‎Union Square Slam presents CAMONGHNE FELIX and Open Slam 3.2
2016-03-08 19:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | NY
Wha Wha WWWHHHAAAAATTT?! TOO MUCH!! ALL THE THINGS!! Come hear Camonghne Felix tell it like it is!! Sign up for our open mic or poetry slam to tell US how it is!! Join us for that free poetry workshop to figure out how it is!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups and Socializing
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Poetry Slam

Please note: the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays. We open at 6 PM for Union Square Slam.

About our Feature:
Camonghne Felix is a poet, political speechwriter and essayist. She is an MA Candidate in Arts Politics at NYU, a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee, and the 2013 recipient of the Cora Craig Award for Young Women. You can find her work in various spaces, including Youtube, and in publications like Apogee, Union Station, and Poetry Magazine. She is also the author of the chapbook Yolk, published via Penmanship Books in March 2015 and in May of that year was listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl From the Future You Should Know”
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-03-09 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We hold our meetings on the second Wednesday of every month from 8-10 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Canceled: Bi Book Club discusses The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
2016-03-10 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meeting on March 10th has been canceled. The next meeting is on Thursday, April 14th.
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On March 10, The Bi Book Club will finish discussing:
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
Shakespeare turned topsy turvy: a clever bisexual mashup between a sexy young Hamlet and characters from the sonnets. Very readable–no olde English. Note: The Sonnets, and Shakespeare, were bisexual.
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, give us your critique of the book: what worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had the chance to read the book, come anyway because we read passages aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

LGBT-V: A Reading from "Rabbit Ears: TV Poems"
2016-03-11 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join Editor Joel Allegretti and six contributors to Rabbit Ears: TV Poems for a poetic tribute to the small screen. Rabbit Ears is the first anthology of poetry about television. The Boston Globe called it “cleverly edited” and “a smart exploration of the many, many meanings of TV.”

LGBT-V will star Austin Alexis, Guillermo Filice Castro, Matthew Hittinger, Dean Kostos, Lynn McGee, and Elaine Sexton.

Rabbit Ears is in the Fales Collection at NYU and the archives of the University of Rochester, SUNY Buffalo, and Ohio State University.

To reserve a copy of Rabbit Ears please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
No one turned away for lack of funds.

Queer Collage Party
2016-03-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The Queer Collage Party is back! Friends of the Bureau Paul VanDeCarr and David Christie bring you the third Queer Collage Party at the Bureau on Saturday, March 12th, at 7 PM. We provide the glue sticks and paper, you provide the pictures. Everyone who attends should bring at least one magazine or book or a bunch of pictures that you’ll contribute to the group. Each person can make their own collage(s), or team up with others! You can keep your own collage(s), but don’t expect to walk away with your magazine intact! The spirit here is fun and sharing. Attend for part or all of the evening. You are encouraged but not required to bring a little snack to share — chips, tangerines, grapes, hummus, whatever. We’ll have music playing (not live, though). Beer, wine, and sparkling water will be available for cash donations.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Union Square Slam presents SAM RUSH and Open Slam 3.3
2016-03-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Hang on to the seat of your pants, because Sam Rush is about ready to rocketlaunch you into the heart of the universe!! Come tell us all about it on our open mic or poetry slam!! Get ready for launch at our free poetry workshop before the show!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-Ups and Socializing
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Poetry Slam
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays. We open at 6 PM for Union Square Slam.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

About our Feature:
Sam Rush was raised in South Florida, but now makes poems and songs in and around New Hampshire. Sam got to writing poems after developing progressive hearing loss as a teenager and noticing how many words each word could be. They represented the venue Slam Free or Die in the 2014 and 2015 National Poetry Slam and the 2014 and 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slams (WOWPS), preforming on finals stage at WOWPS 2015. Sam has work published or forthcoming in The Offing, Snacks, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and We Can Make Your Life Better (U of Hell Press) and currently works for a non-profit focused on empowering youth from cultures in conflict.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

