Phil hails from the West Coast, where he started reading as a precocious two-year-old, deciding by his teenage years to embark on a career of writing, reading, and editing. He began his professional writing career as a freelance writer for the Seattle Times, while still in his undergraduate journalism program at the University of Washington. He graduated from that program in 1990, interned that summer at the Los Angeles Times, and returned to Seattle until trading rain for sun, moving to Austin in 1994.
He won a full fellowship to the James A. Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997, completing a three-year creative writing MFA program in 2000. That fall, he added teaching to the mix, inspired in part by working with students on their writing at UT’s Undergraduate Writing Center. He began at San Antonio College as an English instructor, and has sojourned at a number of schools since – he currently works as a lecturer in the Writing Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio and an English and Student Development instructor at Austin Community College.
He also currently writes and edits for Major League Soccer’s official website and provides public relations and content management support for three Austin-based educational non-profit organizations.
When he’s not in front of a computer or a lectern, he’s on a bike, a soccer pitch, or traversing Texas with his wife and three children.
