He is a professor emeritus in the Department of English at Acadia University in Canada.
[1] Thompson completed his Ph.D. in 1969 at the University of Alberta, with the dissertation Sir Gawain and heroic tradition: a study of the influence of changing heroic ideals upon the reputation of Gawain in the medieval literature of France and Britain.
[2] He was Scholar Guest of Honor at the 20th Annual Mythopoeic Conference in Vancouver, 1989.
[3] Thompson was brought on by Chaosium in 1997 as an editor to select and package their Pendragon fiction line.
[4]: 356 However, Chaosium printed only two books before they lost the rights to the line, which Green Knight Publishing subsequently picked up.