Gary Phillips is the author of several novels, including the Martha Chainey Series and the Ivan Monk Series. He was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, and has been a community activist and union organizer. His most recent novel is Freedom’s Fight, about black soldiers in World War II. Read more about him below.

Q. Who would you choose to write your biography?

A. Upton Sinclair or Dashiell Hammett, if they were still around.

Q. If you were about to be executed, what would you want for your final meal?

A. Nothing too heavy. You don’t want to die on a full stomach. For once I’d probably have a salad, some Jack Daniels or Bushmill’s, and chocolate ice cream.

Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?

A. My mother’s copy of Native Son, by Richard Wright. It’s a first edition. When she passed, it came into my hands. She was a librarian, so I learned to love books when I was a kid.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. If I could indulge my extravagance, I’d be like Jay Leno, with a garage full of restored cars. I have sitting in my garage – it’s not as big as Jay Leno’s, it’s a two-car garage – a ’58 Ford Fairlane that my dad and I rebuilt. If I had my druthers my greatest extravagance would be old cars from the ’30s and ’40s that I would work on and hot rod out, along with some ’60s muscle cars.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?

A. For living, Nelson Mandela. For dead, Cornell Woolrich, a now somewhat obscure mystery writer. He was a very strange cat in his day.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?

A. I suppose, because I remember him from my early childhood, Captain Nemo, a very interesting, complex character from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Q. What comforts you?

A. When I’ve come to the end of a project. It’s not that I think it’s the greatest thing ever written, but there is a therapeutic release I achieve at the end of a project, when I’ve gone as far as I can go.

Q. When do you feel most creative?

A. When I’m under the gun.

To read more about Phillips’ panel on L.A. writers, click here.

*Photo by Miguel Izquierdo.