Your Questions Answered

An Alice Movie?

Phyllis replied:

 

Phyllis replied:

I wish there would be a good movie too, but so far, the producers have not made any mention of one, and they

hold the movie rights.

What Could I Write About?

Question:

I absolutely love the Alice Series, and I wish I had started reading them  earlier. I know you probably have heard lots of letters like this, but, I really wanted to know, what inspired you to write the Alice Series? I was thinking about becoming a writer, and I wondered if you could give me any advice or topics to write about. I like writing, but I can’t seem to write anything worth publishing yet. Your reply will be greatly welcomed!   

Phyllis replied:

I didn’t know I was going to write a series when I began.  I just had the idea to write about a motherless girl looking for a role model.  The best topics to write about are the ones that begin with you, not with someone else.  What’s the story or book that only you can write?  If you think you have nothing to write about because you feel you are the most ordinary girl in the world, then write a funny story or article about the World’s Most Ordinary Girl.  One way to discover what’s inside you is to think about the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you, or the episode that made you the most angry, or most sad, or most frightened, and write just a few lines about it down on paper.  Then turn it over to your imagination and give it wings.  Let it happen to someone else.  Have it begin differently, end differently, etc.  You have started with something that was dear to your heart and turned it into a story that no one else would recognize as beginning with you.

Passing the series down

Question:

my sister introdused me to alice i am still injoying the wonderful journeys with alice and i hope that your alice seriese will be passed down in my familey and other girls will  not only read but become friends with alice just like i did and am continuing to do

 

Phyllis replied:

I love hearing that the books are traveling from one person to another in a family or a reading group or a bunch of friends.  Thanks for letting me know!

Feeling a Bit Sad

Why Do We Have to Wait?

Question:

Hi, I just wanted to say that love your Alice books so much! I always tell my friends about them and try to get more people to read them. I have a couple questions:
1. Do you know what the cover looks like for Always Alice?
2. I heard that Always Alice is coming out in 2013, I was just wondering why it has to wait a whole year before it gets published? I’m not trying to be rushy or anything, I was just wondering.
3. Is there going to be another movie based off the books made?

I didn’t really enjoy reading very much before I read the Alice series, so I wanted to thank you do much for writing them! They have really opened my mind to reading, they even had me staying up late because I couldn’t put the books down. I have read almost all of them (all except patiently Alice and of course, always Alice) on a course of one year since I found them. Alice is kind of a role model for me. I know a lot of people say this, but she seems so real, like a best friend to myself.

Phyllis replied:

1:  Yes, I’ve seen the cover of “Always Alice,” but we’re still tinkering with it.

2.  It takes a long time to get a manuscript ready for publication.  This book is at least twice as long as the other Alice books, and there is SO much for the copy-editor to check.  Everything that has gone on before, since Alice was eight, provides Alice’s history, so there is always that much more to refer to and check in each new book.  Also, we’re giving the reader something special at the end of the series–more about this later–and that has to be in good shape as well.

3.  I’ve not heard anything from any producers about making this book into a movie.  All the characters would have to go from their present ages to age 60, and that’s asking a lot. 

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the Alice books so much.  Thanks for letting me know.

 

Why Did She Do It?

Question:

i dont know if u remember me but its sofia chase i am 9 yrs old and i am almost ten i just love your alice books. can i ask u something in alice in april is so sad that denise got hit by a train when i told my dad about it i could see tears in his eyes! but why did she do that? i also wanted to know do u right these books about your  life when u were younger or do u just com up with a story

 

Phyllis replied:

I know it’s sad, and I think that your dad was reacting not so much to the story, perhaps, as to your sadness in telling about it.  Sometimes, for some people, life seems to be going so badly for them that they can only think about getting away from it NOW.  And perhaps, in Denise’s situation, she felt that her mother could only miss her and love her after she was gone, and she liked thinking about how her mom might miss her then.  It really was sad, because there really are people who can help in most situations if they only knew about it, and if Alice had known what Denise was planning to do, she might have been able to alert a school counselor or a minister or teacher or grown-up who could help work out some of the problems in Denise’s family.  Despite her sadness, Alice will always know that Denise did consider her a friend.  Most of the things I write about in the Alice book are things I just make up from stories I read about in the paper or that happen to my friends.  Sometimes I write about something funny that happened to me as a child.  But I never had a close friend who took her own life.

