Phone Message Transcript: July 4, 1998
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Hi, this is Anne Rice. It's July 4th, 1998 and I'm overdue on a message and I know that and I apologize and I want to thank you for keeping your messages coming in. It's been very encouraging to read your questions and your messages. There are a lot of things I want to answer and I can't get to it right now but as I think I told you, we're back up on the internet, on the annerice.com site and we are answering questions on that as fast as we can. We're running into a little problem in that the internet people who are running our sites, though they are wonderful people, they can't put on the messages quite as fast as we can give them. We are still working on Commotion Strange, which will definitely come out in the fall.

Now let me give you the goodest, goodest news I've got. And it's not about my book. It's about my sister's book, called THE SILVER WOLF. This is her werewolf novel and this is the novel I've been waiting for for years and it's finally hit the stores and she's gotten fabulous reviews and I am very very very proud of her. Please forgive me for just raving about her book. Her name is Alice O'Brien Borchardt. And the cover is terrific. It shows the face of a woman and the face of a wolf and it's beautifully written. It's set in ancient Rome, crumbling Rome and it does involve a werewolf. And I think it will very much appeal to you, those of you who are responsive to my work. I've been sending flowers to Alice practically daily in her home in Houston. I think that this is one of happiest times for a writer and I really feel that for she and I, she and me, please correct me there, you know this is striking lightning twice in the back yard. I didn't help her get published. I could beg and plead for anybody in this world and I couldn't necessarily help them get published. She just caught on at Ballentine Books. All out of the blue, without the people who read her manuscripts even knowing she was my sister. And anyway, I highly recommend it. It's THE SILVER WOLF and it's Alice O'Brien Borchardt.

Well, vampire news. I am worried. about writing three vampire novels in a row. But Armand is going to come out. THE VAMPIRE ARMAND is a big book. It's going to come out October 15 and then I have VITTORIO THE VAMPIRE which is coming out in the spring. VITTORIO is really my ROMEO AND JULIET, my vampire ROMEO AND JULIET. I get as tragic and romantic and filled with my love of the city of Florence and all the beauty and the music and the sweetness that came to me from Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET. Anyway, I hope you like it. Listen, if we get cut off you can still leave me a message after the beep.

Let me see if I can think of some things to answer real quick. I wish I could. I have seen a lot of the movies you guys have been mentioning by the way. And I do think they're very very good and I'm looking for the movies. I'm always grateful for the mentioned movies. I'm afraid, due to a recent illness, I'm running out of steam here. By the way, the illness wasn't anything bad or life threatening or anything. Just minor and debilitating but anyway, let me say goodbye and let me send you my love and just keep in touch with us. Keep in touch with us through this line and remember we'll be on the internet. We'll be answering more questions and talking more about the big ball in the fall and of course the fan club is the one that's running the big ball. And it will be the Saturday nearest to Halloween and we will ahve the wonderful music of Michael Koerber, child genius, at that ball. He will be dressed as Beethoven and he will appear with me and this is going to be a wonderful Saturday, closest to Halloween, in fact I think Saturday is Halloween this year. So we hope to see you there. Contact the fan club. Contact Richie Champagne, the president and please come see us. We love you. Take care. Bye-bye."