THOMPSON, Mark 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born August 19, 1952, in Monterey, CA; son of Howard S. (a contractor in construction business) and Patricia A. (a homemaker; maiden name, Schupbach) Thompson; life partner of Malcolm Boyd (an Episcopal priest and author). Education: Attended Monterey Peninsula College, 1970-72, and San Francisco State University, 1973-75. Politics: Democrat/Liberal. Religion: Buddhist/Pagan.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Writer; Advocate, Los Angeles, CA, senior editor, 1975-1994.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Lambda Literary Award nomination for best anthology, 1991, for Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice.

WRITINGS:

Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor) Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, Alyson (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature with Sixteen Writers, Healers, Teachers, Visionaries, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1994.

Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Gay Body: A Journey through Shadow to Self (autobiography), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Contributor to Hometowns: Gay Men Write about Where They Belong, Dutton, 1991, and Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Art, Celestial Arts, 1992. Contributor to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mark Thompson is a prominent figure in the homosexual community, and he has published various volumes on homosexual life. Among his works is Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning, a collection of essays, articles, and interviews exploring spiritual aspects of homosexuality. Gender non-conforming homosexuals, Thompson speculates, may lead particularly spiritual lives. David Curzon, writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, recommended Gay Spirit to the reader seeking "a book that invests non-traditional sex acts with vast importance." Another reviewer, Christopher Davis, wrote in Christopher Street that Thompson's book illuminates homosexual culture. As such, Davis affirmed that though Gay Spirit "is primarily intended for gay men, there is much in it that lesbians would enjoy or learn from too."

Other volumes by Thompson include Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, in which various writers reflect on radical sexual behaviors. Thompson wrote in the book's "Editor's Note," "The leap of faith required to unite spirit and flesh is much smaller than it appears to be. In fact, in my life and in many of the lives revealed in Leatherfolk, there is no distance at all separating the two."

Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature with Sixteen Writers, Healers, Teachers, Visionaries is a sequel to Gay Spirit. Thompson once told CA: "The purpose of Gay Soul is to record and preserve the innermost thoughts and emotions of a unique community of men who are simultaneously engaged in acts of self-invention and the responsibilities of catastrophic loss. By weaving together a diverse but informed group of voices a collective history is told—the stories of men living and working on the edge of the 'global village' as teachers, healers, and visionaries."

Gay Soul includes interviews with sixteen well-known gay men, including Ram Dass, James Broughton, and Andrew Harvey. Writing in the Lambda Book Report, Doug Sadownick praised Gay Spirit, describing it as "one of the most provocative books to appear in gay literature in years." He went on to say, "The book offers a critique on the limitations in gay life and politics, and lobs a brick through the glass house of gay academic thinking."

In Gay Today, reviewer Corrine Hicks described Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement as "a magnificent coffee table tome that chronicles gay and lesbian history with gripping on-the-spot news reports, startling photographs, and thought-provoking essays introducing each year between 1967 and 1992." The book simultaneously chronicles the growth of The Advocate, where Thompson once served as senior editor, and the gay movement. Concluded Hicks, "Few other books offer such a sweeping insight into the social dynamics that brought the lesbian and gay movement to the place it is in today."

Thompson's autobiography, Gay Body: A Journey through Shadow to Self, garnered much critical acclaim. In Lambda Book Report, Jim Marks described it as a "moving, sometimes harrowing, sometimes gut-wrenching memoir." Thompson's memoir begins as he observes the death of his brother Kirk, who suffered from AIDS. Thompson then reveals what life was like within his dysfunctional, alcoholic family and during San Francisco's drug and sexual revolution. "Thompson recounts an extraordinary life in the most naked terms," Marks observed. As Thompson describes external events, he gives insight into the psyche of the gay male. "In this book, I weave two stories—the outer and the inner—like intertwining threads. Archetypal images, historical images, reportage and personal memories connect the two and show how—if one goes deep enough—the contents of one's unconscious find revelation through universal forms," Thompson told Marks. Gay Today reviewer Willis Bivins remarked, "If any criticism can be mounted of this riveting autobiography, it might be that Thompson tends to pigeon-hole gay men." However, Bivins concluded that the book "perhaps… is an account of one man's life unlike any other that you will ever read or that will ever be written."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Thompson, Mark, editor, Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, Alyson (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

PERIODICALS

Advocate, November 29, 1994, review of Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature with Sixteen Writers, Healers, Teachers, Visionaries, p. 74; November 25, 1997, review of Gay Body: A Journey through Shadow to Self, p. 69.

Booklist, May 15, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 1651.

Book World, June 26, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 6; December 14, 1997, review of Gay Body, p. 8.

Christopher Street, June-July, 1988, pp. 60-63.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 384.

Lambda Book Report, November-December, 1994, Doug Sadownick, review of Gay Soul, pp. 32-34; July, 1995, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 43; September, 1995, review of Gay Soul, p. 42; July, 1998, Jim Marks, review of Gay Body, pp. 15-17.

Library Journal, April 1, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 120; December, 1994, review of Gay Soul, p. 116; October 15, 1997, Richard Violette, review of Gay Body, p. 80.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 26, 1987, p. 13; June 26, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 6.

New Age Journal, winter, 1995, review of Gay Soul, p. 110.

New York Times Book Review, September 6, 1987, p. 16.

Publishers Weekly, April 25, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 49; September 22, 1997, review of Gay Body, p. 58.

Reference and Research Book News, September, 1995, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 33.

Women's Review of Books, November, 1994, review of Long Road to Freedom, p. 5.

ONLINE

Gay Today,http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/ (November 25, 2002), Corrine Hicks, review of Long Road to Freedom, and Willis Bivins, review of Gay Body.

Stonewall Inn, http://www.stonewalline.com/ (November 25, 2002), review of Gay Body, and Mark Thompson, "Why I Wrote Gay Body. "

White Crane Journal,http://www.whitecranejournal.com/ (November 25, 2002), Bob Anderson, review of Gay Body.*