I am Phillip A. Leavenworth, a writer, producer, and content creator from Paramount, California, a small town between the nodes of Los Angeles and Long Beach. I was born in 1992 in West Covina, California. I went to my undergrad at both schools in Long Beach and will be heading to San Diego next to explore the world of graduate school education and a future as a college professor of English. As of 2024, I have five completed novels (four awaiting publication) and numerous screenplays and short stories. Many of the short stories and screenplays are circulating through various competitions at any given moment. Fingers crossed. I am in the process of producing a television episode and four short films. As well as, launching a YouTube channel or two.
Family
I was raised in a blended family with three older brothers and a sister with a younger brother. My younger brother and I share the same mother but have a different father. My eldest brother is nearly twenty years older than I am. My mother was ten years older than my father, which helped increase my scope of interests. As she grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s, he grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s. I often feel like someone raised in the late 1990s and 2000s with a strong 1970s sensibility.
My parents are a heavy influence on how I view the world. My first-generation American mother raised me in the ways of Mexican culture and Catholic tradition. Catholicism did not take, and instead, I became a lifelong atheist after reading the King James Bible in high school as part of a literature course. My father, an eighth-generation American, descended from relatives of Henry Leavenworth, the man whose influence is why our last name adorns the city, prison, and military base of the same name. The name is important to me and gives me something to live up to.
My mother was due to return home from Atlanta, Georgia, on the morning of September 11, 2001, but her flight was canceled due to the attacks on New York City. She returned five days later to LAX. They transported her and other people from their flights on buses. People in military gear were everywhere. This event and possibly the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 were two paradigm-shifting events in my life that solidified my views on politics and science.
My father is a direct influence on my interest in science fiction. But unlike him, I am interested in the broad range of the genre (books, videogames, etc), his interest is limited to movies and television. He’d introduced me to the 1975 British space adventure Space: 1999, the original Star Wars films, and the 1978 original Battlestar Galactica, among others. Growing up, I was able to see what became some of my favorite films: Gattaca, Contact, Deep Impact, and Mission to Mars, to name a few. The first Star Trek film I saw in the theater was Star Trek: First Contact, but the only main series set in the Next Generation era I saw while growing up was Star Trek: Voyager.
My older siblings, especially my older brothers, were a major influence on my interests in comedy and fascination with conspiracy theories. I used to be much more into conspiracy theories than I am now. But these days, I’m more fascinated by the culture around conspiracy theories than I am about the conspiracies themselves. Through their influence, I discovered that comedies and conspiracy theories work very well together.
My sister is the biggest reason I read and write; without her, I probably wouldn’t be here today. She inspired my younger brother and me to read and encouraged us to write. We started but never finished Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. But doing so sparked a fire in us that has never ceased. She’s also the reason we love visiting bookstores and the library.
Science Fiction
For a number of years, thanks to the Sci-Fi Channel, I had reached a pinnacle of sci-fi television where I could watch Star Trek: Enterprise, Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and the 2003 version of Battlestar Galactica in one evening. If I wasn’t playing Halo, or later, Mass Effect. Sometime in 2001, I bought my first science fiction book with my own money I made from yardwork at my grandmother’s: Frank Herbert’s Dune, which made a profound impact on not only my writing but also my worldview. Not long after that, my second book I bought: Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight from The Dragonriders of Pern series helped solidify my love of the genre and how malleable it really is.
High School
My high school years were spent becoming a bridge between the cliques of the school. I was friends with jocks, drama kids, and the nerds. I was in a Creative Writing Club, the Drama Club, and JROTC. At the time, I was thinking I’d become a filmmaker. I had big dreams of becoming the next Stephen Spielberg or the next M. Night Shyamalan (his early work is also a major influence on my work). Ultimately, I opted to pursue film as a major at community college after graduation.
The Great Outdoors
After high school, my life took a surprising turn. I met someone who I presumed was the love of my life, and I fell in love with Northern California and the Sierra Nevada. It was in the moments that we’d crossed the rip-winding roads of the high mountain ranges that I became a lover of nature and believed in the value of safeguarding it for everyone who comes after. Growing up in the small suburb of the second largest city in the United States shut me off from the idea of what wilderness could even be.
Finding Myself
Most of the 2010s was spent trying to understand the person I wanted to become. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but nobody ever is. Something in me inspired me to begin reading the works of Douglas Adams, C.J. Cherryh, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Stanislaw Lem, Anne McCaffrey, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and others more intently. I adopted elements of each writing style to inform my own. After giving up on majoring in film, partly due to running out of cash, I switched to Creative Writing, where I found a new purpose. I wanted more than anything to be a writer. A writer of anything I wanted to do. Instructional manuals, short stories, news articles, screenplays, novels, you name it.
A Reflection on Now
Later, I worked at the Los Angeles Times, the third-generation to do so, for six years between 2017 and 2024. My grandfather started working there in 1955 and my father began in 1985. It will likely remain one of the best work experiences of my life. I can only dream that the co-workers and work I do next is even a tenth of what I had there. But don’t get me started on my desk and cubicle!
Furthermore, I have spent years cultivating my passion for storytelling and worldbuilding, which is now ready to be seen. I have varied interests, including history, humor, literature, philosophy, politics, science, science fiction, and space. I love traveling, especially on trains or road trips. I also love the great outdoors: camping, launching rockets, shooting guns, off-roading, and the works. Give me a forest or a desert, but most importantly, a pen and paper, and I’ll have the power to do anything.
Sample Resume
Education
- High School Diploma (2010), Paramount High School
- AA, English (2020), Long Beach City College
- AA, Journalism (2021), Long Beach City College
- AA, English Creative Writing (2023), Long Beach City College
- AS, Physical Science (expected 2025), Long Beach City College
- Digital Business Literacy Certificate (2023), Long Beach City College
- Spanish Certificate (2024), Long Beach City College
- BA, English Rhetoric & Composition (2023), California State University Long Beach
- Professional Writing Certificate (2023), California State University Long Beach
- MFA, English Creative Writing (expected 2027), San Diego State University
- PhD, Literature (anticipated early 2030s)
Work Experience
- Los Angeles Times (2017-2024), Los Angeles, California
- Press Order Room Coordinator
- YouTube (Since 2024)
- Content Creator
Bibliography
- Forthcoming 2024!
Publications
- LBCC Viking News (2010, 2011, 2020, 2021)
- CSULB Daily 49er (2023)
- Daily Star Trek News (2023)
- Sci-Fi Scan (Since 2024)