Today in Writing: October 4 – Anne Rice’s Birthday
Anne Rice was born today in writing history, October 4. Celebrate the author’s birthday by learning more about her life and contributions to literature. Aspiring writers should also use this opportunity as a writing exercise. Look for inspiration today in writing history.
Today in Writing: October 4: Anne Rice’s Birthday
Anne Rice was born on October 4, 1941. She is best known for her series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles. Throughout her writing career, Rice’s works covered gothic horror and Christian texts. She has become one of the best-selling authors of all time, having sold over 100 million copies of her novels.
Despite her massive success, Rice’s writing career started with negative reviews. However, she persevered, polished her abilities, and created novels that left a lasting impression on literature. Anne Rice is credited with developing the modern-day vampire genre. Find inspiration in the stories, works, and words of this installment of Today in Writing: October 4.
Writing Prompts for Today In Writing: October 4
Please take this opportunity to learn more about Anne Rice and her literary contributions. The author’s life experience and background helped her develop her ideas into best-selling novels. Rice’s stories have developed a cult following and helped give rise to the present-day vampire genre.
What led Anne Rice to be a writer? Where did the inspiration to tell her stories come from? And what helped the author create her unique writing style? Find inspiration about Rice, learn more details about her life, and write!
Anne Rice Biography
Howard Allen O’Brien was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 4, 1941. She was named after her father, Howard O’Brien, a veteran of World War II. Anne Rice was very self-conscious about her name and, on the first day of school, told her teacher it was ‘Anne.’ Her mother, Katherine “Kay” Allen O’Brien, did not correct her. It was officially changed in 1947.
Anne Rice in New Orleans
Anne Rice spent her childhood living in New Orleans. It would be the setting of several of her future novels. Her family was Roman Catholic, and her views of religion would evolve throughout her life and be a central element in many of her stories. Rice attended a Catholic school, St. Alphonsus School, which her father had also attended. The O’Brien family also relied on the church to help with Katherine’s alcohol addiction.
Literary talent ran in the O’Brien family. Howard O’Brien would write a book, The Impulsive Imp, which would be published after his death. Anne’s older sister, Alice, would also become an author. Alice Borchardt would contribute novels to the fantasy and historical romance genres.
The family lived with Anne’s grandmother, Alice Allen, known affectionately as ‘Mamma Allen.’ Mamma Allen would help hold the family together as Katherine sank further into alcohol addiction. Unfortunately, Anne Rice’s mother would die from alcoholism in 1956. The young author was 15. Her father would remarry and move the family to Texas.
Rice in Texas and College
Howard O’Brien married Dorothy Van Bever in 1957. He would purchase a home in Richardson, Texas, and move his family west the following year. It was at Richardson High School where Anne would meet her future husband, Stan Rice, in a journalism class.
Due to financial difficulties, Anne Rice would attend a string of colleges after graduating high school in 1959. She would eventually land at the University of San Francisco in California. Rice worked for an insurance agency during the day and attended classes in the evening.
Anne and Stan married on October 14, 1961. Married in Texas, the newlyweds would move to San Francisco in 1962. Anne Rice would eventually finish her academic learning with a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in creative writing. She began doctorate studies at Berkeley, but would leave the program, reasoning: “I wanted to be a writer, not a literature student.”
Anne Rice Writing Career
The Rice family welcomed the birth of their daughter, Michele, on September 21, 1966. Sometime later, Anne claimed she had a prophetic dream that said her daughter was dying from something wrong with her blood. Shortly after, Michele Rice was diagnosed with acute granulocytic leukemia in 1970. She would pass away two years later at the age of five.
The loss drove Anne into a deep depression, causing her to question her faith and turn to alcohol. While grieving, the author would revisit a short story she had written. In 1973, she developed the story into her first novel, Interview with a Vampire. However, the manuscript faced numerous rejections, which led to Rice developing OCD and severe germophobia.