 

Comments from Germany

Special Needs Characters

Question:

I love your books. There is just no other way to put it. Alice is so real and down to earth, and she wonders about the same things I do. She and her friends face problems that real girls face, and each book is like a guide to one element of real life!

Can’t Get Over Him

Thanks for always being here for all your readers with great advice! This past summer, the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, I studied abroad in London. It was the best two months of my life. I made so many new friends and had my first experience with a guy. The past two years of college were good for me, but not great, and now was the first time in my life when I actually had a group of friends, and it felt amazing. I was so depressed to come back home, and none of us ever wanted to leave. London is all I think about, and I can’t stop thinking that we’ll never be like that again. It makes me so sad, but I feel like I’m living in the past, and I can’t let go. Also, this guy that I was hooking up with in London (first time I’ve ever been with a guy), I got really emotionally attached to, but he has been/is with so many girls, but still I can’t get over him. We haven’t spoken since July, and when I saw him here at school, he smiled, but we didn’t talk. I know that I don’t mean anything to him, but I still can’t get over it because I automatically connect him to the thought of being in London, and it’s hard for me to let it go.. I don’t know what to do.. 

Phyllis replied:

You had a great time, made good friends, had an intimate relationship that was all new for you, and now you can’t stop thinking about it–normal, normal, normal.  That may not help much, but you have learned how to share your feelings with a close bunch of friends and experience intimacy and deep feelings for a guy.  All of which proves that it can happen again. And again.  It will never be just like London, and it may not be happening at the same time—close friends,  intimate relationship, brand new city to explore–but look at it as the first of many good adventures .  The best thing about an experience like this is that you now have something with which to measure all future relationships.  It will help you sort out phoniness in friends, controlling behavior in a boyfriend, and has given you a feeling of self worth–you deserve to have friends you can trust and a boyfriend who is considerate.  Lucky, lucky you.

I’ve read every book

Question:

I read my first Alice book in the public library at age 10, and I just finished Alice on Board this afternoon, so I’m completely caught up. I turned 30 two weeks ago. 🙂 Alice was a friend throughout my childhood and teen years, and every couple of years I request the last 2-3 books all at one shot just to see what going on with her, and I’ve never been disappointed. I’m glad she’s still with Patrick in a non-codependent way that works for both of them, vaguely philosophical about Lester EVER finding the right girl for him, slightly disappointed about William & Mary for Alice, but hoping she’ll be happy in College Park. (When did Liz get off the Bennington wait list? I must have skipped over that somehow – but good for her!) Very excited to read Always Alice – next year will be here before we know it! 🙂

After having read every book, the one scene that still sticks with me most out of every single one of them is the Passing By arc from Alice In-Between. I still remember reading that scene for the first time as a highschooler, standing in the checkout line with my mother at the grocery store – I was supposed to help carry the bags out to the car, but I was bawling just as Alice was after she stood up in class and the wrong poem came out of her mouth. I’ll always remember Ms Summers’ reaction to the situation — “sometimes a poem can move us in ways we didn’t expect”. It’s been at least a dozen, if not fifteen, years since I first read that scene, but it plays out in my head like a movie. Ms Summers’ calm, measured thoughtfulness and immensely respectful reaction to Alice’s moment was the exact compass the rest of the class needed to know how they should react themselves, and she absolutely could not have hit any harder of a homerun as a educator and a human being.

Sometimes moments in literature stick with us in ways that nobody would ever expect. 🙂 This series may merely be “silly fluffy YA novels” to some, but I will always carry that moment with me, and I thought you might like to know about that.

Phyllis replied:

I don’t know that the Alice series has ever been considered silly YA fluff, but it’s great to know that the books have meant so much to you.  It would be wonderful, after the final book is published next year, to know of readers’ very favorite moments in Alice’s life.  Thanks so much for sharing yours.