In 2016, I enrolled as an MFA student in the journalism school at the University of Georgia. In our interview, Padgett reflects on capturing the optimism of the era before the AIDS epidemic, his writing process, how queer activism has evolved, drag moments in post-Katrina New Orleans, and the future of the gay bar.Ĭan you tell us about the book’s origins and the moment you knew The Sweet Gum Head had a larger story to tell? How far into your research did you realize this was a book-length project? “That clarified greatly what truly mattered in the story.” “I became a guardian of many people’s lives,” he says when discussing how he approached telling other people’s stories. Through two main figures – John Greenwell and his drag queen persona Rachel Wells, and troubled gay activist Bill Smith – along with host of supporting characters, he weaves together a full narrative about the 1970s queer urban experience in the South. Padgett chronicles a decade of Atlanta’s gay community evolution (and revolution), anchoring the story in Cheshire Bridge Road’s once-famous performance venue, the Sweet Gum Head.
In the preface to A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drags, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution, author Martin Padgett writes, “Relatively few stories of the queer revolution have been recorded … History is a bridge made of sand.”