Anne Rice, On the Novel

00:08 [Anne Rice] Every prediction I have ever heard about the future of the novel has been wrong. Every single prediction I've ever heard has been wrong. You know, people were saying back in the 50s that the novel was dead. They were saying in the 60s that it was dead. They were saying in the 70s that it was dead. It's never going to die. There are more novels being written and published today than ever before

00:30 and nothing is ever going to change that, and e-books aren't going to change that, and Web sites aren't going to change it. I do think people are using all different kinds of media in this new age in which we live, where the Internet is so powerful. I, for example, really do enjoy having a Web site and I enjoy all the e-mails I get from my readers. I enjoy going back and forth with them in the e-mails, answering their questions. I get, every day, so many

01:00 e-mails from readers, and I answer them all, if at all possible, no matter what they ask. And it's quite a range. The biggest problem for the novel, I think, all during the 60s, 70s, 80s, was finding the audience. I mean, often, the novels were reviewed by people that were not part of the audience for the novel, they didn't tell you what the novel attempted, they didn't tell you what it accomplished, and they certainly didn't make any intelligent comment on the endeavor. But now we have power over all those people. We have the power

01:30 of the Internet, we can publish all those responses. But the novel itself, that novel that they want to hold in their hands on the subway or lie in bed and read at night, that is as popular as ever. It's more popular than ever. There are more novels out there, more people reading than ever before. You go into little bitty towns in Texas, you go into junk shops and you'll find just stacks and stacks and stacks of all kinds of novels in there for sale for 50 cents or a dollar. I mean, people are reading everywhere in the country. And

02:00 I look back on the 50s and the 60s when they said television was going to kill the movies, and television and the movies were going to kill the novel. All these predictions were short-sighted. There's no telling what's going to happen. You know, every tool that we get, like the computer, it helps us write better. It helps us do something better. The Web site helps us to reach our readers, it helps us to do better what we really want to do, which is to write stories. Stories with meaning, stories that will grab you by the throat, stories that will shake you up,

02:30 stories you will never forget, stories maybe that will change your life.