Biography naylor phyllis hall

This document is an introduction written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor about her journey to becoming a writer.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written more than 135 books, including the Newbery Award–winning Shiloh and its sequels, the Alice series, Roxie and the Hooligans.
By CAROL FELSENTHAL.

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Alice in Blunderland

Chapter 1:

Being Perfect

Lester lies to me sometimes, only he says it's just teasing. Then I go and believe him.

We were talking about names once, and he said he'd let me in on a secret if I didn't tell Dad. He said that we weren't Scotch-Irish at all, that our grandparents had escaped from Russia, but we didn't want anyone to know it.

My real name, he said, wasn't Alice Kathleen McKinley; it was Alicia Katerina de Balencia Blunderbuss Makinoli.

"Honest?" I said.

"Cross my heart," said Lester.

"Write it down," I told him. So Lester wrote it down for me.

I whispered my real name over and over so I could remember it. That night at the dinner table I watched my dad eat his green beans and wondered what other secrets he was keeping from me.

"What's Dad's real name then?" I asked Lester later.

"Hmm," said Lester. "That's a hard one to remember. It's Ivan Ilvonovich Rostropovich."

"I thought you said our last name was Makinoli."

"Right! Ivan Ilvonovich Rostropovich Makinoli."

"Then what's your real name?" I asked.

"Dmitri Rachmaninoff Schvaglio Deut

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Naylor, Gloria 1950-

PERSONAL: Born January 25, 1950, in New York, NY; daughter of Roosevelt (a transit worker) and Alberta (a telephone operator; maiden name, McAlpin) Naylor; divorced. Education: Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, B.A., 1981; Yale University, M.A., 1983.

ADDRESSES: Office—One Way Productions, 638 Second St., Brooklyn, NY 11215. Agent—Sterling Lord Literistic, 65 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012-2420.

CAREER: Missionary for Jehovah's Witnesses in New York, North Carolina, and Florida, 1968-75; worked for various hotels in New York, NY, including Sheraton City Squire, as telephone operator, 1975-81; writer, 1981—; One Way Productions, New York, NY, president, 1990—. Writer in residence, Cummington Community of the Arts, 1983; visiting lecturer, George Washington University, 1983-84, and Princeton University, 1986-87; cultural exchange lecturer, United States Information Agency, India, 1985; scholar in residence, University of Pennsylvania, 1986; visiting professor, New York University, 1986, and Boston University, 1987; Fannie Hurst

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Alice in Charge

Chapter 1

Starting Over

It was impossible to start school without remembering him.

Some kids, of course, had been on vacation when it happened and hadn’t seen the news in the paper. Some hadn’t even known Mark Stedmeister.

But we’d known him. We’d laughed with him, danced with him, argued with him, swum with him, and then . . . said our good-byes to him when he was buried.

There was the usual safety assembly the first day of school. But the principal opened it with announcements of the two deaths over the summer: a girl who drowned at a family picnic, and Mark, killed in a traffic accident. Mr. Beck asked for two minutes of silence to remember them, and then a guy from band played “Amazing Grace” on the trumpet.

Gwen and Pam and Liz and I held hands during the playing, marveling that we had any tears left after the last awful weeks and the day Liz had phoned me, crying, “He was just sitting there, Alice! He wasn’t doing anything! And a truck ran into him from behind.”

It helps to have friends. When you can spread the sadness around, there’s