Phillip Jennings

Born midst the dazzling beauty of the Kansas plains and raised in exotic Oklahoma by parents of Okie royalty, Phillip Jennings was educated at the Sorbonne of the South, Oklahoma State University. As a pilot in the US Marine Corps he became a ‘black ace’ in Vietnam, losing five of our own aircraft to ground fire and poor flying judgment. At the University of Mexico (in Mexico City of all places) he continued his quest for financial sustainability, studying Pre-Colombian Art in graduate school. A life of business accidents and avarice left him somewhat well-to-do and in pre-terminal angst-boredom, causing him to turn to a life of writing near the end of the century.

A pretty good short story, twenty five dollars, and fate brought him the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society first prize for short fiction early in his career and obviated the need to write good. Or maybe it’s obfuscated. Nevertheless he has striven on with two satirical novels (Nam-A-Rama and Goodbye Mexico) proving again that being lucky is not a bad thing to build a career on (or ‘on which to build a career’ for the few literate souls reading this).

At present, his skyrocketing literary career has proven again and again the wisdom of not ‘pissing away’ (sic) the money he made in business and then trying to live on his income as an author. He is working diligently at avoiding the beginning of his third novel and jacking around with some TV and film stuff.

Luckily, he was co-founder of Soufun.com, one of the most successful Internet companies in China. He co-founded a Wyoming oil company which he recently sold for roughly what the entire Jennings family had made since the beginning of time (who would have thought that stuff was so valuable?) and is co-founder of a money management system (a quant fund www.firstforgecapital.com). His three children are song writers, novelists, and entertainers. His wife is still skeptical of the financial sustainability aspect. But what the hell.