BGSQD

Union Square Slam presents Justin Lamb
2016-07-05 19:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
This week, we welcome New Orleans-based national slam champ JUSTIN LAMB all the way to the stage!!
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Featured Poet: Justin Lamb
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
Justin Lamb is an educator, writer and 2013 National Poetry Slam champion with Team Slam New Orleans. A four-time member of the nationally acclaimed Team SNO (2011-14), Justin is a two-time Slam New Orleans Grand Champion and author of the live poetry album However It Turns Out Is Perfect and chapbook Everything Has A Place. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans.

Bureau Closed on Sundays in July and August
2016-07-03 | NY
For the months of July and August the Bureau will be closed on Sundays.
The Bureau will be open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 1 to 7 PM.

The Bureau is Closed for Independence Day Weekend!
2016-07-01 - 2016-07-03 | NY
The Bureau will be closed on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. We return to regular hours on Wednesday, July 6th.

Bloom: Ten Years of Queer Lit
2016-06-30 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
BLOOM is a publication of Arts in Bloom Project, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to queer artists, writers, and audiences. BLOOM was founded to support the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender writers and artists and to foster the appreciation of queer literature and creation. BLOOM has published 248 LGBT writers and visual artists to date in its 10 year run.

Celebrate the 10th issue of BLOOM with readings by NYC-area queer writers published in the current issue, as well as those who’ve published in past issues.

Reception at 7 PM

Reading at 7:30 PM

Featuring readings by:

Michael Broder

Max Freeman

Dean Kostos

Amanda Krupman

Tom Léger

Susan Ryan

Elaine Sexton

Frankie Thomas

Judy Yu
Art work for cover of Bloom 10 by Mira Gandy.

Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books, 2016) and This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in many journals including American Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, and of course BLOOM. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

Max Freeman is a poet and filmmaker living in Brooklyn. He holds an MA in English and American literature from Harvard University. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street and Poetry International. He also makes the web series The 3 Bits.

Dean Kostos is a poet. His poetry collections include This Is Not a Skyscraper (recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, selected by Mark Doty, published by Red Hen), Rivering, Last Supper of the Senses, The Sentence That Ends with a Comma, and Celestial Rust. His work has appeared in over 300 journals and his literary criticism has appeared on the Harvard University Press website and in Talisman. A multiple Pushcart-Prize nominee, and a finalist for the Gival Award, he won the Jot Speak Award (UK) for “Amadou Diallo’s Ghost Reminisces.” His poem “Subway Silk” was translated into a film and screened in Tribeca and at San Francisco’s IndieFest.

Amanda Krupman is a writer and (semi?) retired performer. Her prose has been published in BLOOM; A Clean, Well-Lighted Place; The Cleveland Review; xoJane; Time Out New York; and Punk Planet. Her literary zine PLUG was featured in the “From A to Zine” exhibition at Columbia College Chicago. She has performed on stages in Cleveland, Chicago, and D.C. She has performed in many NYC venues, with only a few left standing: RiFiFi (RIP), the Producer’s Club, Barrette (RIP), WOW Cafe, the Soho House, House of Yes, Kings County (RIP), Sugarland (RIP), Public Assembly, Coney Island Freak Show Museum, Sin Sin & the Leopard Lounge, and Element (RIP). She has an MFA in fiction from the New School.

Tom Léger is an essayist, dramatic writer, and publisher. He lives in New York City. https://www.tomleger.com

Susan Ryan was born in Ireland, raised in California and has lived for many years in downtown NYC. Her work has appeared in The New York Observer, The L Magazine and BLOOM. She is currently finishing a novel set in NYC’s Meatpacking District in the early ‘90s and another manuscript about surfing and love and leaving New York for Hawaii. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.

Elaine Sexton is a poet, critic, and educator. Her most recent collection of poetry is Prospect/Refuge,published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2015. She teaches poetry and text & image workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. www.elainesexton.org

Frankie Thomas is the author of “The Showrunner,” which received special mention in the 2013 Pushcart Prize Anthology, and “Equinox,” which was serialized on The Toast. Her fiction has also been published in H.O.W. Journal, BLOOM, and Volume 1 Brooklyn; her poetry has recently appeared on The Toast, and her essay “The Two Faces of Bisexual OKCupid” appeared last year on The Hairpin. She works as a writing tutor at the City College of New York.