Dying Words: The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz and How It Transformed The New York Times
2016-03-16 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Dying Words: The AIDS Reporting of Jeff Schmalz is a multi-media project consisting of a book and public radio documentary about the New York Times reporter who covered the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s as he was dying of the disease. It is also, in part, the story of The New York Times and, by extension, American journalism, during a much less tolerant time for LGBTQ journalists in major news organizations.
This presentation by Samuel Freedman and Kerry Donahue, collaborators on the book and radio documentary, will include a a Power Point of historical photographs and audio excerpts of Jeff talking about and reading from his most famous articles.
This independently produced and financed radio documentary was released on December 1, 2015 to honor World AIDS Day. It was distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange and aired on more than 140 public radio stations in the United States between November 16, 2015 and December 27, 2015. A lengthy excerpt of the hour-long documentary was also carried by NPR’s On The Media show, which is syndicated to more than 400 member stations. It is expected that even more stations will air the documentary for Pride Month in June 2016.
The book, published by CUNY Journalism Press, has hailed by such significant gay figures as Barney Frank, Andrew Sullivan, and Terrence McNally. It was excerpted in Poz and Columbia Journalism Review online.
As for the story of Dying Words:
Jeff Schmalz was a prodigy. Born in 1953, he grew up in a lower middle-class, single-parent home in suburban Philadelphia. In his first year at Columbia University, he started as a copyboy at the Times. In early 1973, he dropped out of Columbia to work full-time as a copy editor. He rose through the ranks of the Times quickly, from copy editor to deputy metropolitan editor, from general reporter to bureau chief in Albany and then Miami to deputy national editor, all by age 37. All the while, Jeff was open to peers, subordinates, and friends about his homosexuality, yet, he stayed closeted to newsroom management, especially A.M. (Abe) Rosenthal, the brilliant editor of the Times from 1977-1986, who was also known for his homophobia.
Jeff’s life changed on a Friday afternoon in late December 1990. He had a seizure at his desk in the newsroom. When he was diagnosed weeks later with AIDS, the prognosis was dire — his T cell count was just two and he had PML, a AIDS related brain infection often fatal within months. To everyone’s astonishment, Jeff responded well to AZT, the primary treatment available at the time.
Jeff returned to the Times in the fall of 1991 on a mission: to report and write a series of articles about the human toll of the AIDS epidemic. The self-described “consummate Timesman” broke away from the formula. He wrote deep and searching profiles of people living and, like himself, working with the disease — AIDS doctor Marcus Conant, basketball star Magic Johnson, Republican AIDS activist Mary Fischer, authors Randy Shilts and Harold Brodkey, and others. The Times standards all but forbade use of the first-person in its news columns, yet Jeff wrote a wrenching essay about having AIDS while covering the disease. In his final year, he despaired not only that AIDS remained uncured, but that it was falling off the national radar. His posthumous essay, “What Ever Happened to AIDS?,” appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 28, 1993, just weeks after his death.

Samuel G. Freedman is the author of seven non-fiction books prior to Dying Words, a columnist for the New York Times, and a professor for more than two decades at the Columbia Journalism School. (Earlier in Freedman’s career, he worked for Jeff Schmalz as a metro desk reporter for the Times.)

Kerry Donahue is a former executive producer at WNYC and is the current director of the radio program at Columbia Journalism School.

Ian Spencer Bell: Marrow
2016-03-17 20:00 - 21:30, 2016-03-18 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The LGBT Community Center host dancer, choreographer, and poet Ian Spencer Bell in a solo performance of Marrow, Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 18 at 8 p.m. at The Center, 208 West 13th Street, Room 101.
$15 suggested donation to support The Center’s youth programs and the Bureau. Tickets at gaycenter.org/marrow
Following the performance, please join Ian Spencer Bell for a reception in the Bureau, room 210.

In Marrow, Bell’s most recent work since Holler, Bell dances 10 poems about self, place, family, dancing, and what it was like growing up queer in rural Virginia. Several of the poems are retellings of folk stories and gossip Bell heard as a young person. The short, confessional narratives explore love, death, art, and home. Bell often speaks to himself as he dances. Other times, he addresses his parents or moves in silence. “I have tried to say the things I am most afraid to say,” Bell says. The program runs about 25 minutes.
In an essay for CultureRover.net about Bell’s 2015 Poetry Foundation performance of Holler, historian Michael J. Kramer wrote that Bell danced “both outside the poems looking in at them and within their poetic and musical infrastructures … he neither merely illustrated his words, nor only accompanied the poems with dance—but instead lingered in a space between the two.”
Bell has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Summer Stages Dance, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and Jacob’s Pillow, where he performed with his group on the Inside/Out Stage. He trained at North Carolina School of the Arts, School of American Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet, and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Bell studies in the MFA in poetry program at NYU.
For more information, please contact ianspencerbelldance@gmail.com.

