Your Questions Answered

Can a author write other series?

Hello! I want to be an author someday and I have some ideas for 2 series which are coming of age novels. Since you’re a real author, I thought I should ask you, Can an author write more than one book series in their career? Can both series be coming of age series? thank you for reading my letter, have a very lovely day!

Authors can write whatever they want, and publishers publish what they want.  You can certainly write more than one series.. I’ve written a half dozen or so, but they are all different from each other.  My advice is to work on one at a time and don’t worry about the other one.  You may find you’ve used up your best ideas in series #1.  If you write one series and it’s published, then another series that deals with the same topic–and they are too much alike–your second series would be competition for your first.  In my opinion, it is so much better to concentrate wholly on one book or series at a time.  Writing two books at a time is akin to delivering two babies at once.  Neither gets the full attention it deserves.

cat pack books

Those two series are so different from each other, that it just delights me that you loved them both.  I enjoyed writing them !

Boys versus Girls

I teach 4th grade in Wisconsin and have read your Boys vs. Girls books each year. Usually I only read the first one or two to get kids hooked. This year, however, with Covid, we have used the series as the common ground we needed. We are book 8 and the kids adore the series. They especially love that the time of year coincides with our time of year and that the seasons are similar. They can relate to many of the kids antics. Thank you.

That makes me so happy to think there’s something the kids can enjoy in this difficult time.  I hear mainly from fourth and fifth grade teachers that they use the books in their grades, so am very pleased to know that third graders enjoy the books as well.  Thanks so much for letting me know.

are all couples always attracted to each other?

Hi! You are my most favorite writer of all time and I wanted to ask you this question because I think you are very wise and you were married for a long time so I just wanted to ask: Are married couples always physically & sexually attracted to each other or do they stop being attracted to each other when they get old? Like Alice and Patrick, I get that Patrick loves Alice with all his heart because if he didn’t I don’t think he would’ve stayed married to her right? but he was attracted to Helene and was tempted but does that mean he thought of Alice less attractive because she did say that she was feeling insecure about her body. Are Alice and Patrick still attracted to each other now in their 60’s? The reason I’m asking is because I’m getting married next month & I’m scared that as I get older he won’t be attracted to me anymore. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this! xoxo

Then are you ever worried that you won’t be attracted to him any longer, or does everything depend on you?  I guess the question that immediately comes to mind is what else does he find attractive about you besides your physical appearance?  Do you have interesting conversations?  Do you share any of the same hobbies?  Religion?  Can you see each other as parents of young children?  Do you each love the other as that person is now without an unspoken list in your mind of all the ways you hope each other will change?  Of COURSE you will observe that other people are attractive after you’re married.  Being married doesn’t mean you both go blind.  But just  because you walk by a bakery window and see five different kinds of layer cakes doesn’t mean you are going to go inside and eat them all.  The marriage comes first.  I can only tell you that in the last few years of my 52 year marriage to Rex after he developed  Alzeimer’s disease , I felt I loved him as a husband,  as a little boy, an elderly man,  a lover–I just loved every part of him.  Of course we had disagreements at times, and of course I saw and worked with other men who were attractive, just as he commented on other women.  Bu we put our marriage first and learned to love each other in different ways.  Have some confidence in yourself, and remember that when you love the whole person, you don’t just marry someone for her legs .  Or his biceps. Or the  fact that you both love the same song….

Your family’s thoughts about your career

Hello, I’m 15 and want to be an author just like you and I was wondering just out of curiosity, what did your family think about you being an author. Shiloh and The Alice series are very popular and they’re in school libraries. Did your sons think it was cool to have a mom who was an author of some pretty popular books that maybe kids in their school were reading? did they brag about it?

I don’t know.  I never asked them.  Since I was writing long before they were born, they just accepted that I was a mom who worked at home and had an office in the house and often curled up on the sofa with a clipboard on my lap.  I suppose they figured that dads went to work somewhere else but mothers worked at home.  As for the Alice and Shiloh books, I began writing those books when both boys were in their twenties.

7th grade project

I’m in 7th grade and we were given a project on gathering 4 facts about our most favorite authors that no one knows. You’re my most favorite author of all time and I decided to pick you. My first question is what’s your favorite food? My second question is which one of your characters do you think you have more in common with? What’s your favorite color? and lastly, What’s your favorite book at the moment? Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read and answer my questions! I hope you have a spectacular Easter!

