Your Questions Answered

Alice Series

Comment:
I love your Alice books like crazy, filled with romance, friendships, drama, and just the every day life of a teenage girl, and would love for you to write more. You love to write them, and say they come easy to you, so why not write more and please all of your fans?! : D I’m thirteen and the Alice series has inspired me to start a novel. In my own words, if you asked me how reading was related to writing I’d probably say something like this: Writing takes time and cleverness. You need to make it interesting. When you read, you are brought into a new world filled with imagery. When writing, you remember these places that you’ve traveled to through books, and try to imitate what you have learned. By reading that of a good writer, you can enhance your skills by imitating the characteristics of a good writer.

You are my inspiration. You are that good writer. You are the one who made me want to become a great writer like you did. Thank you.

P.S. If you have any name suggestions for a 14 year old girl, a 7 year old girl, or a baby boy, pLeAsE wirte back! You are my biggest inspiration.

Phyllis replied:
Thanks so much for your email.  I am really humbled that you feel you have learned from me.  I’ve learned from so many writers myself, and seem to learn more easily by listening to audio books than by reading.  Perhaps because my parents read aloud to us far past the age when we were reading ourselves; we just loved the sound and drama of their voices.  I just felt it was time to move on.  I had taken Alice and her friends and family a long way, and there are so many other books I want to write!

Asked the Same Questions I Wanted Answers to

Comment:

I have been reading the Alice books since I was in 5th or 6th grade. I am now going into my Junior year of college and I just finished the last Alice book. I’m sad that the series is over but I am so happy and grateful for the way things ended. I grew up along with this girl. Alice went through similar things that my friends and I went through as we grew up. Alice is someone who was relatable and funny and who asked the same questions that I wanted answers too. I love Alice Mckinley, Miss Phyllis, and I cannot tell you how much she means to me. Thank you for giving her to me and all of your other readers. I hope to start buying the entire series, book by book and reading the whole thing over again. And if I have children one day I want to give the series to them too. Thank you for giving me this wonderful, fictional best friend. She was extremely real to me.

Phyllis replied:

It was such a pleasure reading your email. I’ve been so gratified to know that no matter when readers first started reading the Alice books or in what year they were born, Alice still seems current and relates to their own lives. The complete Alice collection is now available in bookstores, and has been published in 3 boxed sets–her elementary school years, middle school years, then high school and beyond. You can look them up on the Internet. I’m glad that Alice seems to real to you, because she seems real to me as well, and I find myself speaking about her sometimes as though she still lives there in Silver Spring, just a short distance from where I am now.

The Alice Collection: New Alice Boxed Sets!

Whether you’ve just been introduced to Alice or are an old friend, these three new Alice boxed sets are the perfect way to follow along on Alice’s journeys from start to finish and they are available now!

The Alice Collection: Alice In Elementary

Alice has been through it all. Friendships, breakups, love…and we get to experience it all with her. In this, the very first Alice boxed set, you will find the youngest years of Alice’s life, from third, fourth, and fifth grades. Begin the journey here with Starting with Alice, Alice in Blunderland, and Lovingly Alice. For more information or to purchase The Alice Collection: Alice in Elementary boxed set, click here.

The Alice Collection: The Middle School Years

In this boxed set you will find Alice’s ups and downs of from sixth grade through the summer before high school. Continue the journey here with eleven Alice books: The Agony of Alice; Alice in Rapture, Sort Of; Reluctantly Alice; All But Alice; Alice In Between; Alice the Brave; Alice in Lace; Outrageously Alice; Achingly Alice; Alice on the Outside; and The Grooming of Alice. For more information or to purchase The Alice Collection: The Middle School Years boxed set, click here.

The Alice Collection: High School and Beyond

In this boxed set, you will see Alice through high school, into college, and beyond. It includes the Alice bind-ups of her high school years, and the most anticipated finale, where you finally find out who “the one” is. It’s all here, in these books: I Like Him, He Likes Her; It’s Not Like I Planned It This Way; Please Don’t Be True; You and Me and the Space In Between; and Now I’ll Tell You Everything. For more information or to purchase The Alice Collection: High School and Beyond boxed set, click here.

Shiloh Movies

Did you know you can buy or rent Shiloh movies?

Available at:

  

and other stores!

How did you come up with the plot for Shiloh?