Arab Queers Reject Pinkwashing
2016-03-19 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
As the events of the revolutionary uprisings across the Arabic world were unfolding, the (neo)liberal western media was concerned with the situation of gays in the Arabic world. Identities of Arab queers and the rhetoric of their struggles were (and have always been) imposed on them by the western media ultimately to undermine the revolutionary uprisings for freedom. Arab queers are portrayed by the media without the Arab queers themselves being the painter of this portrait. Arab queers are continuously done, undone and distorted by either western media or their societies in which they live. Either immigrants or living in their home countries, Arab queers are continuously sculpted by an external force, either tradition or religion or neocolonial rhetoric. Pinkwashing the revolutionary uprisings made the Arab queers part of the neocolonial plan to impose a cultural hegemony over the Arabic world.
Being queer and Arab ourselves, many questions cross our minds: “Do we have an identity that we made ourselves? Are we always identified by another outside entity? Can we resist identification by the west? How can we do this act of resistance? Do we have to import the neoliberal hegemonic culture to define our queerness? Isn’t this some kind of slavery to the west? Are Arab queers aware of the distortions they are exposed to? Are Arab queers seeking asylum in places other than their home countries aware of the rigid identification they are exposed to? Are Arab queers definable at all? How can we address ourselves then?”
In the midst of all these dilemmas, we are traumatized and displaced from ourselves. We internalize both the malaise of our societies that we were uprooted from and employ survival strategies to live and get by in the white supremacist society. Pinkwashing does not only become an external political strategy but it becomes a psychological internalized strategy that provides many of the lies we tell ourselves. We change our names from Mohammed to Moe, We try hard not to speak our “native” languages, We become racist towards blacks, We distance ourselves from our heritage, We follow the latest “white” fashion, we become a nothingness, we become ahistorical, we become zombies. All in the name of our ultimate infatuation with the white supremacist society.

Please join Ahmed El Hady, Abed Haddad, & Khalid for a discussion and presentation on the sources, effects, and current resistance against Pinkwashing.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

(Event photo: Graffiti in Ramallah reads “Queers passed through here.” Image courtesy of Al-Qaws)

Ahmed El Hady is a neuroscientist at Princeton university. He is a queer activist interested in queer knowledge production in the middle east and the premise of revolutionary movements. He has been one of the founding members of the Egyptian Women Union and has actively participated in the Egyptian uprising that unfolded & still unfolding in the past years. Moreover, he is one of the founders of the Egyptian Student Young Pugwash , an organization that advocates for safe use of technology. He has given several international talks on the issue of neuroscience and its implication on human security.

Abed Haddad is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the City College of New York, and from Jackson, Mississippi where he graduated from Millsaps College. Before that, he lived in the suburbs of Louisiana, having immigrated there from Amman, Jordan at age 14. Abed is an active volunteer at BGSQD and loves the strong gin and tonics at Julius’.

Khalid is a Chicago based Palestinian social artivist. They perform under monikers “Basita Khaled” and “Miss Leading”. They use these characters for story telling using music, gender stretching and visual/theatric performance art as mediums. Their works carry the narrative and commentary on North African/Middle Eastern queerness, queer Islamic spirituality, dismantling patriarchy reversing assimilation and reclamation of brownness. They can be found on Instagram @miss_leadin

Union Square Slam presents EBONI HOGAN and Open Slam 3.4
2016-03-22 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
WOOOOOOOO YOU KNOW WHAT? EBONI HOGAN, THAT’S WHAT!!! Come on out and get your life!!
6pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7pm: SIgn-ups for Open Mic and Slam
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:20pm: Slam

Please note: the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays. We open at 6 PM for the Union Square Slam.

208 W 13th St, Rm #210
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible // $5

About our Feature:
Eboni Hogan is a Brooklyn-based poet, playwright, screenwriter, actress and arts educator. She studied theater at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. In 2012, her play “Foreign Bodies” was produced by the Culture Project and Poetic Theater Productions as part of the Women Center Stage Festival at The Living Theater. Her most recent play “30,000 Teeth” had its first reading at the National Black Theatre of Harlem as a part of their I Am Soul reading series. As a performance poet, she has toured extensively, performing in over 65 U.S. cities, as well as internationally in Germany, Austria, India and Ghana. In 2010, she was crowned the Women of the World Poetry Slam champion. As an actress, she has appeared in the indie film “Moon & Sun” and the short film “Where You Go” which will be screened at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The pilot episode of her web series “The Pudding Club” is currently available online. Eboni is also the English Language Arts Curriculum Coordinator for Fresh Ed (Urban Arts Partnership). When she isn’t writing curriculum or making art, she’s trying to convince her 3.5 year old son to eat actual food.

About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
consist of up to 8 poet competitors
have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.