Judy Yu writes stories on the 2 and 3 train from Brooklyn (home) to Harlem, where she works for the rights of court involved youth at the Juvenile Justice Project of the Correctional Association of New York. She has an MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She has taught writing workshops to LGBTQ youth; domestic violence survivors; and at after school programs in New York City. Judy was a featured reader at the performance showcase, WYSIWYG, at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City and performed with the multi-racial queer writing group Agent 409 in New York City. Her work has been published in Visible: A Femmethology, the chapbook Mamibaile, and issues of the Agent 409 zine.

Queering Sexual Violence Anthology Reading and Discussion
2016-06-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join us for a reading and discussion with some of the contributors for the anthology Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement.

Featuring readings by contributors Amita Swadhin, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Nitika Raj, and Jennifer Patterson.

About the Anthology:
Often pushed to the margins, queer, transgender and gender non-conforming survivors have been organizing in anti-violence work since the birth of the movement. Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement locates them at the center of the anti-violence movement and creates a space for their voices to be heard. Moving beyond dominant narratives and the traditional “violence against women” framework, the book is multi-gendered, multi-racial and multi-layered.

This collection disrupts the mainstream conversations about sexual violence and connects them to disability justice, sex worker rights, healing justice, racial justice, gender self-determination, queer & trans liberation and prison industrial complex abolition through reflections, personal narrative, and strategies for resistance and healing. The contributors to this book are a feral and wildly compassionate collection of writers, bartenders, professors, therapists, sex workers, healers, sex positive educators, organizers, musicians, bloggers, non-profit workers, filmmakers and rabble rousers. Where systems, institutions, families, communities and partners have failed them, this collection lifts them up, honors a multitude of lived experiences and shares the radical work that is being done outside mainstream anti-violence and the non-profit industrial complex.

More information here: https://queeringsexualviolence.com/

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian filmmaker, writer, international lecturer, and activist. An incest and rape survivor, Aishah is the producer, writer, and director of the Ford Foundation-funded, internationally acclaimed, award-winning film NO! The Rape Documentary. NO! explores the international atrocity of heterosexual rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans. Subtitled in Spanish, French, and Portuguese, NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. She credits her 14-year practice of Vipassana Meditation as one of the non-negotiable tools that support her work on gender-based violence issues. She is the 2015- 2016 Sterling A. Brown Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College. She is also 2016-2018 Just Beginnings Collaborative Fellow where she is developing #LoveWITHAccountability, her multimedia project, which will address incest and other forms of child sexual abuse. An associate editor of the online magazine The Feminist Wire, Aishah’s cultural work and activism have been documented extensively in a wide range of media outlets including The Root, Crisis, Forbes, Left of Black, In These Times, Ms., Alternet, ColorLines, The Philadelphia Weekly, National Public Radio (NPR), Pacifica Radio Network, and Black Entertainment Television (BET). You can follow her on twitter @Afrolez

Nitika Raj is a writer, dancer, healer and facilitator. She does social justice work for the same reason she prays – to seek truth and build peace. After working in anti-violence, racial justice, and economic justice movements for 12 years, she recently launched an independent practice -Moksh Creative Consulting. She also serves on the board of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. In 2015, Nitika co-produced, co-directed and performed in Yoni ki Raat (Night of Vagina), a theater production to raise awareness about issues of gender, sexuality, and violence in the South Asian community. Born in India and raised in Kuwait, she currently lives in Brooklyn with her wife.

Jennifer Patterson is a poet/writer, grief worker, creative and herbalist who uses words, threads and plants to explore queer survivorhood, the body and healing. She is the editor of the anthology Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Sexual Violence Movement (Magnus/ Riverdale Ave Books, 2016), facilitates somatic writing workshops and has had writing published in OCHO: A Journal of Queer Arts, the Outrider Review, HandJoband on The Feminist Wire.Jennifer is also finishing a graduate program at Goddard College focusing on trauma, queer communities, healing, craft, loss, pleasure, pain and creative non-fiction.

