Your Questions Answered

Question: I friends with this boy who is a year older then me…

Question:
Dear Ms.Naylor, I friends with this boy who is a year older then me. And i think he is going to ask me out, so i got my friends to talk to him to see how much he likes me. he said i was pretty but he wouldn’t ask me out because he thinks I’m more tomboy then i am girl. which i am in some matters like i hate dresses, I’m a feminist and don’t get me started on football i can name every play in the book. so any back to my problem i want to go out with him he said in cool and fun but i don’t want to change the way i am. What should i do?

PHYLLIS Replied:
Stay the way you are. The minute you start changing your real self, you’ll turn off some other guy who likes you as you were. If you don’t like dresses, don’t wear them! If you don’t like makeup, don’t wear it. But if there are any changes you can make that will make you more attractive physically or in the way you act THAT ARE STILL THE REAL YOU, then do it! Most of us have a range of preferences. We may feel most comfortable in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, but don’t feel out of place in jeans and a pretty sweater and silver earrings either.

Fan Mail: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Question:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Thanks for writing such great books and getting us readers through some difficult times.

PHYLLIS Replied:
Thank you so much!

Happy Holidays, everybody!

We were supposed to have an ice storm today, but it’s only rain dripping from the icicle lights along our balcony railing.

We spent Thanksgiving with our younger son and his family in New Jersey.  Garrett is five, Beckett is two, and they roll around on the floor and wrestle like bear cubs.  The first morning we were there, our bedroom door opened just a crack and a small voice whispered, “Nana, will you play hide-and-seek with me?”  I did, in my pajamas.

We will spend Christmas with our older son and his family in Minnesota.  Sophia is a senior in high school, Tressa is in eighth grade.  We’ll be celebrating Sophia’s acceptance at Swarthmore next fall, and Tressa’s leaving middle school AT LAST!  When she went to high school orientation, her big sister gave her a tour.

I  hope that the holidays will be good ones for you.  I  hope to find time to work some more on the Alice book coming out in 2010, which I haven’t really titled yet.  Perhaps it will be “Alice in Charge.”   I hope to hear from you in the coming year!

Dear Readers

Here are some of the letters I’ve received recently, either by mail or through the FriendsofAlice@aol.com address. I’m not using your names, because we all know that sometimes people sign friends’ names to their own letters, and this can cause all kinds of trouble. If you don’t see your own letter here (or a part of it–I’ll rarely use the whole letter), just remember that I read them all, and love to hear from you!

To know the order in which to read the Alice books, please visit the Books in Order page. Before you write, be sure to read the Alice FAQ for answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Yours,

Phyllis

Question: I just wanted to thank you for inspiring me to write

Question:
I am writing you not to receive advice (which I often do), not to tell you of an extreme worry of mine (which I often do), and not even to thank you for writing the Alice books (which I always will). In reality, I am writing to tell you something that has been habored inside of me for many a time, but you are one person who I cannot refrain from telling. I have definitely, absolutely, without a doubt decided to become a writer. It will be ardurous and difficult, I know. But it is my passion, and I hope that I will one day be successful. I am graduating from high school this year and I hope to start submitting my writing to literary magazines to see how people react. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for inspiring me to write and filling my mind with a burning desire write. I already feel like a writer when my parents read my writing, it is a great feeling as you well know. I will continue to update you throughout my life and ! hopefully you will see my work in a library someday! Thank you again for everything!

PHYLLIS Replied:
I would love to hear about your successes. You sound as though you have the temperament to be a writer, knowing that the path ahead is hard and often discouraging. Start small, with articles and stories for your college newspaper, for creative writing class, for authors’ groups, for magazines offering to publish a first-published story, for any place possible. Often the editors of these small publications are the ones most willing to take the time to let you know how you can improve

Question: why did alice tell pamela not to use exlax or wire hangers?

Question
In almost alice, why did alice tell pamela not to use exlax or wire hangers?

PHYLLIS Replied:
Sometimes pregnant women or girls who didn’t plan to have a baby, and who could not afford an abortion, would try to abort the fetus themselves, making a long hook out of a coat hanger to try to dig up into the womb from the vagina, or by taking a lot of laxative and hoping that all the intestinal movement would somehow cause a miscarriage. Many deaths have occurred from women and girls trying to induce an abortion themselves