Out in the Archives
Gender and Sexuality Collections at Georgia State University

Radical Faeries

The Southeastern Conference of Lesbians and Gay Men served as a catalyst for the emergence of the Radical Faerie movement and later, Gay Spirit Visions.

From 1979, regular Faerie gatherings took place at Running Water Farm in North Carolina, as well as the Short Mountain Sanctuary in Liberty, Tennessee. The gatherings “nurtured a warm sharing among gay men in a beautiful setting [and] provided a vehicle for the discussion and exploration of alternative gay male identities.”

“One of the guys [at the Southeastern Conference of Lesbians and Gay Men] was Mikel Wilson, who owned Running Water. He looked like an Old Testament prophet. He had long hair and a bushy beard. The men were sitting there. We’d never intentionally sat down just to be a group of gay men together. We had a really beautiful, moving conversation, and at the end we all said we’d like to cotinue this. It had just never ocurred to us, I think, because of privilege, that a group of men needed a space too. Mikel invited us in June, around the solstice, to come up to Running Water. So the 1978 conference is kind of a catalyst for the Running Water Farm gathering.”
Franklin Abbott, December 14, 2015

Radical Faerie directories — A Radical Fairy’s Seedbed no.5, “Who Are the Gay People? and other essays”
Article from the Advocate — “In the Shadow of the Red Rock, the Fairies Convene: Desert Sanctuary’s Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies”
Brochure describing the audio cassettes recordings you can purchase from the Radical Fairies gatherings workshops
Radical Faerie poetry registration for a gathering registration flyer — “Stone Water Circle, A Call to Gay Brothers Everywhere” [Q108-048-13]
Running Water Farm, Directories, Poetry, Event Flyers — Notes describing the spiritual retreat and desired outcome for participants.
Radical Faerie Digest, summer 1996
Map to Running Water retreat
RFD magazine — “Folle Ferre, Where Real Queens Rule! I love EU Ferries”, Fall 2005 issue 123