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Brooks Whitney Phillips was born and raised in downtown Chicago. She attended Franklin College Switzerland where her studies focused on European art and literature before transferring to the University of Denver. Upon graduation she spent three years working in public relations & advertising until deciding to pursue a career as a freelance writer. She was a long-time contributor to the Chicago Tribune for whom she wrote a weekly-syndicated column and feature stories focusing on music and the arts. She has published six children’s books for the popular American Girls collection as well as been a columnist and feature writer for their magazine, American Girl. She has also published two books with Scholastic and served as Assistant Entertainment Editor for CompuServe’s online publishing division. Brooks has lived in Key West for twelve years and is busy raising a young family, contributing stories to Coastal Living magazine, and finishing a novel—this one for adults!

Brooks can be found working at “610 Studios”, just a two doors down from the Armory.

Novel Excerpt
“September was the hottest month, the endless days bright and still, the drone of cicadas incessant. Dragonflies swooped low over dusty roads with hungry crows in eager pursuit. Alligators lolled in warm mud-brown rivers. Fruit ripened; grew fat and full then fell and rotted under sullen trees. Fruit flies swarmed leaving seeds like bones. Wooden houses swelled. Doors no longer shut. Cotton curtains hung in limp expectation. But come month’s end the cool north wind would begin to blow, lifting the leaves of the drooping orange trees, sending a rustle through the grove like hope. How we’d rejoiced that afternoon with Turkey Boy jumping out of the tree he was pruning to lift me high over his head with a whoop. That wind! It would break the stillness of the Indian-summer heat and steal the warmth before the night was through. Summer always ended that way, abruptly.”