Julie Phillips

Julie Phillips is an award-winning author, editor, and biographer. She has written extensively about exceptional women and their contributions to the world of literature, science, and art. Phillips was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota and graduated from St. Olaf College. She lives in New York City and is a book critic for The New Republic.

Phillips is most remembered for her pioneering biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. Published in 2006, this detailed account explores how Alice B. Sheldon, the first female science-fiction author, wrote under the male pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. The New York Times Book Review praised the book as a “fundamentally sympathetic, carefully researched and consistently absorbing biography.”

Other works of note include Julie Phillips’ biographies of legendary science-fiction writer Joanna Russ and children’s author, and Nobel Laureate, Pearl S. Buck. Additionally, her short story collection In the Image of Fire (2003) features works of fiction that explore “relationships between art and madness, the supernatural and everyday life, and the lasting influence of our judgmental pasts."

Phillips’ articles and essays have been published in a range of periodicals such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal and The Paris Review.

In addition to writing, Julie Phillips has taught creative writing, including courses at Sarah Lawrence College and The New School. She has also edited several books, most notably, An Anthology of Contemporary Fantasy (1997) and Conjunctions (2006), a collection of essays, stories, and poems.

Phillips’ achievements have earned her numerous awards, most notably the prestigious Tiptree Award and James Tiptree Jr. Award in science-fiction, the Citation of Merit from the National Book Critics Circle, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Throughout her career, Phillips has consistently pushed the boundaries of her craft and defied conventions in order to reveal inspiring stories about a broad range of individuals, from pioneering female authors to Nobel Prize winners. Her powerful writing has earned her a place among the best authors in American literature.