Beijing Comrades Launch Party
2016-03-23 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join The Feminist Press and translator Scott Myers to celebrate the first English translation of Beijing Comrades. Written pseudonymously and posted on the Internet in 1998, Beijing Comrades by Bei Tong is among Mainland China’s earliest and most influential contemporary gay novels. It tells the story of Chen Handong and Lan Yu, two men from very different social classes. Handong is a wealthy businessman in his late twenties, the spoiled offspring of elite Communist Party officials with a string of male and female lovers. Lan Yu is a university student from a working-class background who has just arrived in Beijing. Naïve but by no means dim, Lan Yu finds himself in Handong’s bed when he is alone in the capital and unable to make ends meet.

Narrated by Handong, the story chronicles the joys, hardships, and no small amount of sexual bliss the men share as they navigate the uncharted terrain of a same-sex relationship at the end of the twentieth century in the People’s Republic of China. Beijing Comrades is a groundbreaking work in what has been called tongzhi or gay/queer fiction from the PRC.

Red Hen Press Presents Poetry of the Unconventional
2016-03-24 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join Red Hen Press for a reading with poets who focus on writing about experiences often looked over by conventional writing and media. National Book Award recipient and queer writing pioneer Mark Doty is accompanied by Jason Schneiderman, whose work challenges not only hetero-normative ideas, but the forms in which they are understood. Salon writer Heather Aimee O’Neill will also be reading from her new selection of poetry that confronts news and facts with poetic deconstruction. These writers are joined by America Hart, whose work is both a hybrid and genre-bending challenge to identity and the past.

Photograph by Star Black
Mark Doty is the author of several collections of poetry, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which received the 2008 National Book Award.

Jason Schneiderman is Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly and Poetry Editor of Bellevue Literary Review. His poetry collection Primary Source (Red Hen Press, forthcoming April 2016) won the 2014 Benjamin Saltman award, and his poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry,The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn.

Heather Aimee O’Neill is the award-winning author of the poetry collection Memory Future (Gold Line Press, 2011), and co-author with Jessica Piazza of her new collection, Obliterations (Red Hen Press, forthcoming April 2016). She teaches creative writing at CUNY Hunter College and the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and two sons.

Born and raised in Colorado, America Hart lived in Boston and New York City before moving to London, where she received her PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is the author of the genre-bending poetry-prose novel into the silence: the fishing story (Red Hen Press, 2014). She directs the MA Creative Writing Program at London Metropolitan University and lives in London with her partner, Seraphim.

Piss Elegant
2016-03-25 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
STH Editions and the Bureau Present:
Piss Elegant
Art & Artifacts from Straight To Hell Conspirators
Luke Abby • Michael Alago • Brian Brennan (Latino Fan Club) • Matthew Burcaw • Walt Cessna • Christopher Clary • Wayne Coe • Thomas Dozol • Michael Economy • Greg Endries • Danny Fields • Ryan Foerester • Torrey Grobes • David Hurles (Old Reliable) • Erik Hanson • Charles Hovland • Steve LaFreniere • Patrick Lee • Yeni Mao • Bobby Miller • Slava Mogutin • Bob Nickas • Josh Olsen • Joe Ovelman • Christopher Schulz • Terry Smith • Daniel Trese • Anthony Viti • Jan Wandrag • Cornelius Washington • William Wood • Jimmy Wright • et autres
Curated by Billy Miller, editor of Straight To Hell.
Live Performance @ 7:00 PM
Piss Elegant will remain on view at the Bureau from Friday, March 25, through Sunday, May 29, 2016.

Event image: Limited edition print from unique a 1960s Polaroid by Danny Fields

Queers4Change! A 2-Day Sale @ the Bureau!
2016-03-26 13:00 - 19:00, 2016-03-27 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
Save the dates! The Bureau is having a big two-day sale on Saturday, March 26th, and Sunday, March 27th, during our regular store hours: 1 to 7 PM!
Deals and steals!

Union Square Slam presents STEVEN WILLIS and *NEW SH*T* Slam (Open Slam 3.5)
2016-03-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are beyond thrilled to welcome Steven Willis to the Union Square Slam stage!!! And don’t miss our very last New Shit slam of the season!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic and Feature
8:20pm: Poetry Slam
All Ages // $5
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

