Phillip Thompson 
Major Works
- Enemy Within Salvo Press, April 1999
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Phillip Thompson: A Biography
By Emily Cranford (SHS)
Phillip Thompson was born on March 26, 1962, in Columbus,
Mississippi. He and his family also lived for awhile
in Meridian, Mississippi, but in 1970, he returned to
Columbus and graduated from New Hope High School in Lowndes
County, Mississippi. Following graduation from high school,
he moved to Oxford, Mississippi, to attend Ole Miss to
pursue a career as a journalist and a Commissioned Officer
in the Marine Corps. His book is set in Oxford. Thompson joined
the Marine Corps in 1984 as an artillery office and served in
combat with the 1st Marine Division during Operation Desert
Storm. While on duty, he wrote several historical pieces for
Civil War magazine.
After leaving the Marine Corps in 1996 to pursue a journalism career, he worked as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, the Commercial Dispatch, and as an editor at the Tupelo-based Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
In 1997, Thompson moved to Virginia to work as a reporter and editor with Marine Corps Times. He has since completed a second book about his service during Operation Desert Storm.
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Interview with Phillip Thompson
By Emily Cranford (SHS)
1)What author do you think influenced you the most?
I
can only pick one? It’s pretty hard to decide on any single influence
because there are so many writers out there that are so good,
regardless of genre. Writers who made me to write include Tennessee
Williams, Shelby Foote, John D. MacDonald, Norman Mailer, Leon Uris.
Each of these writers worked in a different area, yet all are superb
storytellers – and that’s the key. Likewise, poets have influenced me
as well: Roland Flint, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost. Again, their
storytelling capabilities hold us in awe. Personally,
I think the best Mississippi writer in the business today is Steve
Yarbrough.
When did you become interested in writing?
I’ve
been interested in writing since elementary school in Columbus, when we
would publish a newspaper as a class project. In the 8th grade, I had
an English teacher – Mrs. Barbara Pittman – who was one of the greatest
teachers I ever had, and she taught creative writing, with a real
emphasis on creative. I wrote several short stories in that class; that
is probably the real moment I decided I wanted to be a writer.
What kind of student were you in high school?
Well,
if you ask the teachers, they might give you a different answer than
I. I went to New Hope in Lowndes County. I made good grades in
high school – especially in English and history – but I was also an
extremely disruptive student. Not in a malicious way. More like a
mischievous way. I spent my share of time in exile from class out in
the hallway. But I was also involved in school. I played football, was
the class president of my junior and senior class and vice-president of
my sophomore class. I went to Boys’ State and served as a page in the
Mississippi Legislature. But while all that sounds like I took school
very seriously, I really didn’t. I didn’t have very good study habits,
and I sort of glided my way through.
How long did it take you to write Enemy Within? Into the Storm?
I stopped and started writing Enemy Within
at least a half dozen times over half a dozen years, and unfortunately
the finished product shows this. Once I decided to finish the book, it
took about a year. Same with Into the Storm, but I had a period where
all I did was transcribe my handwritten journal entries into a Word
file. That took months to do. Then, I began to write it. It took a
little more than a year to write; much longer to sell it, though. That
was probably about a two-year process.
Are you working on a new book right now? Do you have a title for it yet? What is it about?
I am working on a second novel now, a murder mystery set in Hawaii, with a working title of A Simple Murder.
I’ve been searching for an agent for this manuscript for a while; and
unfortunately, I just ended a year’s work with a New York agent on this
particular manuscript.
Do you have any advice for future writers and students today?
Advice,
hmmmm. Keep writing. Don’t get discouraged. Develop a thick skin so you
can handle the rejections and the criticisms. Keep writing. Keep
writing.
How has Mississippi or living in Mississippi influenced your writing?
I
think I could not write outside of my experience as a Mississippian and
a Southerner. My upbringing in Mississippi – and I think this is true
of most people, whether they are writers or not – gave me such a strong
sense of place that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. The South is so
full of dialect and drama and anguish and love and family that it’s
inescapable.
If you were not a writer, what would you be?
If
I were not a writer, I’d probably be…unemployed? Luckily, I don’t have
to worry about that; my day job as a journalist takes care of that. I
think if I had to pick another occupation, I’d try acting.
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Bibliography
"Phillip Thompson". The Mississippi Writers Page. June
1999. 2 December 2002.
Thompson, Phillip. Email Interview. 13 December 2002.
Yarborough, Leigh. "Former Dispatch Reporter Weaves Dramatic
Tale of Military Intrigue." Commercial Dispatch.
May 2, 1999.
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