** Like I said, who is Anne Rice anyway?
Anne and Stan Rice also have a daughter, Michele, their first born, who died of Leukemia at age six.
The Feast of All Saints (1979)
Cry to Heaven (1982)
The Mummy (1989)
Servant of the Bones (1996)
Violin (1997)
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)
New Tales of the Vampires:
Pandora (1998)
Vittorio the Vampire (1999)
Lives of the Mayfair Witches:
The Witching Hour (1990)
Lasher (1993)
Taltos (1994)
Under the name of Anne Rampling:
Exit to Eden (1985)
Belinda (1986)
Under the name of A. N. Roquelaure:
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)
Beauty's Punishment (1984)
Beauty's Release (1985)
Cry to Heaven: CtH
Exit to Eden: EtoE
The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy: The Beauty books
The Witching Hour: TWH (Though this series is known as the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, for some reason this title has not caught on. It is referred to as the TWH series)
Interview With the Vampire: Interview or IWTV (Note: some people will call IWTV "Vampire" but this is discouraged by most as the word "Vampire" can refer to far too many things in the series for the meaning to be clear.)
The Vampire Lestat: Lestat, TVL
The Queen of the Damned: Queeen, TQD, QotD
The Tale of the Body Thief: Body Thief, TotBT
Memnoch the Devil: Memnoch, Mem., MtD
The Vampire Armand: TVA, Armand
Vittorio the Vampire: VtV, Vittorio
The Vampire Chronicles: VampChron (Sometimes it's written as VC but this often gets confused with The Vampire Companion which is called VC more often than VampChron is so VampChron is more common. In this FAQ, VC will refer to the Companion, which I'll talk about later, only).
Servant of the Bones: SotB
Anne's newsletter, Commotion Strange, will be written as CS with the appropriate letter number beside it whenever I'm quoting from it directly.
"Interlude With the Undead"
Playboy, January 1979
"David Bowie and the End of Gender" (Article, not a story)
Vogue, November 1983
"The Master of Rampling Gate"
Redbook, February 1984 (Also in The Ultimate Dracula and
Lovers and Other Monsters)
In a related note, Anne, like many authors, does see her characters as being "real" so you will hear of her speaking of Lestat as though he was someone who makes regular appearances in her life. This is different, though, from believing in vampires stalking the earth.
"Guys, why are you always asking me why my characters don't work on State of the Art Computer equipment. They do! When Lestat wrote his bio, he was working on what HARDWARE was out that year. And Mona had the top of the line HARDWARE when LASHER was written? I mean, I don't get it. Don't you guys like WORDSTAR?"
I'm not sure if Anne realizes that our complaints are about the software, but assuming that she does, I'll answer her question by saying that no one hates Wordstar in the sense that they were attacked by it as a child, but that it is an old and very plain program which makes it hard to believe that Lestat, consummate materialist that he is, wouldn't move on to something which costs a lot more and has more bells and whistles for him to play with.
"ON AFRO-AMERICAN CHARACTERS IN MY SUPERNATURAL WORLD. Maybe I'm just not sure enough of myself to put them in. I'm not sure I really know what they would think or feel. I don't know."
It should be noted that FOAS, though it is not within a supernatural genre, is about the Free People of Color in New Orleans.
You can also send messages on Anne's home page which she responds to with general letters or phone messages to fans.
Shay Mitchell has a website on Line for Commotion Strange
"ANSWERING PERSONAL LETTERS. Can't do it anymore. Just downright impossible. Occasionally I have a minute, but my life now is a desperate fight to find a few hours to be alone with this machine, writing on my work. what distracts me is not only continuous requests for publicity, but my great and loving family whom I enjoy and want to spend time with, and wouldn't give up for the world. But I have become OVERBOOKED, there is no doubt about it."
What Anne does now, in order to make sure her fans get a personal response, is to answer their comments and questions in her phone messages and on her web page (starting to sense the theme here?) so that she can get the information out to many at once and not have to repeat it over and over again.
"Our addresses are well known, including that of St. Elizabeth's Orphanage. But do remember, please; the family lives in our houses; they are private residences. And though we love you, we can not come to the door, or meet with people personally. We thank you for your understanding. We do have a great deal of security; men on patrol; dogs, all of that. But in general, we have found that our readers are the kindest, gentlest people in the world, and we are honored that sometimes you want to stop on the corner of First and Chestnut,or of Napoleon and Prytania. We love to look at New Orleans houses too, as always have."
Along those lines, let me add that Anne has said that it becomes very hard for her to write her books when fans come to the door and distract her. Plus, Mojo and Lestat's mastiffs were based on Anne's dogs so do you really want to chance it?
No you do not meet Anne as a part of the tour, but you do see a nice bit of the inside of the buildings which is fun. Also keep in mind that the tour schedule is very day to day. You might not find out that the tour for that day has been cancelled until you show up at the gate. But still, it's worth a try.
Anne expressed her views on editing in a 1997 televised interview with Charlie Rose. You can read it here
There was a Catholic chapel in the Garden District which Anne bought after secret negotiations with the various clergy members involved. Neither Anne nor the clergy told the parishoners about this until after the sale when they found out that they were being locked out of what had been their church for generations and told to go elsewhere. The parishoners naturally complained and felt very slighted and a bad situation was made worse when Anne went on the record as saying the parishoners didn't deserve the chapel and that she was doing New Orleans a favor by buying it and fixing it.
To see Anne's statement, click here: A MESSAGE FROM ANNE RICE
To say a catfight ensued from there is a bit of an understatement. It got so bad that the story was eventually picked up by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and NBC.
It should be noted that the Diocese of New Orleans put the chapel up for sale, due to a lack of funds with which to keep it in good repair. It was in fact their responsibility to inform the parishoners of this.
The lawsuits were eventually thrown out of court and both Al and Anne are silent on the subject currently.