About our Feature:
Born and raised in Chicago Illinois, 23 year old Steven Willis uses his creative writing background to poetically reflect on the pop culture issues of our time. With art heavily influenced by urban life and religion, Steven mixes elements of hip hop and classic literature to help express his eclectic personal narrative. A recent graduate of Manhattanville College in Purchase, Willis began doing spoken word at the age of 15 as a participant of Louder Than A Bomb and has performed on stages with the likes Jasmine Mans and Joshua Bennett. Steven was Louder Than A Bomb University’s 2014 Individual Champion, is a contributing writer to the BreakBeat Poets Anthology and Manhattanville College’s Graffiti Magazine, a member of Nuyorican Poetry Team 2015, an Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and this past summer worked as assistant poetry writer for the film CoCo starring Jill Scott, Common, and Azelia Banks set to be released in Spring 2016.
About our Slam:
::NEW SHIT SLAMS::
New Shit is defined as:
– any piece of work that has not been heard on the USS mic.
– any work that has been on the USS mic that has been overhauled/edited (at least 50% new material)
We will take up to 8 poets in each New Shit Slam. The points you earn will be added to your total in the quarter (1,2 or 3) and help you in qualifying for that semifinal. Your participation in one New Shit slam, regardless of placement/score, meets your requirement for Final Stage Participation.
All slammers who are competing to represent Union Square Slam nationally in 2016 and beyond, at either IWPS, WOWPS, or as part of the Union Square Slam Nationals Team, MUST participate in BOTH a New Shit Slam and a Theme Slam at any point during the slam season. (9/14/15 – 4/28/15). You may compete in any or all of these slams, whether or not you intend to go out for the team, however, preference may be given to competitors that have qualified for Semis or Finals.

TELL 22: Nightlife
2016-03-31 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Nightlife is the theme of the twenty-second installment of TELL. Featuring Merrie Cherry, Sarah Jenny, Foxy Squire, and Gretchen Wylder.
$10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com

Photo by Santiago Felipe
Merrie Cherry reigns over the Brooklyn drag community with a sweet hand. She hosts, MCs, and plans events in the popping community and beyond. The creator of the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards she was set a new meaning of what is means to be a drag queen. With no plans to stop we can expect so much more from this cherry. Stay tuned!

Sarah Jenny is a queer, princess-identified, TMI-loving high femme and co-producer of Hey Queen!, a long running and award winning mixed queer party which highlighted emerging and established LGBTQ performers and artists. Her other nightlife credentials include but are not limited to: being crowned Miss Congeniality at Murray Hill’s Miss Lez Pageant (2009), Go Magazine’s 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards winner for Best MC, Miss August in the I Heart Brooklyn Girl Calendar (2008), $pread Magazine party producer (2007-2010), guest host (Muff Muff Give, Le Bingo with Murray Hill & Linda Simpson, Will Clark’s Porno Bingo, Psychic Spring), gogo dancer, burlesque performer, MC, event producer and fundraiser in at least two of the five boroughs and for a slew of non-profits and community based organizations.
Currently, Sarah Jenny manages a non-profit marketing program at an anonymous large non-profit and co-curates the annual Everybooty party at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, now entering it’s fifth season this June.
Sarah Jenny earned a B.A. from Hampshire College cultural studies and studio art and an M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she investigated the ways technology can be used to reduce HIV transmission and to improve the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS. In her free time she enjoys social justice projects, pre-war architecture, reading non-fiction and doting on her cats, Otto and Paloma. She resides in Ditmas Park.

After completing the burlesque class series by Deflouered Productions, Foxy Squire gathered her wits and talent to begin performing. Her first performance residence was Rivers of Honey Cabaret and she was a regular performer at Matthew Silver’s Circus of Dreams and Crimson Kitty’s Cataclysm. Her artistic skill has been shared both nationally and internationally in London (Bar Wotever), Connecticut, West Virginia, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts (WTF Queerlesque 2), North Carolina (Heavy Rebel Weekend), Georgia (DragonCon), Virginia, Florida, Washington DC (The Weirdo Show), Philadelphia (Fierce Festival 2015), and NYC (Hypergender Burlesque and Bushwig 2015). Foxy’s first headliner performance was in May 2013 at the DC Gurly Show (Washington, DC). In 2014, she was proud to be one of the original cast for NYC’s first all female drag show, Crimson Kitty presents FAUXVASION and DC’s Chocolate City Burlesque & Cabaret. She starred as Josephine Baker in J’ai Deux Amours and finished a 3-state tour as Lana Kane in An Archer Tribute show. Her motto is EMBRACE YOUR SPECTACLE.

