[1] Born Paul Hustoft in San Diego, California, his father died when he was a child and he later adopted his stepfather's surname Reed after his mother remarried.
[2] He worked for Ten Speed Press in the 1980s, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of its Celestial Arts subsidiary.
[1] He also later published the novels Longing (1988) and Vertical Intercourse (2000), and the memoirs The Q Journal (1991), The Savage Garden (1994) and The Redwood Diary (2001).
[1] His final work, a compilation of his Max Evander writings titled Swollen, was published later the same year.
[1] Longing was the subject of an essay by Bill Brent in the 2010 book The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered.