Alice Alice Alice

Comment:
1) If you had to write another series from the point of view of either Elizabeth or Pamela, or any other character, who would it be and why? (This is not a request, I’m just curious)

2) What made you decide to encapsulate so much of Alice’s life into the last book? What made you choose to gloss over college and graduate school?

3) What made you decide to have Patrick end up with Alice and for Alice to not form many other close friendships? I mean this non-offensively, I love your work. It’s just as someone who has gone through college and grad school, I know it’s highly unlikely how things played out. Alice has encounters with almost everyone she knew throughout her life. Usually, people grow apart. Some people you never hear from again, and at the very least you make new close friends. Also, not many people marry their on-again-off again boyfriend from grade school.

Phyllis replied:

Briefly, I could easily write books about many of the other characters, but there are too many other kinds of books on my mind right now.  The reason I put so much into the last Alice book was because I felt it was time to wrap it up.  Again, I have spent one half of each of the last 28 years writing the Alice books, and I have a long list of other kinds of books waiting to be written.

Romances come in all sizes, and I can assure you that quite a few people marry after dating only a few other people, and some even end up with their high school sweethearts.  That may not be your experience, but the Alice books are read by girls and women in cities, on ranches, on farms, in the mountains, in other countries, etc. and I wrote the books as it appeared to me that  Alice might live her life.  Yes, people often do grow apart, but I’ve known quite a few who reconnected later on.