About J.T. Thompson

I grew up exploring the Pacific Northwest and later attended the University of Oregon. I graduated from U.S. Army combat medic training on September 11, 2001—the same morning the Twin Towers fell. After my service, I moved to Miami, where I tended bar, built a cleaning business, and learned that sometimes the most meaningful connections happen in the most unexpected places.

Music and writing have always been my anchors. I've sung with gay men's choruses in five cities across the country, finding community and voice in spaces where both were freely given. I write because silence kills—whether it's the silence around addiction, the silence forced on LGBTQ+ people, or the silence that grief demands before we're ready to speak.

My work explores love in its most complicated forms: messy, imperfect, and sometimes fatal. I've lost my brother to an overdose. My uncle. Partners I loved deeply. Each loss taught me something about how systems fail the people who need them most, and how love—even when it can't save someone—still matters.

First, Do No Harm is my sixth book and second memoir. My previous works include My Heart's Tattoo, a contemporary fiction/memoir hybrid exploring love, loss, and clairvoyance; Guardians of Lumina, a superhero trilogy following two men who transcend mortality through love and extraordinary abilities; The Cajun Curse, a Southern Gothic feminist horror examining systemic failures for domestic violence survivors; The Resonants, a science fiction thriller about corporate surveillance and the weaponization of human consciousness; and Hard to Believe, a contemporary romance and grief memoir about sudden loss and carrying love forward (coming soon).

I write to honor the people I've lost, to advocate for those still fighting, and to demand better from systems that criminalize care and punish families for loving "the wrong way." Through my work, I hope to create space for honest conversations about addiction, mental health, grief, and what it means to survive loving someone the world decided wasn't worth saving.

I live in the Pacific Northwest with my dog, Hunny. My family, especially my little sisters and my grandma, remains my biggest support and source of strength.

Note: In my memoirs, names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved and to prevent legal complications.