Phillip Urlevich was born in a small town in California and moved along his family to a slightly bigger town in Arizona. After spending much of his time in the library, exploring history as well as science and crime fiction, he decided to try his hand at writing, first with short stories, before moving up with his debut novel Beyond Earth and the screenplay for the independent film, Suburban Rebels. He put his love of history, especially the Civil War, into his second novel, The Georgia Express.