Union Square Slam presents HONEY SANAA
2016-06-28 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
This week, we welcome New Orleans-based national slam finalist Honey Sanaa!!
7:00pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
9:00pm: Featured Poet: Honey Sanaa
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
Honey Sanaa is a spoken word artist from New Orleans, Louisiana by way of Mississippi. She is an educator by day, who holds 3 higher education degrees, including a Master’s degree in secondary education. Honey is the co-founder of C.H.A.O.S.: Collective Hip-Hop, An Artistically Original Society, a campus-based arts organization founded to help poetry and art students at the University of Southern Mississippi learn and grow in their particular branch of the arts.
Honey has traveled from New York to Florida to California sharing her words with audiences as an individual and as a part of Team Slam New Orleans, affectionately known as Team SNO. Honey is entering her second year in slam and is already ranked 4th in the Women of the World Poetry Slam. She is the current Last Chance Slam Champion from Women of the World Poetry Slam 2016.
In 2012 she published her first collection of poems entitled Firefly Kisses, and recently released her second collection of poetry entitled Truth from the Roots. Honey has been published in The Fem Literary Magazine, Shine: For Harriet, as well as the Painted Bride Quarterly, and Son of Baldwin blog. Honey’s work focuses on the intersections of race, womanhood, coping with trauma, and body positivity in today’s society where all of these are undervalued and underrepresented.
For booking please contact Honey directly:
Web: www.HoneySanaa.com
Email: HoneySanaa@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HoneySanaa
Twitter: @HoneySanaa
Instagram: @HoneySanaa
SnapChat: @HoneySana

Photo by Mary Cae

Closed for Pride Sunday
2016-06-26 | NY
Happy Pride!!!

Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem: Independence Day on Fire Island - A Q&A with photographer Susan Kravitz
2016-06-25 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem: Independence Day on Fire Island celebrates Human Rights and Freedom of Expression
Mascara, Mirth & Mayhem is a collection of photographs taken by renowned photographer Susan Kravitz over the past thirty years at the annual LGBTQ event known as the Invasion of the Pines.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
The Invasion of the Pines occurs every July 4th and involves participants from the Fire Island communities of Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines. It began in 1976, when a member of the Cherry Grove community had been refused service in a Pines’ restaurant because he had been dressed in drag. In protest, a small group of Cherry Grove residents cross-dressed and took a water taxi to the Pines on Independence Day of that year, to stand up against this “height of insult” by “invading” their neighboring community. Four decades later, the Invasion has evolved into a uniquely raucous event that joyfully celebrates human rights and freedom of expression by thousands of people, straight and gay.
Kravitz’s photographs capture the rebelliousness, the high camp, and the joy of the Invasion. They are provocative, introspective, sad and funny, and tinged with sexual innuendo. Yet they also reflect another journey, one that gives insight into the LGBTQ movement itself. From the fearful, AIDS-ridden years of the 1980s and 1990s, to the joyous years of this decade when LGBTQ people are out and proud (and, if they choose, legally married), these Invasion photographs celebrate a day to be free, to be whoever you want to be, and to be gay.

“My photographs are as much about the times in which they were taken as they are about the people who populate them. Ultimately, they are about human rights and freedom of expression seen through the lens of the Invasion,” said Kravitz of her eighty-eight color and black and white photographs.

James Magruder reads from LOVE SLAVES OF HELEN HADLEY HALL
2016-06-24 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Playwright and fiction writer James Magruder (SUGARLESS, LET ME SEE IT) reads from his latest novel, LOVE SLAVES OF HELEN HADLEY HALL, a sexed-up Ivy League telenovela set at Yale in 1983.

