Gary Phillips (writer)

His family was among many African Americans who left the Southern United States for Los Angeles in the 1940s and '50s.

Phillips's mother developed multiple sclerosis after he was born, resulting in him being raised primarily by his father.

The stories Phillips's father told him about being on the road during the Great Depression would later influence his decision to become a writer.

Gary Phillips (born August 24, 1955) is a writer, editor, and community activist whose 1994 novel Violent Spring is considered a classic work of crime fiction and one of the essential crime novels about Los Angeles.

His more than two dozen books range from hard-boiled mysteries such as the acclaimed Ivan Monk series to graphic novels including Angeltown and anthologies like The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir.

Phillips has also served as a story editor and writer on the television show Snowfall.

Phillips was born on August 24, 1955, in Los Angeles to Dikes Phillips, a mechanic, and Leonelle Hutton Phillips, a librarian.

In particular, Phillips worked for the Coalition Against Police Abuse because of the brutality of the infamous 77th division of the Los Angeles Police Department that patrolled the area where he grew up.

Phillips attended San Francisco State University for a year and received a B. A. in graphic design from California State University, Los Angeles, in 1978.

He has worked as a printer and as a "political campaign director, union organizer, and activist against police brutality and South African apartheid."

In 1989 after being fired from his job with a union, Phillips enrolled in a creative writing class taught by Robert Crais.

During the class Phillips wrote a mystery story about an African American private investigator named Ivan Monk, a character he would return to in his first novel.

Phillips is known for writing comic books, detective noir, and pulp fiction, all works that also influenced him while growing up in South Los Angeles.

In particular, his crime fiction has been praised as being a "terrific" example of the hard-boiled mystery genre and being "firmed rooted" in that tradition.

Phillips himself describes his writing style as "hard-boiled tales with dashes of Chester Himes and Ashley Montague."

Among Phillip's other self-admitted influences are Rod Serling, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, and Richard Pryor.

Phillips's first novel Violent Spring featured the character Ivan Monk, who he originally wrote about in Robert Crais's creative writing class.

He also was one of the founding directors of the MultiCultural Collaborative, a community-based groups aiming to reduce racial tensions following the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In the novel, Monk investigates the murder of a Korean shop owner in the aftermath of the 1992 riots.

Violent Spring was released in 1994 by the small publishing company West Coast Crime and later optioned by HBO.

The novel is now considered a "crime classic" and has been called one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles by CrimeReads.

In addition to Violent Spring, Phillips has written three other novels in the acclaimed series featuring Ivan Monk along with the short story collection Monkology: 13 Stories From the World of Private Eye Ivan Monk, released in 2004 by Macmillan Publishers.

Another series of mysteries by Phillips focuses on an African American woman named Martha Chainey, who is a former showgirl.

The series deals with "her exploits with the Vegas mob as a crime solver."

Phillips has so far written two novels about Chainey.

In 2022 Phillips released the mystery novel One-Shot Harry, set in 1960's Los Angeles and featuring an African American crime scene photographer investigating the death of his friend.

One-Shot Harry was a finalist for the 2023 Nero Award and nominated for the Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery

Phillips has also served on the national board of the Mystery Writers of America.

Among the comics Philips has written is the 2005 miniseries Angeltown released by Vertigo/DC Comics.

His 2008 anthology The Darker Mask: Heroes from the Shadows, edited with Christopher Chambers, presented a look at superheroes outside the traditional mythology of "admirable White males" and featured original stories by Walter Mosley, L.A. Banks, Peter Spiegelman, Ann Nocenti, Naomi Hirahara and others.

His comic Twilight Crusade: Envoy for Moonstone Books, about a hitman for God, was released in 2008.

In 2011, Phillips co-edited The Cocaine Chronicles with Jervey Tervalon, an anthology of original stories.

His 2022 anthology South Central Noir from Akashic Books focused the best-selling short fiction series on South Los Angeles and featured authors such as Tananarive Due, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, and Penny Mickelbury.

In addition to editing South Central Noir, Phillips also contributed the story "Death of a Sideman" about two old friends surveying the changing section of Los Angeles.

Philips also writes comic books, which he says was his first love as a writer.

"I started out decades ago wanting to be a comic book artist and writer," Phillips said in an interview with Black Issues Book Review.

"I wanted to work for Marvel so bad that I would have sold my sister if I had one."

Phillips has edited a number of anthologies including Orange County Noir and The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, with the latter receiving the 2018 Anthony Award for Best Anthology.

The Obama Inheritance was inspired by the many conspiracy theories generated about President Barack Obama.

Each story in the anthology focused on one conspiracy theory as a means to "Riff on it, take it apart and turn it on its head, and give the reader a thrill ride of weirdo, noirish, pulpy goodness."