Gretchen Wylder

Queering The Stage With Jack Shamblin
2016-04-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Jack Shamblin performs his book, Queering The Stage, via video-art, music and monologue. In his archive, we visit GLBT stories such as an eighteenth century transgendered female-to-male soldier, the Bowers v. Hardwick Supreme Court 1986 attempt to end sodomy laws that persecuted homosexuals, and the ACT-UP activist Tim Bailey, whose corpse was dumped on the White House lawn.
Produced in 90s Manhattan during Mayor Giuliani’s anti-art and nightlife agenda and the infamous Club Kid Murder, these performance-as-protest plays appeared at La MaMa, P.S. 122, Dixon Place, Mother, Jackie 60s; and the nightclub, Tunnel. Theatre artists, Kate Bornstein, Ellie Covan, and Theodora Skipitares were involved in original productions while working with playwright Caryl Churchill and director Anne Bogart influenced the storytelling.
In a front-page feature of The Jersey Journal, John Petrick writes about my play Sodomite! “Shamblin gets his message out in bold and unconventional ways. If it’s family entertainment you’re looking for, see The Lion King. If it’s cutting edge social commentary — often visually stunning — go downtown to KGB on East Fourth Street in Manhattan . . . ” “A fierce stage presences.”
Reception at 7PM, performance 7:30 PM – 8 PM, discussion 8 PM – 8:15 PM, and socializing till 9 PM.
$5 suggested donation to benefit the Bureau, or $15 donation includes admission plus autographed copy of book. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Photo of Jack Shamblin by Ian Miyawaki

Jack Shamblin writes:
In a front-page feature of The Jersey Journal, John Petrick writes about my play Sodomite! “Shamblin gets his message out in bold and unconventional ways. If it’s family entertainment you’re looking for, see The Lion King. If it’s cutting edge social commentary — often visually stunning — go downtown to KGB on East Fourth Street in Manhattan . . . ” “A fierce stage presences.”
I am honored to have worked with the best in theatre and media. This list includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jayne Atkinson, Alexis Arquette, Caryl Churchill, Anne Bogart, Godfrey Reggio, Kate Bornstein, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Basil Twist, J. Carlos Díaz, Theodora Skipitares, Cara Seymour, Jodie Melnick, Sara Rudner, Mark Wing-Davey, Paulo Henrique, Eva Mueller, Valda Setterfield, and Ellie Covan.
My New York venues are La MaMa, P.S. 122, Dixon Place, The Public, HERE, and the underground. In Los Angeles I presented at Human Resources and Planet Queer. In Europe, I have performed extensively in Portugal, as well as in Germany, England, and Canada. Notably, I headlined opposite of Penny Arcade for a Portuguese Queer performance festival called Loose Holes. Currently with filmmaker Marika Maiorova I broadcast a web series called Anarchist Mia on YouTube. In addition, I am developing a television pilot.

Union Square Slam presents SIAARA FREEMAN and Open Slam 3.6
2016-04-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We can’t hardly wait to welcome the unstoppable Siaara Freeman and our *very last* open slam of the season!! This is the last chance to qualify for semifinals and compete for a spot on the team representing Union Square Slam at Nationals this August! (see details below)
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups and Socialization
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:20pm: Poetry Slam
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.
About our Feature:
Siaara Freeman is a friendly neighborhood hope dealer who spends her spare time growing her afro so tall God mistakes it
for a microphone and speaks into her. She’s got an unusually large purse full of poems and clapback. Patron Saint of Trill & Lost Causes Who Save Themselves.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
•consist of up to 8 poet competitors
•have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
•will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
•be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

Do You Like Stories? Contributors to Jonathan Read
2016-04-08 19:00 | NY
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present an evening of Sibling Rivalry Press fiction!
Come join RAYMOND LUCZAK, the editor of Jonathan: A Queer Fiction Journal (published by Sibling Rivalry Press), and listen to EIGHT writers read from their work:
NORMAN BELANGER
COLLIN KELLEY
TOM LÉGER
PELHAM LEVY
JOHN LUGO-TREBBLE
CAMERON MITCHELL
KEN SHAKIN
JONATHAN VATNER

ASL interpreted!
Suggested donation: $10 to benefit The Center and the Bureau. Buy tickets in advance.

Room 301 of The LGBT Community Center

Everyone is invited to join us for a reception in the Bureau (room 210) following the reading! Beer, wine, and sparkling water will be available by donation! And, of course, copies of Jonathan and many other publications will be available for purchase.

Bureau at The Rainbow Book Fair--Hosting Queer Zines Panel
2016-04-09 12:00 - 18:00 | NY
Come visit the Bureau’s table at The Eighth Annual Rainbow Book Fair!
Fair hours: noon to 6 PM
The Bureau will host a panel discussion on Queer Zines as Social Media with Anne Alex Hays (Alex), Winter Mendelson (Posture), Billy Miller (Straight to Hell), & Paul Moreno (Knowsgay) from 3:15 to 4:30, moderated by Bureau volunteer Jason Haaf.

