He was the news editor and staff writer at the alt-weekly, the Providence Phoenix, until the paper closed in 2014. Since then, he's contributed to VICE, the Atlantic, Men’s Health, The Nation, Boston Magazine, and Huffington Post, among other outlets.
For many years, he taught in the Literary Arts + Studies department at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He has also taught courses at UMass-Dartmouth, Brown University, and Columbia University’s graduate writing program.
Since 2009, Phil has been working on a book about Dr. Paul Volkman, one of his father's med school classmates who is serving four consecutive life terms in federal prison for prescription drug dealing. As part of his reporting, he filed a successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit - with help from the Rhode Island ACLU and two pro-bono attorneys - against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) over unreleased evidence presented during Volkman's trial.
