Anne Rice
Novelist
Bestselling novelist of witchcraft and vampire stories, such as Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned. She also wrote historical novels, including The Feast of All Saints, and erotic works such as Exit to Eden.
She dropped out of North Texas State College after her sophomore year due to financial difficulties and moved to San Francisco, where she found work as an insurance claims processor. She eventually returned to school and received a Master's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University.
Her popular Vampire Chronicles series exemplifies the genre of Gothic fiction.
She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to Howard and Kay O'Brien. In 1961, she married poet Stan Rice. The couple's daughter, Michele, died of leukemia at the age of six. Several years later, a second child, Christopher, was born.
The 1994 motion picture adaptation of her novel, Interview with the Vampire, starred Tom Cruise as Lestat.