The fire in the Moonlight: A Radical Faerie Reader: A 30th Anniversary Celebration

by Mark Thompson (Editor), Don Kilhefner, Richard Neely

The most valuable possession a people have is their story...their history. Many years in the making, with over fifty contributors from around the world, Fire in the Moonlight is the first anthology of its kind. Beginning with Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter in the nineteenth century and moving through the liberation movements of the late twentieth, Fire in the Moonlight speculates far into the twenty-first. It offers a timely compendium of culture wisdom, provocative wit and challenging sensuality. This collection gives witness to a groundbreaking movement that painstakingly emerged from the Gay Liberation era. Rooted in the history of radical visionaries, this little known, essential community informs the modern world with new meaning, offering fresh definitions of faith, identity, purpose and gender. Fire in the Moonlight is a series of personal reflections on who the Radical Faeries are, where they've been and where they are going: Radical Faeries in their own words. It is about how a movement has changed lives--and how Radical Faeries contribute to healing a fractured Earth.

Genres: History, Queer

312 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Mark Thompson is an American writer, editor and activist. His work centers around gay issues, particularly spirituality.

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of history and short essays, almost all ecstatic and poetic, about time spent with the Faeries. I love the inclusion of less than positive accounts of the experience as well. The movement is a way to find the spirituality of gay living. Do we all end up owning surburban homes, getting married, and adopting children? Is this the other path? Read this book. It may transform you.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty informative collection of personal essays and overviews of the Radical Faery movement that was just one twentieth century queer response to cultural oppression--the ideas are dated and may seem limited to modern gay men, but the infusion of spirituality and environmentalism may be interesting for some. Worth the read for their veneration of Walt Whitman and their take on the 'calamus' poems.