Pizza; Alice; Teal; Lonesome Dove

Is kissing technically cheating?

Dear Phyllis,
I’ve read all the Alice books and I don’t care what anyone thinks when I’ll tell them they’re the greatest series out there! Well done! I do have to ask you though, When Patrick rejected the other woman who tried to seduce him in the final book, I was proud of him that he finally didn’t leave Alice for another, but He did kiss Helene on the forehead, does that count as him cheating?

I’m not the final authority on what’s what; I know that a couple can be so intent on “bean counting,” that every little thing the other one does is scrutinized and debated, and if the marriage gets down to that, it’s in trouble.  I think the Golden Rule would be, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in front of your wife (or husband).”  But I would also consider what a person’s intention was.  If the forehead kiss was a goodbye, for example.  Was it “I found you attractive but I would never hurt my wife and carry this any further”?  Or was it a “Wow!  I’m really going to miss you but I’m married”?  I believe Patrick’s kiss was saying that while he found Helene attractive, he loved his wife deeply and so this was goodbye.”

Read any books lately?

Hi, I just want to say I’ve read almost all of your books and I have to be honest when I say that you are my top favorite author ever! I was wondering if you still read any books, if so what were they and who’s your favorite author?

Of course I still read books, though I much prefer listening to audio editions–that way I can be doing something while a wonderful story is entertaining me.  I have many favorite authors.  A few are T.C. Boyle, Anne Tyler, and Larry McMurtry…

Did you have other jobs?

Hello, I was just wondering did you have other careers besides being an incredible author? I heard you were a teacher for awhile, did you enjoy it? did you enjoy your other jobs? By the way, I wasn’t lying when I said you were an incredible author! I can’t wait to read whatever you have coming out next!

I started out thinking I would be a teacher, simply because my mother had been a teacher.  But I had been writing little “books” since I was in the fourth grade just because I loved to make up stories.  When I was sixteen, I had a short story published in a Sunday school story paper, and received a check for $4.67.  I discovered there were many other story papers and children’s magazines at the time that were looking for good stories, so I wrote more and more and tried to make them all better.  I eventually reached the place where I could have supported myself by my writing of short stories.  I went to college thinking I waned to be a child psychologist, but writing was just so much fun that I finally decided to write full time, and have been writing ever since.  I did, however, have several part-time jobs along the way:  playground supervisor; locker room attendant; clerk in a store; clinical secretary,  third grade teacher;  newsletter editor; and an editorial assistant.

Ignoring hate

Hello! I’m 13 years old and I’ve been writing stories since I first learned how to write. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and I’ve even had college professors say I wrote better than their students. I feel free when I write even when it’s sometimes stressful. The other day we were supposed to do a project on what we want to be when we grew up. I said I wanted to be a best-selling author and I even said you were my Idol because I’ve read almost all of your books and think you’re terrific! But my teacher and classmates tell me that being a writer isn’t a real job, is this true? should I give up? How do I ignore it?

Do  you actually think your friends and teachers hate you?  Here are some thoughts: they are wrong to think that being a writer isn’t a real job.  I have been a full time writer for sixty years.  I could support our family on my writing if I needed to.  I work more than eight hours a day–perhaps 4 hours in the actual typing of words, but at least five or six hours just thinking, thinking, thinking of what scene should come next, how to present it, who the narrator should be, etc.

While it’s true that not many writers are able to support themselves or their families by their writing alone, there are thousands and thousands who write short stories or articles or news accounts and earn part of their money this way.  They may be plumbers or roofers or teachers or fishermen on the side, but they may still write and get published.  I guess people consider that a person is whatever work most supports him, even though he may enjoy doing something else much more.

Don’t let that disturb you.  Just go on doing what you love most, and if it’s writing, then write, write, write.  Put it aside for awhile and come back to read it again and see if you can make it better.  I rewrite everything many, many times.  Here’s something else to think about: here’s what I consider a real writer:  he is far more interested in the act of writing–of making it the best it can be–of reading it aloud to see how it sounds, than he is in being a “best-selling” writer.  In fact, he is more interested in writing just for the act of writing–because he enjoys it–than the fame or money he thinks he will get.

Take every opportunity to join writing groups; write for your school newspaper.  Enter every writing contest open to you.  If you like to write more than almost anything else, you’re a writer.