, reopening a fight over whether a council estate should stay within the parish.

J. K. Rowling's 2020 fairy tale about a marsh monster is set in which kingdom, ruled by King Fred the Fearless?

Cornucopia's prosperous southern cities each specialise in a different food, while the poorer Marshlands lie in the north.

In J. K. Rowling's The Christmas Pig, to which realm does Jack travel to find his toy, DP?

The Land of the Lost is ruled by a cruel figure called the Loser, and Rowling drew the story from a pair of toy pigs her son had as a small child.

Under which fictional wizard's name did J. K. Rowling publish the sports history Quidditch Through the Ages?

Kennilworthy Whisp's book is dressed up as the Hogwarts library copy, the title a teacher confiscates from Harry in the first novel.

In J. K. Rowling's Career of Evil, a severed leg arrives with a message quoting which American rock band?

Blue Öyster Cult were a favourite of Strike's late mother, Leda, which tells him the sender must be someone from his own past.

Which 1946 novel about an orphan sent to Moonacre Manor did J. K. Rowling name as her favourite childhood book?

The Little White Horse won Elizabeth Goudge the Carnegie Medal, and its heroine is a 13-year-old with red hair and freckles sent to live with her guardian.

Which Australian actress portrayed J. K. Rowling in the 2011 television film Magic Beyond Words?

Poppy Montgomery, the Without a Trace star, played her in the Lifetime biopic, which won the Canadian Screen Award for best TV movie or miniseries.

Which award, voted for by children, did J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels win three years running?

The Nestlé Smarties Prize of 1997 made her first book well known within six months of publication, and the next two novels won it as well.

Which American screenwriter adapted every Harry Potter film from J. K. Rowling's novels except Order of the Phoenix?

Steve Kloves worked with Rowling's help to keep his scripts faithful to her plots, and Michael Goldenberg stepped in for the fifth film.