Comment:  How did you come up with the plot for Shiloh?

My reply:   Most of my books begin with a certain situation in mind, and then a question.  When I actually came across this abused dog in West Virginia, I thought, “I’m sure this dog was abused.  What if we found the owner, and offered to buy the dog, but he refused.  How could we persuade him to change his mind?”   After that, things sort of fell into place.  The more I imagined the character of Judd Travers, and then the family situation, of not having much money, scenes kept coming to mind and wrote them.

Why the name Shiloh?

Comment: Why did you name the dog Shiloh?

Phyllis replied: Shiloh was the name of the real community in West Virginia where I first came across the little dog that inspired the Shiloh series. I figured that if I were Marty, I’d name my dog after the place I had found it.

Did you ever know anyone like Judd Travers?

Comment: When you wrote the Shiloh books, did you ever know anyone like Judd Travers?

Phyllis replied: I didn’t know anyone like that personally, but I’d heard and read of such folks. Some people just don’t know how to care for a dog; they don’t know that chaining up a dog makes it mean, because the dog can’t defend itself if it’s attacked. Others just don’t seem to care whether an animal is happy or not, usually because the owner isn’t very happy.

Why use different actors for Marty in each of the Shiloh movies?

Comment: Our class watched the movies of the first three Shiloh books. We think that the boy who played Marty in the first movie was the best one of the three. Why didn’t they use him for all the movies?

Phyllis replied: They would have, if they could have kept him from growing. Because there were several years between each of the Shiloh movies, the child actors had grown older and taller by the time the next movie was made. It wouldn’t have affected the adult actors much at all, and for the most part, the producers kept the same adult actors for all of the first three films. But you would have seen a considerable difference among the kids.

True or Not?

Comment:

I was wondering if the igloo scene in the prequels was based on any of your experiences.

I read on your website that the Tarzan scene was, so I just wanted to know if the time Rosalind accidentally traps Alice in an igloo was a true story.

Phyllis replied:

Fortunately, it didn’t happen to me, but it’s just the sort of thing that Rosalind would do. I vaguely remember hearing that it happened to someone else. Without reading through all the Alice books, I can tell you two other things that really happened: Remember Alice falling downstairs at high school on her first day as a Freshman, and wetting her pants? That happened to my mother on her first day of high school back in 1915. And didn’t Alice at some point in high school get a secret note asking her to meet someone by a statue, a guy who had an air of mystery about him? That happened to me…. I’ll bet you could make your own list of awkward or embarrassing or scary things that have happened to you…..

Made Me Feel Better About Myself

Comment:

Hi! I know that you must get a lot of these letters from fans because your Alice series is AMAZING! But I’m going to write this letter to you because this series was like magic. I just finished the final book and I was delighted. I always felt very much connected to Elizabeth (because I’m just like her) and of course Alice, and I loved the way their lives turned out! The mistakes Alice made and just watching her grow up made me feel so excited for life and what was to come! It made me feel better about myself and made me love life!

I am a very avid reader, usually going through about five books a week and our library was not seeming to hold up with my reading addiction. I was running out of books to read and one day my mom picked up Alice in Blunderland for me to read. I didn’t want to because it looked a little childish and was not my usual type of book. But, I was delighted in your writing style and within weeks, I had read past a quarter of the series! Our library didn’t have all the books of course so I searched around for them. I went to the school library, looked online. I hardly wanted to read anything else! I found myself, in awkward and embarrassing situations, searching for “Alice knowledge” on what to do! Alice just really helped me to grow up. I think that you are one of my favorite authors! I rank you near Lauren Myracle, Lemony Snicket, and Barbara Parks! Thank you for your Alice books. They are a treat to the world.

Phyllis replied:

I’m so glad that you and Alice found each other! You really searched hard for the books, and I’m happy they meant so much to you. The entire collection is now out in three beautiful boxed sets–I just received mine from the publisher’s, and have seen them at Barnes & Noble. We all have found ourselves in awkward, embarrassing situations, often brought on by ourselves–thinking we are saying something clever, for example, when it turns out to sound really mean or stupid. Those are the kind of embarrassing situations that we could have avoided. But then, of course, there are the blood stains on the back of a skirt and the swim suit that didn’t fit and..and…and….. Every person has her own list. “Welcome to the human race,” is about the only comfort we can give ourselves.