Bread and ears of wheat collage

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Anne Rice began life as 'Howard Allen O'Brien', second of four daughters born to Howard and Katherine Allen O'Brien. She decided to call herself Anne when she enrolled in first grade at the Redemptorist Catholic School. Her mother (who had long suffered from alcoholism) died when Anne was nearly fifteen. Her father remarried and soon relocated the family to Richardson (suburb of Dallas) Texas. She graduated in 1959 and entered Texas Woman's University where she completed two years of school in one. In 1960 Anne moved to San Francisco where she took a furnished apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district. In 1961 Anne married Stan Rice (who she had met in High School and who had proposed by telegram from Texas) and in 1962 they were both living in Haight-Ashbury. They graduated from San Francisco State in 1964, she in political science, he in creative writing. Their daughter Michele was born September 21, 1966. In 1969 they moved to Berekely. There she wrote a short story "Interview With the Vampire". In 1970 Michele was diagnosed with leukemia. In 1972 Anne received her M.A. in creative writing; Michele died August 5. The next year Anne turned "Interview" into a novel, and over a year later Knopf offered her a $12,000 advance for it.