Phone Message Transcript: Apr. 21, 1998
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Hi guys, this is I believe the 19th or the 20th of April, I'm sorry, yes of April, that's right, 1998. I haven't updated in a while because I had the flue. But I will update soon. The web stuff (answering questions directly from the Internet), we will be putting our messages that we put on this phone line on the Internet and we also will get back to putting on our private newsletter, Commotion Strange. We're going to get to work on that right away and put out smaller issues, more frequently and they also will be posted on our Internet site, annerice.com. I want to remind you that the site is still current and active.

I want to explain to you all very quickly and briefly why it was that we shut down the tour company. Anne Rice's tours just didn't work out. We couldn't fulfill our dreams. We couldn't make it what we wanted to make it. A lot of it happened, a lot of our failure to make it what we wanted happened really because of criticism in the press. We were misunderstood and a lot of what was said about us in the newspaper was very hurtful. What we wanted to do was share our properties with the public and we wanted to share some beautiful New Orleans churches with the public and we wanted to make self sustaining companies that provided jobs for New Orleanians. While all of this was very much misunderstood but we are, I'm not giving up on our basic goal and in the next few months I hope we can work out a plan where St. Elizabeth's Orphanage will be open regularly as a museum and maybe my homes can be open one day a week each, free of charge for people to come in and see them. I'll get back, we can't do this right now. We cannot offer free tours at this time. We have to work with the city and we have to work with the law and we have to work with regulations. But we are working on this and we want to do it very very much. We very much lament anybody who is inconvenienced by the tearing down of the tour company. I'd also like to say that some of the people who worked in the tour company were very disappointed. They worked terribly hard and it was very heartbreaking to me to have to put an end to the company but I found that I just couldn't take the things that were said in the press about us. We were not trying to promote ourselves. We were not trying to make money off our houses. None of that was our goal. As a matter of fact our investment in making this tour company work was considerable and there was never even a chance of breaking even. But anyway, we'll get back to it. We'll get positive again and we'll work out something which will make it possible to share our beautiful architecture with other people. I'll be back to you as soon on all of that.

Let me remind you that PANDORA is out there and I am loving your responses to PANDORA. Keep telling what you think, both pro and con. I'm enjoying it very much. I finished my corrections, final notes on THE VAMPIRE ARMAND, which will be published in October and I'm just starting work now on a third short novel that will be published in the Spring of next year and that also will be a vampire novel. So three vampire novels in a row. I feel a little funny about it but this is my colony, this is my community, these are the people that live in my head.

I'm going to go now. Leave me a message at the beep, even if I'm cut off before I say goodbye. Remember, you can still leave me a message at the beep. And we record all your messages and we listen to everything that you have to say. I'm trying to think if there's something else important. I want to thank you for your continued recommendation on movies. I pay a lot of attention to them and I wouldn't have learned about a lot of movies if it wasn't for you. And I haven't seen anything up to date that I can recommend except of course the TITANIC, which you know I'm a big fan of. And I will answer more questions and soon as this flu leaves me. God bless you. Keep calling. I love you. Thank you."