With her mental health already shaken, Rice developed obsessive habits of frequent hand washing and would undergo a year of therapy. At the Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference in 1974, Anne Rice met her future literary agent, Phyllis Seidel. Seidel would sell the rights to Interview with a Vampire in the same year, published in 1976. Claudia, a child vampire in the novel, was inspired by Michele.
The book received negative reviews, causing Rice to step away from the vampire genre. Anne Rice would author several historical and erotic novels in the following years under pseudonyms. The family would also welcome a son, Christopher, in 1978. Christopher Rice wrote a best-selling book, A Density of Souls, when he was 20.
Anne Rice would return to her vampire series with The Vampire Lestat (1985) and The Queen of the Damned (1988). The positive reception revitalized The Vampire Chronicles, and the sequels of Interview with a Vampire became best-sellers. The series would grow to 15 books and obtain a cult following. Interview with the Vampire was adapted to film in 1994, starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
Later Life and Death
Anne Rice returned to the Catholic Church in 1998 following many decades of atheism. She would fall into a diabetic coma in December of that year and was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. She would recover from this brush with death.
Her husband, Stan Rice, died from a brain tumor on December 9, 2002. On her late husband’s advice, Rice underwent gastric bypass surgery for her diabetes in 2003. However, she nearly died again in 2004 following an intestinal blockage from the surgery.
In 2005, Anne Rice published her book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, the first of her series depicting the life of Jesus Christ. The author used her series to glorify her belief in God. However, Rice did not fully agree with Catholic views and continued to speak out for gay equality. Rice announced her stance on Christianity on July 28, 2010:
“Today I quit being a Christian…. 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.”
Anne Rice died following complications from a stroke on December 11, 2021. She was 80. Rice is interred in her family’s mausoleum in New Orleans.
Anne Rice’s Writing Style, Setting Trends
Anne Rice’s writing stems from something deep within herself. During times of tragedy and loss, it inspired her to write gothic horror tales, which readjusted the vampire genre. Rice portrayed vampires as compassionate outsiders and explored issues of morality. Although she has gone on record saying it was not her intention, many members of the LGBT community identified with Rice’s socially ostracized vampires. When she renewed her faith, the author found inspiration to pen religious texts. Her writing came with the experience of her personal struggles.
Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles
Interview with the Vampire (1976)
The Vampire Lestat (1985)
The Queen of the Damned (1988)
The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
Memnoch the Devil (1995)
The Vampire Armand (1998)
Merrick (2000)
Blood and Gold (2001)
Blackwood Farm (2002)
Blood Canticle (2003)
Prince Lestat (2014)
Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)
Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018)
Today in Writing: October 4 – 10 Anne Rice Quotes
Anne Rice wrote from what she knew. Her childhood in New Orleans became the backdrop of many of her novels. The tragedy and hardship she endured seeded ideas for her writing, which would develop into a best-selling series. Despite initial rejections, Rice secured her position as a literary titan. Aspiring writers can find inspiration in her unyielding writing.
10 Anne Rice Quotes
1. To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
2. The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They’ve always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.
3. I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.
4. When I write something, every word of it is meant. I can’t say it enough.
5. I can’t keep up with Stephen King’s output.
6. You reach deep down and bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book, but you don’t know everything about it. You can’t.
7. I claim Dickens as a mentor. He’s my teacher. He’s one of my driving forces.
8. Writers, as they gain success, feel like outsiders because writers don’t come together in real groups.
9. We need to stop fighting Christian against Christian. I have no time for anything but trying to love other people. That is a full-time job.
10. You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don’t know each other very well.
Today in Writing: October 4 – Daily Writing Exercise
Now that you have done some reading, it is time to write. Aspiring writers should look to the stories from Today in Writing: October 4 and Anne Rice’s life for their own inspiration. Check through her quotes to spark an idea, or read her novels to get a sense of her writing style.
Find a topic from and freewrite for 10 minutes. The writing of Anne Rice comes from a place of fragile examination. In Rice’s words, “The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They’ve always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.” Aspiring writers should look for inspiration in the author’s metaphorical words and start writing.
Don’t let any opportunity to write go to waste. Aspiring writers: Practice your writing today. Celebrate Today in Writing History October 4.
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