How did you get the idea?

Question:

i was wondering how did you come up with the idea to write about alice

Phyllis replied:

I was thinking how important role models are to young girls.  I loved my own mother very much, but I didn’t necessarily want to look like her or dress like her or act like her.  I wanted to be my own person, but I wasn’t sure what that person was like.  So I started to write a book about such a girl, except that her own mother would be dead, and she would very much be looking for role models.  And the plot sort of took off after that.