Set among Harding’s hopeful intentions, the journalist-turned-author has chosen to share anecdotes of growing up in the shadows of stereotypes, the pressures of gay culture, and his evolving sense of self. Gay Man Talking journeys through chapters dedicated to parents, friends and more.
Now, after the success of his debut book, Harding is taking some time to reflect on how Gay Man Talking has fared and how far he’s come. “Do you know what, it’s been such a whirlwind! I’m sort of used to a bit of buzz and working non-stop, but [Gay Man Talking] has been so well received”, he shares. Plenty of biographical books cycle through trauma, but Harding is looking to do something different; he wants to unite a community.
As Harding puts it, “the amazing people that have reached out and actually read it and fed back and shared their stories or how it’s helped or changed their conversations,” he shares. “It’s been so good – I couldn’t actually have hoped for a better response.”
With Harding’s book in mind, we lined up a conversation with the author to chat about Gay Man Talking and how openness can redefine relationships.
What has it been like to switch from a career in broadcast journalism to life as an author?
That’s a really interesting question. As a journalist, you put so much into facts and you’re often reporting on subjects or news about other people. But, to flip that and then do a whole book which takes a lot from my personal experience, has been a completely different experience. I don’t think I was ever fully prepared for how much of myself is now out there.
A lot of people have said that they feel like they’ve read my diary and I think that’s a really great way of describing it. As a journalist, a lot of the time you’re reporting an angle and trying to give a fair representation and a lot of my book shares that, but there’s a lot of intimate details and personal stuff that are now for the world to see.
A lot of this book centres on big questions. How do you feel since having written this book?
The whole process was cathartic. It was very much a journey that I went on. I never knew the book that I created would be the book that sort of has come out. In my head, I had how these conversations would go and how I would write about them but that changed with each discussion. Each one shared something new. I never knew how my parents had felt, how my sister had felt, or my friends. I thought I had an idea but it moved me, changed me and made me more accepting of who I am. Since being published, it has allowed me to facilitate far more conversations with different people in my life and that is because I’ve opened the narrative to have these discussions.
What was the moment that inspired the direction of Gay Man Talking?
I’m very well accepted by my family, and friends so opening up that box and sort of talking about it again can have negative outcomes, so I was a little bit nervous. I did a feature for Cosmopolitan around the stigma of being the “gay best friend” and it brought back so many memories from my childhood, because I absolutely hated the phrase “gay best friend”. It can be quite internally toxic for a person and I got chatting to a publisher. There are so many conversations that I feel that we don’t have because we’re scared of reopening wounds or not understanding and that sparked the book.