Email from Austria

Question:

I am twelve and I’m from Austria.
  I started to read your books when i was nine. Every time when it’s 
christmas, easter or my birthday I tell my parents that I want alice 
books, I love them!
And my friend i my class love them, too!
Alice is so real, she is not just a person in a book, and I just 
wanted to say,  I’m so glad that you wrote (and write) the Alice 
series!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I don’t like reading very much,but I love 
to read Alice!!
But I have a little question: Why did you start to write the Alice 
series at all? What was the inspiration?

Thanks for reading this and much greetings from Austria!!

Phyllis replied:

I love hearing from readers in other countries, and wonder if you are reading the original version or a translation.  I didn’t know when I wrote the first Alice book that it would become a series, but got so many letters asking for more that I decided I would do it as long as I didn’t have to turn out more than one book a year, and Alice could grow slightly older in every book.  The publisher agreed.