Sitting In My College Dorm

Question:
 
I started reading the Alice books when I was in middle school.  I started with Alice Alone, and then worked backwards, and then forward.  Alice has been a part of my life for almost ten years, and she and Lester and Liz and Pamela all feel like family to me.  I’ve grown up with Alice and she’s helped me through those painfully awkward middle school years and those exciting, weird high school years.  We even graduated high school at the same time, which was very important to me because I found leaving home really, really scary.  Now I’m sitting in my college dorm room–twenty years old, twenty-one in spring–and I’ve just finished the last book (which left me a blubbery, sobbing mess) and I had to write you to tell you, from the bottom of my heart: thank you.  Thank you so much for writing such an incredible book series.  You have helped me grow up so much.  You taught me about things nobody was talking about.  You helped me feel less alone about the feelings that I had.  I hope to be a writer someday, and if I can ever write anything a tenth as moving and important as you have, I’ll count myself incredibly lucky.

Phyllis replied:
 
If I was there, I’d give you a hug.   I cried a bit, too, when I wrote the end to the story.