Philip Gerard was the author of five novels, eight works of nonfiction, and numerous essays on history, music, and writing craft, including an iconic novel about the Wilmington coup of 1898, Cape Fear Rising, and The Last Battleground: The Civil War Comes to North Carolina. Until his untimely passing in 2022, he taught in the BFA and MFA Programs of the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he won a number of awards for teaching excellence. He was coeditor with his wife, Jill Gerard, of Chautauqua, the literary journal of the Chautauqua Institution and was a frequent and popular contributor to Our State magazine. Gerard was an avid musician and songwriter, a teacher and mentor, and a beloved member of the North Carolina writing community.