[1] He was born in Wichita, Kansas, and after co-writing and directing the independent short film Walking Blues lived for several years in France, working as a translator and photographer.
A black comic noir thriller set in the low-rent world of sleazy Wichita strip clubs on Christmas Eve 1979, The Ice Harvest was adapted into a film of the same title in 2005.
Rut, a study of quirky characters in a post-apocalyptic Colorado followed six years later, but in the meantime Phillips had published several well-received short stories, later collected with some previously unpublished works in Rum, Sodomy, and False Eyelashes.
[1] Rake followed, originally published in the French language and telling the story of a minor television star from the United States who finds greater fame in Paris and pulls himself into a darkly comic tangle as he pursues women and a movie deal.
Most recently has been The Devil Raises His Own (2024), which furthers the saga of photographer Bil Ogden (Cottonwood, Hop Alley) as he becomes embroilded in pornography during the nascent days of Hollywood.