Anne Alex Hays is the author of Alex, a zine loosely themed around the lived experience of gender. S/he’s published fiction and essays in PANK, Ms. Magazine blog, the Brooklyn Rail, and others. S/he runs a zine distro called Sleeping Creatures, and works as a Librarian at CUNY.

Winter Mendelson is the Founding Editor of Posture, an arts and fashion magazine that is dedicated to the creative exploration of identity. After graduating with a B.A. in Art History in 2012,​ she moved to NYC to immerse herself in ​non binary ​and feminist discourse. From that passion Posture developed and officially launched in Fall 2013 as a platform to support creatives and further feminist and lgbtqi+allied visibility. When she is not writing or editing, she enjoys going on personal photo shoots around the city and taking in as much art as possible.

Billy Miller is an artist/curator/publisher/musician/bad-ass based in NYC. His writing has appeared in publications such as BUTT, Index, VICE, Little Joe, Revel, and others. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at galleries and cultural institutions such as PS1 MoMA, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Team Gallery, D’Amelio Terras Gallery, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and others, and he has curated numerous exhibitions and film screenings at venues such as The Mix Festival, The Fringe Festival and the White Cubicle Gallery London, Exile Gallery Berlin, Invisible Exports Gallery NYC, 80WSE, the Queer Biennial LA, and many others. And he is the publisher of several independent publications including the infamous chapbook series Straight To Hell, aka, The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts.

Paul Moreno, originally from Sparks, NV, is a Brooklyn based visual artist. He is the co-creater of the queer art zine Knowsgay; and has made a number of other art based zines. Paul has most recently been writing semi-fiction which he has been sharing through events organized by Paper Cuts. Paul also works as a prop-stylist and decorating consultant.

The Eighth Annual Rainbow Book Fair will take place at:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W. 59th Street (just west of 10th Avenue)
Saturday, April 09, 2016
12:00pm – 6:00pm

Once a year, approximately 1500 people get together in New York City to mingle, get to know each other, enrich, broaden, and even extend their lives through the amazing medium of LGBT books. The New York Rainbow Book Fair is America’s longest-running LGBT book fair, and the largest LGBT book event in the country. It has grown every year since its beginning in 2009. It brings together thoughtful, interesting people of all ages, from early teens to those in their 70s and 80s; from a spectrum of countries, ethnicities, gender identities, and viewpoints. It attracts readers and writers of course, but also publishers, editors, agents, and media attention – people who have never experienced queer culture, and others who have made it the focus of their lives. Rainbow Book Fair is open to the public, with book discounts and giveaways.

A Very Queer Disability Reading
2016-04-10 17:00 - 18:30 | NY
Come meet these wonderful writers from QDA: A QUEER DISABILITY ANTHOLOGY and hear them read from their work!
– Brenna Cyr
– Cyree Jarelle Johnson
– Liv Mammone
– Donna Minkowitz
The editor Raymond Luczak will be there as well!
Copies of QDA: A QUEER DISABILITY ANTHOLOGY are available for purchase at the Bureau.

The event will be ASL-interpreted. Both the Bureau and The Center are wheelchair-accessible.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Union Square Slam Monday Fundraising Event with Emily Rose and Ben Clark plus special guests
2016-04-11 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The National Poetry Slam is coming up and Union Square Slam plans to send its first team to Atlanta to be one of the great venues representing NYC. We are holding our first fundraising event on a MONDAY April 11 and we have quite a show planned for you.
We have Emily Rose and Ben Clark as our features. We have also included some spotlight features as well: Jeanann Verlee, Jayson Smith, Jani Rose, Timothy DuWhite
We also plan on having a very limited open mic in case you want to add to the poetry glorious atmosphere.
We also plan on actioning off what is called a “Pile o’ Poetry” which will be a pile of poems submitted by different poets to sharpen your poetry reading needs.
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. Doors open at 7 PM for this event.
Doors open at 7pm
Show starts at 7:30pm
$5 admission (all goes to sending a team to Atalanta)
Beer, wine and water will be there for donation as well.
Host: Gabriel Ramirez

Union Square Slam presents ROYA MARSH and SEMIFINALS #3
2016-04-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Roya Marsh is the poet/author of the chapbooks Not All of Me Shall Die, Pieces Vol. I & II and 26. She works as a teacher and youth mentor and has the bombest sneaker collection to date.
Roya was a finalist in the 2013 Poetry Idol, 2013 Inspired Word Slam Master Jam Champion, 2014 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and captain of the first all female slam team in the tristate area, representing Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She has competed in two Woman of the World Poetry Slams, placing 2nd in 2015 and 18th in 2016. She has been featured in the Village Voice, Huffington Post, Blavity, Button Poetry, Def Jam’s All Def Digital and at many venues and colleges around the country. Actually, just google her, she’s hella googleable.

