Shiloh Author to Students: 'I tell It Like It Is'

Phyllis Reynolds isn’t afraid to take a chance when she writes her books.

“I simply tell it the way it is instead of using euphemisms,” the author of the children’s novel trilogy Shiloh and the 28-book Alice series told Brooks Middle School 8th graders Thursday afternoon.

Reynolds, who began her career writing stories for newspapers and magazines, credited her parents for giving her a love for writing.

“My parents read aloud to us every night until we were in junior high. We just sat around and listened. It was so wonderful,” she recalled. “I thought if listening to stories was so great, writing them must be even better.”

The Joliet Township High School and Joliet Junior College grad, who now lives in Maryland, admitted her career started “very slowly with many rejection slips along the way.” She wrote short stories for 15 years before she ever attempted to write a book.

Today she has written more than 130 books and is currently working on another manuscript.

Her appearance was courtesy of Anderson’s Book Shop’s Authors in Schools program.