Cassandra Phillips

Cassandra Phillips is the co-author of Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans (with Capt. Charles Moore; Avery/Penguin, 2011) and of The Passion Paradox: Patterns of Love and Power in Intimate Relationships (with Dean Delis, Bantam 1990.) More recently, she worked with anthropologist Shirley C. Strum on her memoir, Echoes of Our Origins: Baboons, Nature and Humans (Johns Hopkins Press, 2025). She's also reported for local newspapers, scouted scripts in the film industry, and assessed submissions at a literary agency. For 25 years, she and her husband operated commercial orchid nurseries on the Big Island, where she also conducted USDA-funded research into recycled plastics as orchid growth media. Now living in Oregon, she continues to edit, write and orchidize. She has a degree in English from Pomona, a master's in journalism from U.C. Berkeley, and partook of UCLA's MFA scriptwriting program.