Works by
Malcolm Boyd
(Gay Elder, Episcopal Priest, Writer)
[June 8, 1923 - ]

As Editor

• In Times Like These…How We Pray (2005) with J. Jon Bruno
  A wide variety of individuals tell stories of how they pray, or how they began or stopped praying, or how prayer saved their lives. The authors come from different walks of life: A military chaplain, a bishop, a film maker, a religious commentator, a Muslim physician, an icon painter, an illustrator, the mother of a gay son ... some of them are well known, many are not. Among the well-known are Martin Marty, Norman Mailer, Phyllis Tickle, Nora Gallagher, Frederick Buechner, Alan Jones, and Harvey Cox. These are distinctive and engaging voices. Some of the contributions are rough-hewn, some elegant. Taken together, they make a fascinating mosaic of prayer as something that people do in their daily lives not only or merely or ever in formal worship.

• Race and Prayer: Collected Voices, Many Dreams (2003), edited with Chester L. Talton

• Amazing Grace: Stories of Lesbian and Gay Faith (1991) with Nancy Wilson

• When in the Course of Human Events (1973) with Paul Conrad
  When in the Course of Human Events represents the unique collaboration of Malcolm Boyd and Paul Conrad. Boyd has written seventy eloquent, imimitable and sometimes shocking prayers to accompany seventy of Conrad's stinging, prophetic and often compassionate editorial cartoons. The result is a gallery of Conrad's finest work that is placed in a universal perspective by the unity and force of Boyd's prayers. Conrad, twice a Pulitzer Prize winner, is one of the ranking figures in American journalism, and was the editorial cartoonist of the LA Times and its syndicate.

• The Underground Church (1969)

• On the Battle Lines: A Manifesto for Our Times by 27 Militant Clergymen (1964)

Anthologies

• The Gay & Lesbian Literary Companion (1994), Christa Brelin, Malcolm Boyd, and Sharon Malinowski, eds.

Biography/Memoirs

• Half Laughing/Half Crying (1986)
  A memoir. The Advocate wrote: “Malcolm Boyd belongs to that vanishing species, the man possessed by the need for social justice; for personal honesty; for sexual fulfillment; for righteousness; and for God. To these qualities he adds one more—the one that makes all the difference. He is able to tell his many stories in a fluid and masterful way.”

• As I Live and Breathe: Stages of an Autobiography (1970)

Fiction

• The Fantasy World of Peter Stone and Other Fables (1969)
  His only work of fiction. Publishers Weekly said: “Boyd is lighter, brighter and fresher than he has ever appeared before in print.” The New York Times Book Review commented: “Provocative, witty, and highly entertaining.”

Non-fiction

• A Prophet In His Own Land: A Malcolm Boyd Reader (2008), Compiled by Bo Young and Dan Vera
  Gay/straight, Christian/atheist, coffeehouse or pulpit, poet or prose, Malcolm Boyd is an exemplar of the American tradition of life's adventure and free-thinking. He is a gift to anyone who takes the time to encounter him in his writings. To celebrate Malcolm Boyd's 85th birthday, and in recognition of the Lambda Literary Foundation's awarding of the Pioneer Award to him and his partner Mark Thompson for lifetime achievement, White Crane Books is proud to announce the publication of A Prophet in His Own Land: A Malcolm Boyd Reader, a compendium of five decades of his prose, poetry, prayers and interviews. This is the first collection of Boyd's writings assembled under one cover, offering the gamut of the man's heart, mind and soul to first-time readers or long-time readers alike. Compiled by Bo Young and Dan Vera, editors of White Crane: the Journal of Gay Wisdom & Culture, the collection begins with the first writings Boyd produced, reflecting presciently on his insider's knowledge and experience in the mot

• Focus: Rethinking the Meaning of Our Evangelism (1960, 2002)
  Challenges a new generation to see that, properly understood, evangelism places God in focus.

• Prayers for the Later Years (2002)
  Drawing on his own life experience of 78 years, as well as from the letters he received as a columnist for Modern Maturity, Malcolm Boyd addresses the struggles and blessings of life’s later years. The prayers are brief, accessible, and arranged around themes including health, thanksgiving, hard questions, courage, and faith. Prayers for the Later Years will help and comfort those who are growing older as well as adults who are concerned for their aging parents.

• Simple Grace: A Mentor's Guide to Growing Older (2001)
  Well-known Episcopal priest and author Malcolm Boyd draws on the many and varied experiences of his 78 years to provide lessons for others who are facing middle age and beyond. The themes of this book—Learning, Remembering, Simplifying, Maturing, Exploring, and Understanding—reflect Boyd’s own life, a life that has taken him from Hollywood, where he was a television producer and partner of screen legend Mary Pickford, to the South, where he was a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights movement, to San Francisco, where he was the “rebel priest” who read prayers and led worship services in coffeehouses and nightclubs. Boyd writes: “Why should the story of my odyssey concern you? Because it is your story too. All of our stories are interconnected and share common themes. The point is: Always we are in the process of growing up. We need and can help each other by exchanging ideas, experiences, sorrows, joys, and certainly dreams and hopes. Willa Cather wisely observed that each person not only has a story, but often seems to have become his or her story. This is storytelling time.”

