Acclaimed author Gin Phillips returns to campus

The plot of author and BSC alumna Gin Phillips’ acclaimed recent novel, Fierce Kingdom, could have been ripped straight from the headlines – a woman and her son are trapped when active shooters enter a zoo just before closing time – but at its heart, the pulse-pounding, fast-paced thriller is about the timeless act of parenting and the human survival instinct. Fierce Creatures cover

Fierce Kingdom was named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Amazon, and Kirkus, and described by Washington Independent Review of Books as “a powerhouse of a read that balances empathy and fear as it poses complex questions about human nature.” It is one of five novels by Phillips ’97, including The Well and the Mine (winner of the 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award), Come In and Cover Me, and two young adult novels, A Little Bit of Spectacular and The Hidden Summer.

“In some ways, the coolest part of the book coming out and not just being in your head, is that people bring their own experience to it,” said Phillips, who will speak in Harbert Auditorium at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 3. “Everyone who reads the book has a slightly different experience with it.”

Phillips’ own experience as a mother of a young son – and her visits to the Birmingham Zoo –inspired Fierce Kingdom. Motherhood has also had an impact on her writing life in other ways.

“I used to love to write at night. Midnight to 2 a.m. were by far the best. The phone wouldn’t ring. The house was quiet. Now, mostly I’m really tired by then,” Phillips said. “I don’t think this is very different from a lot of women in whatever their professional field. Motherhood made me much more efficient and made me take advantage of whatever block of time I have. I sit down in the morning after my child goes to school and write for a few hours. A great day is if I can get five or six hours of writing time uninterrupted.”

After graduating from BSC with a degree in political journalism, Phillips worked as a magazine writer for more than a decade, and lived in Ireland, New York, and Washington D.C., before moving back to Alabama.

“I knew I loved writing,” she said. “But it was a long time before I thought I could make a living at it. I recommend no one graduate thinking ‘I’ll just write books.’”

Phillips said working in journalism taught her to write on deadline and shrug off the notion of writer’s block.

“You sit down and write because it’s time to write. It teaches you the day-to-day discipline of that. That provides a really good framework for when you’re writing a book and there’s no one around to give you that moment to moment to-do list.”

When it comes to the work of other authors, Phillips is careful about what she reads while she’s writing. “I don’t want to fall in love with a book because then I have a harder time making myself write. I’d rather be reading.” When she has downtime, Phillips has been reading Edith Wharton (“I just finished her book Summer, which I loved”) and lists Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Colson Whitehead among her favorite authors.

“There’s a lot out there. That’s always the great struggle; there’s a whole long list of great things from hundreds of years to read.”

Phillips said her time on the Hilltop – particularly the personalized feel and individualized attention provided by a liberal arts education – has stayed with her over the years.

“Years ago I went to a wedding. The groom went to Yale and the bride went to Birmingham-Southern. I sat at a table with several of the groom’s friends, also from Yale, and a professor from BSC, Ed LaMonte, and his wife. Dr. LaMonte asked how my family was, asked me about Ireland.

The woman I was sitting next to was talking to her friends from Yale about Jimmy Carter coming to campus. I said ‘Jimmy Carter came to campus, huh?’

“And she said, ‘You sat down next to your professor and he knows what you wrote papers on, knows what you did after graduation, knows who your brothers are. There’s not one professor I could sit down next to who would even know my name.’”

Phillips said that experience truly sums up what BSC offered her in the ‘90s and continues to offer today’s students.

“Those relationships are the cornerstone of everything. You’re going to meet professors who don’t just give you a grade but who sit down and talk to you about your papers, about what you want to do next with your life, and about how to get there. At BSC, you’ve got professors who want to make that happen.”