Stan Rice

Stanley Travis Rice Jr. (November 7, 1942 – December 9, 2002) was an American poet and artist. He was the husband of author Anne Rice. Biography Rice was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1942. He met his future wife Anne O'Brien in high school. They briefly attended North Texas State University together, before marrying in 1961 and moving to San Francisco in 1962, to enroll at San Francisco State University, where they both earned their bachelor's and master's degrees. Rice was a professor of English and Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. In 1977, he received the Academy of American Poets' Edgar Allan Poe Award for Whiteboy, and in subsequent years was also the recipient of the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, as well as a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Rice retired after 22 years as Chairman of the Creative Writing program as well as Assistant Director of the Poetry Center in 1989. It was the death of his and Anne's first child, daughter Michele (1966–1972), at age six of leukemia, which led to Stan Rice becoming a published author. His first book of poems, based on his daughter's illness and death, was titled Some Lamb, and was published in 1975. He encouraged his wife to quit her work as a waitress, cook and theater usher in order to devote herself full-time to her writing, and both eventually encouraged their son, novelist Christopher Rice, to become a published author as well. Rice, his wife and his son moved to Garden District, New Orleans, in 1988, where he eventually opened the Stan Rice Gallery. In 1989, they purchased the Brevard-Rice House, 1239 First Street, built in 1857 for Albert Hamilton Brevard.