Your Questions Answered

Names

Question:

 My name is Allison. I read all your Alice books and love them, I used to go by Allie at school, but now I go by Alice, because your books are so amazingly good. And my name is close to Alice, which means I’m lucky. Anyway, i just wanted to ask you why did you name your character Alice. just curious. thanks!

Phyllis replied:

I’d have to go waaaaaay back and look at my notes, and reread The Agony of Alice, but I think it had something to do with the St. Agnes prayer card that Alice found, describing the torture and agony of St. Agnes.  Alice sometimes felt that her own life was pretty agonizing, embarrassingly so, and since her name also began with A, and had the same number of letters, it wasn’t hard for her to think of herself as St. Alice.

Alice series

Question:

hi Mrs Naylor I needed to thank you for writing Alice. Alice has
helped me and many others realize that were not the only ones who get
embarrassed and confused. Alice has answered questions that people
thought could never be answered. When you first read Alice Alice isn't
just a book shes your friend your trusted friend.You have done what is
next to impossible in 28 years you have written 28 realistic and
relatiable books you have helped  3rd graders and you have helped
Seniors and everything in between.


Phyllis replied:

Thank you for your email.  I'm really glad to know that Alice has helped 
you in your own life.  I appreciate your writing to me.

Annabelle

Question:

In Dangerously Alice, Sylvia gets a new cat and Annabelle is 
throughout the book. I believe she is in the next novel as well. 
After that, she isn't mentioned any more in the series. 
My question is: Whatever happened to Annabelle?

Phyllis replied:

Oh, dear, the copy-editor is probably going to ask the same question. Um, perhaps she met an untimely death?  Perhaps someone was allergic and Annabelle got a new owner?  Or…let’s see:,I like this one better:  Let’s say the Tom-cat came back, and Annabelle and he ran off, never to be seen again.

 

 

 

Jealousy

Question:

I’m just in need of a little advice. I have this friend who, to me, has it all. Shes probably one of the prettiest people and everyone thinks so (including my ex boyfriend) she has cute clothes, nice family, she’s smart too. She has perfect skin and is tall and athletic and a good runner and she’s everything I wish I was. It never used to bother me until recently. We both are runners, but she has more of the ‘runners’ body than i do. She’s long and lean, her skin is super clear and she doesn’t have braces and it just makes me so jealous! I wish I was as thin as her, I wish I had good skin like her and cute clothes and I’m just incredibly jealous of her. I really needed to get this out and i thought of telling it to you. I really just don’t know how to deal with this and be happy with myself!  I compare myself to her constantly and whenever I eat something that isn’t healthy I always think, ‘Oh, I bet ____  isn’t eating this,’ and I just don’t know how to get over my jealousy.  Thank you for listening.

Phyllis replied:

You sound incredibly mature to me.  I’ll bet most people would try hard to find fault with this person, masking their jealousy.  You didn’t.  And I think you speak for many, many girls who wish they had the looks or talent of someone else.  I know how you feel.  I’ve been there.  And you’ve taken the first step, of admitting it to yourself.  First of all, NO ONE is perfect, not even this wonderful girl, and if you lived in her family, you’d find something about her that rubs people the wrong way or takes advantage of someone or isn’t as helpful as she could be–ALL of us have faults.  This is not to diminish her, or even to make you look for faults.  Just accept that she’s part of the human race.  Secondly, remember that people like us for different reasons.  Back in seventh grade–no, eithth–I was incredibly jealous of a new girl named Sally.  She was short, dark-haired, cute but not pretty, and her legs were on the heavy side.  Yet guys swarmed around her.  Literally.  Before class, you could always find Sally by the little crowd of guys who hung around her.  All I can tell you is that it was personality.  She had a great smile.  She laughed a lot.  She listened.  And once I accepted that I was jealous, and that she was truly likeable, I made friends with her myself, and learned to like her as the person she was, not the girl I wished I could be.   Think about the things that make you you, the things people most like about you, and concentrate on those.  Improve on those.  Maximize your best features, but don’t strive for perfection, because that can turn people off.  When you’re feeling most jealous, do what I do: think of Sally.

A Writer too!

Question:

I have written to you a couple times before. I love Alice so much! I think of her as my best friend. I don’t get why grow ups think if you see someone else do something were going to go right out and do it, I love how you brought that up in one of the Alice books. I’m only in the sixth grade but I have read all the Alice books. I’m sure I’m going to make the mistakes she made. I hope to be just like her Alice is a great role model. Thank you so much for Alice because if you hadn’t been here and written Alice for all of us to enjoy idk what I would do. I love writing actually. Do you think if I email you one of my story’s you could read it and maybe give me some advice? I love making a difference in our world. I love to help people to.

 

Phyllis replied:

I so wish I could read all the stories that readers want to send to me, but truly, it’s all I can do to keep up with this website, as well as the business side of my writing, and of course the writing itself.  I recommend that you enter as many writing contests as possible, so that you can get feedback from others.  Write essays and stories for school, for the school newspaper, for magazines that accept stories from readers, and just for fun.  And see if your library can’t organize a critique group of students like yourself who could meet regularly and read their stories to each other for feedback.  Best of luck!

 

The last of the series

Alice in German

Question:

Hey, I’m writing in regard to a letter from a reader you posted in the Fan Mail section of your blog on October 29, 2012… the one who says only two of the books are translated into German? Not so! My daughter is reading them in German (she loves them) and we have four of them, published by the Schatzinsel imprint of Fischer Verlag… they seem to have published quite a few of them! Some may be out of print, but they are mostly available on amazon.de. You should let your German-speaking fans know, in particular your correspondent of the 29th.

Aha, further searching indicates that they are now published by Loewe Verlag (the Schatzinsel ones must be older):
http://www.loewe-verlag.de/autoren/autor-154_reynolds_naylor_phyllis.html

regards, and thanks for the books

Phyllis replied:

Thanks for this information.  I’m sure it will be helpful to many readers.  Sometimes another publisher will do a

translation of the Alice books up until the stories start dealing with sexual matters and more sophisticated material, and

then they stop publishing the series.  I haven’t kept track of just how many books are translated into German, but the best way to  get more is to write the German publisher, and request it.

Always Alice

Question:

Hi, i am a really big fan i love your books and i am really exited for always alice. I heard that you were going to put something on your website after always alice comes out. With an explanation of every book, bio of every person, of like there dates, crushes. I wanted to know if you were also going to put that into book form an publish that. I would really enjoy that if you were willing to, but do you think you could? Also i was wondering what all you can tell me about always alice. Thanks for writing my favourite series, and keeping them going this long. (: its much appreciated by me, and I’m sure many other fans.(:

Phyllis replied:

I had first suggested to my editor that we publish all the Alice data in book form and sell it, but she feels it would be better to offer it free, and let you download it from the Internet.  I don’t know yet what we’re calling these 100 pages or so of information about Alice, but we’ll think of something.  As for telling you about “Always Alice,” there’s nothing more I want to say in advance except that it follows Alice from her first year of college to age 60, with everything that happens in between to both her and her friends and family.

 

 

Elizabeth’s earrings

Question: 

love the Alice books so so so much!!

Hope they don’t end

Question: