Phil Earle was born, raised and schooled in Hull. His first job was as a care worker in a children's home, an experience that influenced the ideas behind Being Billy and Saving Daisy. He then trained as a drama therapist working in south London with traumatized and abused adolescents. After a couple of years in the care sector, Phil chose the more sedate lifestyle of being a bookseller, now working in children's publishing.
His novel When the Sky Falls was shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal and won the 2022 British Book Award for Children's Fiction Book of the Year, as well as the Books Are My Bag Readers Award and the Times Children's Book of the Year.
Phil now lives on a hill in West Yorkshire with his wife, children, two dogs and a dragon called Baz.