Anne Rice

Anne Rice, born Howard Allen O'Brien after her father, was born on October 4, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a family of three sisters, her Catholic father who was a postal worker, and her mother, a struggling alcoholic. The author, who claims, "I was never a good student. I daydreamed in class. I wrote stories in my notebooks. I learned the basics, bus most of my active intellectual life was outside of school," had legally changed her name to Anne by the time she was in first grade (Anne 2).

Anne's mother finally lost her battle with alcoholism when Anne was fourteen. Anne and her family moved to Texas where, at age eighteen, she abandoned the Catholic faith saying that, "I just didn't believe it was the one true Church established by God to give grace" (Anne 2). In 1998, Anne returned to the Catholic church. At twenty, Anne married her high school boyfriend, Stan Rice. After their marriage in October 1961, the couple moved to San Francisco where they attended San Fransisco State, and Anne earned her masters in creative writing.

Shortly after, in 1966, Anne gave birth to her first child, Michele. One night, "I dreamed my daughter, Michele, was dying- that there was something wrong with her blood" (Castranova 377). Not long after, in 1970, Michele was diagnosed with leukemia. She died in 1972 before her sixth birthday. Anne was overcome with grief, and she expressed her emotion by writing her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, in only five weeks. This triggered her to write more vampire and historical novels including the Vampire Chronicles series, the New Tales of the Vampires series, the