Mason Funk read excerpts from his new book, “The Book of Pride,” in Bath’s Patten Free Library Thursday evening. (Kathleen O’Brien / The Times Record)
BATH — Pride month ended on July 1, but for some, the celebration of the LGBTQ community continued in Bath’s Patten Free Library Thursday evening as author Mason Funk read excerpts from his new book, “The Book of Pride.”
The book features 75 stories about trailblazers in the LQBTQ community. Funk traveled to 26 states to interview individuals who, in their own ways, had an impact on the LGBTQ issues from the 1960s through today.
“There are so many sub-communities and sub-sub-sub-communities and different sub-plots to this incredible story of the LGBTQ’s emergence and evolution as a community,” said Funk.
Funk joked he practices “reverse ageism” as he tends to interview people in their 60s and older.
“These people are carrying all this wisdom and experience and practical knowledge of how movements succeed, fail, and overcome setbacks, but they’re mortal and they’re not going to be around forever,” Funk said.
The book is an extension of the work he does with Outwords, a nonprofit that documents and archives the stories of pioneers in the history of LGBTQ advocacy across the United States, of which he is the founder and executive director.
The organization has already interviewed hundreds of subjects, but Funk doesn’t think he’ll stop interviewing people anytime soon. “I hope there will never be an end. … I hope we will always be capturing our stories,” he said. “Finding people whose stories have long been buried and bring them to light has been so gratifying.”
When asked who he wrote “The Book of Pride” for, Funk recounted an in interaction with someone who attended a promotion of the book. After the event ended, a cameraman asked him to sign a copy for his daughter who had recently come out and was living in Oklahoma. It was then he realized, “if this book, sent to a young woman in Oklahoma, can give her a sense of belonging to something big, historic, broad, and diverse and if she can find her place through this book within this community, then that alone is worth all the work.”
Funk previously directed and produced award-winning non-fiction films for networks including National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and Fox Sports. He lived in Portland for four years in the 1980s and now lives in Los Angeles with his husband.
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