Anne Rice was born Howard Allen O'Brien on October 4, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She did not choose the name "Anne" until later in life. She married her husband, the late poet Stan Rice, in 1961 and had her first child, Michele, the same year. Michele unfortunately died in 1966 at the age of five from leukemia.
            In 1973 she wrote Interview with the Vampire, but she didn't publish it until 1976, when it became immensly popular. After that she wrote her second book, The Vampire Lestat, basing it on one of her characters in Interview.
            After publishing her second book her son Christopher was born, who went on to become an accomplished writer in his own right. She then continued to write, producing The Vampire Chronicles, the Mayfair Witches series, and the Witching Hour series.
            On December 9, 2002, her husband, Stan Rice, died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Deeply depressed, her weight rose to 254 pounds. Because of her high weight she began to suffer from sleep apnea and problems moving. She has since lost the weight.
            She has since sparked controversy from her crusade to keep fan fiction of her work off the net and in 2004 an angry rebuttal to some of her critics cause ridicule on the internet and elsewhere. She remains a figure shrouded in mistery and a bit of a hermit, almost like the charecters of her books who are misterious in their ways.