Union Square Slam is a literary arts organization providing a space for poets to share their voices, develop their craft, and build a community celebrating poetry in all of its expressions. Based in New York City, U.S.S. produces a weekly reading series featuring contemporary poets with a focus on working artists and authors in the spoken word and slam tradition. Our features are primarily queer-identified and/or people of color and/or identify as disabled or alter-abled. Readings are followed by a PSi certified poetry slam. Union Square Slam hosts a weekly open mic and facilitates free workshops, encouraging poets to explore creatively.
In general, every show is preceded by a free poetry workshop by Sara Emily Kuntz. Participants are encouraged to bring a few copies of a work-in-progress to the workshop.
As always, our shows are $5, all ages and are wheelchair accessible.
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

Bi Book Club finishes discussing The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
2016-04-14 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On April 14, The Bi Book Club will finish discussing:
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
Shakespeare turned topsy turvy: a clever bisexual mashup between a sexy young Hamlet and characters from the sonnets. Very readable–no olde English. Note: The Sonnets, and Shakespeare, were bisexual.
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, give us your critique of the book: what worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had the chance to read the book, come anyway because we read passages aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

Fuck Everything
2016-04-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts (aka Straight To Hell chapbooks) & the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division present:
FUCK EVERYTHING
short films by STH contributors & comrades
FEATURING short films from/re: Steve LaFreniere (David Hurles — Old Reliable), Justin Spring (Sam Steward), Ryan Foerester, Kristian Kozul, Antonio DeSilva, Brian Brennan (Latino Fan Club), Randal Wilcox (Al Baltrop), & others to be announced
Programmed by Billy Miller

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Image on left: David Hurles (Old Reliable). Image on right: Sam Steward

BEARINGS: WORKS ABOUT BOUNDARIES, reading & book party
2016-04-16 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Bearings is an annual journal that publishes work about how individual people relate to their environments–internal, external, physical, imaginary. How do people define themselves in relation to these landscapes, and to the people in and outside of them?
Come to an evening of readings and musical performance by contributing writers and artists from issue no. 1!
Tess Brown-Lavoie
Isadora Reisner
Megan Stockton
Antonia Pinter
Olivia Durif
Alexandra Tatarsky

Timmy Straw

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Union Square Slam presents ERICH HAYGUN and the LAST CHANCE SLAM
2016-04-19 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Erich Haygun is a 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion representing The House Slam, the first poetry slam venue located in his hometown Boston, MA. He has performed his writing throughout North America & Europe, and has shared stages with Mary Lambert, Patricia Smith and Richard Blanco. Erich’s work is forthcoming in The Dead Animal Handbook (University of Hell Press, 2016) and has been honored by the Massachusetts State Senate and House of Representatives. He is proud to be Program Director of the youth publishing non-profit Books Of Hope, as well as a facilitator & speaker for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. He lives in a mansion made of trash with a shaggy little dog.

Union Square Slam is a literary arts organization providing a space for poets to share their voices, develop their craft, and build a community celebrating poetry in all of its expressions. Based in New York City, U.S.S. produces a weekly reading series featuring contemporary poets with a focus on working artists and authors in the spoken word and slam tradition. Our features are primarily queer-identified and/or people of color and/or identify as disabled or alter-abled. Readings are followed by a PSi certified poetry slam. Union Square Slam hosts a weekly open mic and facilitates free workshops, encouraging poets to explore creatively.
In general, every show is preceded by a free poetry workshop by Sara Emily Kuntz. Participants are encouraged to bring a few copies of a work-in-progress to the workshop.
As always, our shows are $5, all ages and are wheelchair accessible.
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists Reading
2016-04-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Publishing Triangle will hold their third annual Finalists Reading, featuring some of the nominees for the Publishing Triangle awards. This sterling batch of LGBT authors will read excerpts from their books, which represent the best in LGBT writing for 2015.

Participants include:

* Corrina Bain, author of Debridement; finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
* Marcia M. Gallo, author of “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy; finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
* Tanwi Nandini Islam, author of Bright Lines; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Rickey Laurentiis, author of Boy with Thorn; finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
* Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees; finalist for The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction
* Ioannis Pappos, author of Hotel Living; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, author of Blue Talk and Love; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Maggie Thrash, author of Honor Girl; finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