• Running With Jesus: The Prayers of Malcolm Boyd (2000)
  Malcolm Boyd illustrates his understanding of the nature of prayer in this provocative collection. Sometimes his prayers are startling, and sometimes they are raw—but they are always fresh and sincere.
  
  They will lead you toward an intimate understanding of God—here and now. Some of the 135 prayers collected here first appeared in Boyd’s groundbreaking and bestselling book, Are You Running with Me, Jesus?, while others are from Human like Me, Jesus. Many are new—just for this volume.
  
  You’ll resonate with Boyd as he exposes his fears and failures, his joys and his love through these prayers. Ten sections dealing with issues from gritty urban life to sexuality and prayers of joy for simple pleasures help you find prayers relevant to your own situation. Most of all, you’ll find a model for expressing yourself—all of yourself—to God in new ways. This is must-reading for anyone looking to broaden their life of prayer.

• Go Gentle into the Good Night (1998)
  It uses graceful prose and common-sense anecdotes and parables to confront the mystery of death.

• Rich with Years: Daily Meditations on Growing Older (1994)
  This book was influenced by Boyd’s decade-long assignment as a columnist for AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine, where he dealt with aging issues. It was translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan.

• Edges, Boundaries, and Connections (1992)
  A collection of short pieces that had appeared previously in other books.

• Gay Priest: An Inner Journey (1986)
  “It has an unforgettable impact. Throughout the book Boyd’s free verse loosens up the text and facilitates an understanding of this courageous man” wrote the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The Philadelphia Inquirer added: “There is real integrity and honesty here. Seen as a kind of epistle, it is especially illuminating.”

• Look Back in Joy: A Celebration of Gay Lovers (1981, 1990)
  “An extraordinary range of emotion and perception…By sharing the unextraordinariness of love’s long suffusion into his life, Malcolm Boyd has shared with us his neatest trick of all” said the Los Angeles Times.

• Take Off the Masks: The Classic Spiritual Autobiography (1978, 1993, 2008)
  For over sixty years, Malcolm Boyd has written truthfully about his own journey to fullness. From theologian to civil rights pioneer to coffee house troubadour to gay rights icon, Boyd has courageously and whole-heartedly shown the way to a deeper, more honest examination of all our lives, leading by example. White Crane Books is proud to re-release Boyd's classic spiritual biography and coming out story, Take Off the Masks, for a new generation of readers hungry for its insight, honesty and soulful perception. With a new introduction by Boyd's life partner, Mark Thompson, and a newly added postscript by Rev. Canon Boyd himself.

• Am I Running With You, God? (1977)
  Publishers Weekly noted: “Boyd knows ‘the night of the soul’…mingling his intense prayer-poems with confessional meditations and personal responses to the world of social and spiritual struggle.”

• Christian: Its Meanings in an Age of Future Shock (1975)
  “Boyd’s best book” said the Los Angeles Times.

• The Alleluia Affair (1975)
  Jesus figures around the world come down off church crosses and leap out of stained-glass windows. But –do the crosses remain empty? The National Catholic Reporter said: “Poignant, lovely, sincerely optimistic.”

• The Runner (1974)
  Jesus is the Runner. “It is a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress a la Bunuel, Ionesco or Arrabal” wrote the Christian Century.

• The Lover (1972)
  Jesus is the Lover. “Modern life seen with poetic vision…He is the secular saint” wrote the Atlanta Constitution.

• Human Like Me, Jesus: Prayers with Notes on the Humanistic Revolution (1971)
  A new book of prayers. “He has come of age…Concerned, caring people across the nation will be pleased with his latest book,” said the Boston Globe.

• My Fellow Americans (1970)
  Boyd’s depth interviews with Colorado Chicanos, Vietnam war veterans and Hugh Hefner. Library Journal wrote: “A vital picture of what life is like on America’s growing edge.”

• Malcolm Boyd’s Book of Days (1968)
  Minutes and hours, people and places, individual problems and human revolutions, work and leisure, straws of life and confrontation of moral issues are the stuff making up this book of days. “Malcolm Boyd wants to break down ghetto walls, tear off masks, remove barriers” said Book Week.

• Free to Live, Free to Die (1967)
  Reflections and meditations that touched a generation.

• Are You Running With Me, Jesus?: A Spiritual Companion for the 1990s (1965, 2006)
  The breakthrough book of contemporary prayers that reached a global audience, sold one million copies, and received critical acclaim.

• The Hunger, the Thirst (1964)
  Answering questions of students and young adults in three chapters: “The Black and White Blues,” “The Death Charade” and “Man, What About God”

• If I Go Down to Hell: Man's Search for Meaning in Contemporary Life (1962)
  Hell is here and now. (Witness the perception of this in the arts).

• Christ and Celebrity Gods: The Church in Mass Culture (1958)
  The first complete history of the development of the Hollywood “religious film” from the inception of such motion pictures to C.B. DeMille’s groundbreaking “The Ten Commandments.”

• Crisis in Communication (l957)  
  A scholarly examination of the mass media from a Christian perspective.