Question: I have a couple questions that aren’t related to your books…

Question:
I am in the ninth grade, and I have been reading them since the sixth grade. (I think, I didn’t keep track exactly when I started reading them.) I love your books! I haven’t read Almost Alice yet, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything. Like, for example, Do Alice and Patrick get back together? Is prom in this book or he next book? And last but not least, Do Alice and Patrick have sex in this book, the next, or the one after? (Don’t deny it, you know it’ll happen eventually. And you know it will be Patrick.) Thanks for writing them, without them, I would be the most “unknowledgeable” person in the entire state of South Carolina. (I learned a lot from friends, but your books set me straight.)

I have a couple questions that aren’t related to your books:

1.) Does it ever bother you that some people don’t use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? (It bothers me, it makes me want to teleport to their house and coach them on all those things.)
2.) Do you think it’s weird that it’s hard for me to say things (and type things) like: penis, vagina, and other parts? People tell me that I’m going to have to suck it up and stop saying things like: thingy and nuts and “private parts”.
3.) How many teenagers do you know, that care about grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Do you think it’s weird that I do?
4.) (This one does have to do with your book): Do you think that you could add a Mormon character? I’m Mormon, and I think that religious discrimination is something that young men and women should know about.

PHYLLIS Replied:
You’ll have to read ALMOST ALICE yourself, I’m afraid.  I have a lot of letters to answer tonight, so I can’t take time to describe it for you.  As for punctuation, it’s sometimes hard to read a letter that is poorly written and spelled, but I don’t make judgments about that:  my job is to write an interesting book and to answer your letters, not to correct them.  As for penis and vagina, they sound a bit formal sometimes if you’re just talking with friends.  But if the people you hang out with can say them, then you could try standing in front of the mirror and saying them aloud to yourself until the sound no longer shocks you.  As for putting a Mormon character in a book, I don’t try to use characters to teach lessons.  There are all kinds of prejudice out there, and sometimes Catholics and Baptists get a bad rap too.  And anybody who doesn’t believe in God is particularly shunned in some places.  If you’re! secure in your religion, then that should sustain you, not what other people think about it.