Works by
Mark Thompson
(Journalist, Writer)

Books

• Advocate Days & Other Stories (2009)
  What does it mean to be an advocate? To become a person who speaks out and defends a cause? In this collection of moving essays, longtime journalist Mark Thompson charts his own journey of becoming both a witness and participant in the gay liberation movement. He then goes on to describe other advocates of personal and political freedom he has known and how these friendships further informed his activism. His story begins in 1968 when, as a curious teenager in the throes of coming out, he accidentally discovers one of the first issues of The Advocate, a tiny Los Angeles newsletter that would grow into the gay movement's most important national journal of record. Little did he know that only in a few more years he'd be working for the publication-first as an enterprising young writer and then, after nearly two decades, as its Senior and Cultural Editor. Filled with historic eye-witness accounts of a movement and its primary chronicle always in flux, as well as profiles of artists and activists who have made a difference, Advocate Days and Other Stories is more than the sum of its parts. Taken together, these keenly observed tales offer a stirring testament to the significance of living a life graced with meaning and purpose.

• Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice (1999)
  When mystery enters our lives and stays there, we are set off from others. And, like a stranger who becomes a trusted friend, that mystery can grow into wonder about the endless possibilities of who we are. Certainly there is no group more cloaked within the mystery and wonder of gay life than leatherfolk, an odd tribe within a tribe that arouses feelings both hostile and seductive.
  
  This book is a collection of writings by men and women who share little in common other than the desire to explore taboo realms and intense erotic experience. In fact, this is the first co-gender, nonfiction anthology to address the complex and sometimes unspeakable topic of sadomasochistic sexuality and the subculture that has formed around it. As a result, Leatherfolk is about many things, including the formation of a rapidly growing community within today's gay world and the meanings of seemingly incomprehensible sexual acts. the style of writing covers a spectrum as well: historical memoir, social commentary, and personal testimony.

• Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement (1994), Mark Thompson, ed.
  Massive volume of half a million words and over seven hundred images documenting the gay and lesbian struggle for civil rights. The book was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards.

Gay Spirituality Trilogy

1. Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning (1987) -- Listed by Lambda Book Report as one of the "100 Lesbian and Gay Books That Changed Our Lives"
   Gay Spirit, the psychic and creative energies generated by people we now call gay, has always existed on the outer shores of our culture's collective consciousness. In the past, gay people were labeled heretics, perversions of nature, or categorized pseudo-scientifically. Gay people lived on the edge of the global village or worked within its mainstream in denial and disguise. But today that spirit has re-emerged and lives among us.This book of essays explores the possibilities of that spirit--suggesting ways in which gay people might find a place and purpose in human culture unique to themselves, departing with the questions asked nearly forty years ago by the Mattachine Society: Who are we? Where have we come from? Why are we here?

2. Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature With Sixteen Writers, Healers, Teachers, and Visionaries (1994)
   Gay spirituality and sensibility come to light in these pages of striking portraits and trenchant interviews. Thompson brings out the unique contributions of the esteemed gay men – including Will Roscoe, Joseph Kramer, Harry Hay, James Broughton, Andrew Harvey, Paul Monette, Malcolm Boyd, and Ram Dass – who lead the spiritual life. Thompson elicits vivid musings on such provocative issues as the third gender, S&M, ritual as ‘holy fire’, and spirituality in the age of Aids. His interviews call out the deepest emotions of each of these vibrant leaders who reveal, as never before, the spirit and the soul of the gay life.

3. Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow To Self (1997)
   The spiritual journey to adulthood is, for most gay men, particularly difficult. In an electrifying mix of theory and autobiography, Mark Thompson explores the stages of healing and recovery that men can experience if they dare to take the path leading to a fully integrated body and spirit. In his own life, he details the experience of growing up gay in a dysfunctional family, the heady days of the early 1970s in San Francisco, and his attempts to heal himself--from the fairy circles to the deepest reaches of the leather movement. Intermixed is an explanation of archetypes and how they function in gay man's life, the roles that they assume, the dangers that they hold, and the lessons that must be learned for each gay man to heal his own gay soul, spirit, and body.

Other (Includes contributions by Mark Thompson)

• Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong (1991), John Preston, ed.

• Out in All Directions: A Treasury of Gay and Lesbian America (1997), Eric Marcus and Sherry Thomas, eds.

• Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life (1984, 1992, 2004), Betty Berzon, ed.

• Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian and Queer Essays on Popular Culture (1995), Alexander Doty and Corey K.Creekmur, eds.

• Gay Men at the Millennium (1997), Michael Lowenthal, ed.

• Times Like These: How We Pray (2005), J. Jon Bruno and Malcolm Boyd, eds.