Author's Life

Anne Rice was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 4, 1941. Rice was raised in an Irish Observant Catholic family in New Orleans, where the inspiration behind many of her books came from. In 1956, when Rice was 15, her mother died of alcoholism complications. Due to her mother’s alcoholism, Rice’s father sent her to boarding school, where she found inspiration to write her famous 1974 novel, “Interview With the Vampire”. Rice then finished highschool in Texas and attended Texas Women’s University before attending San Francisco State University, where she graduated with a Masters of Art degree in English and Creative Writing degree, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. 

In 1961, Rice married her husband Stan Rice at 20 years old, and had their first child in 1966, Michele Rice, who died at five years old due to leukemia. In 1978, they had their son Christopher Rice. Anne Rice released 19 books before reclaiming her Catholic background in 1998 and writing novels based on these beliefs. However, around 2011, Rice denounced organized religion and “quit”, writing on her Facebook page, "Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.". 

The Rice family returned to live in New Orleans in 1988, inspiring her Mayfair Witches series. Before Hurricane Katrina, the family moved to Southern California, and after the hurricane destroyed New Orleans, Anne Rice moved to Palm Desert, California. Anne Rice had been so devastated over the destruction of New Orleans that she actively spread awareness of the importance of this loss, including writing articles about the cultural destruction caused by the hurricane.