In an article by Nilsen, based in part on interviews with Sparks and published in the October 1979 issue of "School Library Journal", Sparks said that she had received the diaries that became "Go Ask Alice" from a girl she had befriended at a youth conference. The girl allegedly gave Sparks her diaries in order to help Sparks understand the experiences of young drug users and to prevent her parents from reading them. According to Sparks, the girl later died, although not of an overdose. Sparks said she had then transcribed the diaries, destroying parts of them in the process (with the remaining portions locked in the publisher's vault and unavailable for review by Nilsen or other investigators), and added various fictional elements, including the overdose death. Although Sparks did not confirm or deny the allegations that the diarist's parents had threatened a lawsuit, she did say that in order to get a release from the parents, she had only sought to use the diaries as a "basis to which she would add other incidents and thoughts gleaned from similar case studies," according to Nilsen.