James Magruder’s fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Subtropics, Bloom, The Normal School, Gargoyle, New Stories from the Midwest, and elsewhere. His début novel, Sugarless, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; his linked story collection, Let Me See It, was published by Northwestern University Press in 2014. His adaptations of works by Molière, Marivaux, Lesage, Labiche, Gozzi, Dickens, Hofmannsthal, and Giraudoux have been staged on and off-Broadway, across the country, and in Germany and Japan. He teaches dramaturgy at Swarthmore College and fiction at the University of Baltimore.

PERSONS OF INTEREST: SELF-TAUGHT VISIONARIES
2016-06-23 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Artist+ Members Raynes Birkbeck, Jerry the Marble Faun, and Joyce McDonald discuss their artwork in Visual AIDS‘ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST. PERSONS OF INTEREST: SELF-TAUGHT VISIONARIES brings together these artists to consider the imaginative potential of work by self-taught, visionary and outsider artists.
Prominently featured in the cult classic documentary Grey Gardens, Jerry the Marble Faun now carves majestic sculptures out of limestone, marble, and more; he first took up sculpting in his partner’s apartment stairwell in 1987.
The spirit of Joyce McDonald‘s artwork erupts from internal visions and the range of emotions she has experienced throughout her colorful life, as a minister, in recovery, and beyond.
Raynes Birkbeck‘s idiosyncratic drawings and sculpture blend the supernatural and science fiction with the vernacular and commonplace, resulting in work that he hopes shows “the beauty, the power, the love and the need of nature or a higher power. And even in the most mundane and commonplace things that “the Force” is always present.”
PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.
PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.
The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.
Pictured works from left:
Jerry the Marble Faun, Pairs (Big Edie and Little Edie), 2009, Limestone with moss, 13 1/2 x 19 x 6 1/2, Courtesy the artist and Jackie Klempay Gallery
Raynes Birkbeck, Untitled, 2012 Acrylic on paper
Joyce McDonald, “In Emotion”, 1999, Terra cotta, cloth & paint, 9x6x6

From Trauma to Activism
2016-06-22 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Please note: There are no more reserved seats available for this event.
To place your name on the stand-by list please email Steven Dansky at: SFDANSKY@COX.NET

Reserved seats must be claimed by 7:15. At 7:15, unclaimed seats will be made available to those on the stand-by list. A limited amount of standing room will also be made available to those on the stand-by list.

The program will begin at 7:30 at the latest.

The narratives in the film, From Trauma to Activism unpacks our history with stories from audacious pathfinders and academics, gay liberationists and transgender militants, dykes and lesbian separatists, feminists and radical fairies, queers and queens.
These trailblazers came out-of-the-closet: suffering familial estrangement and shunning; risking their livelihood; and chanced harm during hostile demonstrations. Determined to transform the world by living openly despite reprisals, they were committed to social change and making the planet a more just and safer place. They formulated a daring politics with insights about human existence; trans-and gender identity; and sexual orientation that has inspired generations of post-Stonewall Rebellion activists and change-agents; academics and historians; and artists, filmmakers, and writers.
Trauma and activism appear to be in contradistinction—the former defined by elusivity and concealment, being hidden and out-of-sight; and the latter by action, out-in-the-open, in public. However, the evolution of activism for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) people begins with, and is inseparable from, psychological reclamation and regeneration.
After the film, Dansky will discuss saving our history through the project OUTSpoken: Oral History from LGBTQ Pioneers, conducting interviews from New York City to Portland; Durham to Los Angeles; from the rural communities of Columbia County, New York, to San Francisco; and globally via Skype in Bangkok, Buenos Aires, and Melbourne.

Dansky asks attendees to please refrain from taking photographs or recording video at this event.

Steven F. Dansky has been an activist, writer, and photographer for more than 50 years. He was on the cusp of the modern LGBTQ movement after the Stonewall Rebellion as a member of the legendary Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and was a cofounder of the group the Effeminists that continues to generate controversy into another millennium.
Pre-Stonewall Rebellion at sixteen-years old he was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements; and as a community organizer on New York’s Lower Eastside. He published a bilingual, one-cent mimeographed newsletter, Peace/La Paz, and was a reporter for The New York Free Press and a contributor to the SoHo Weekly News.
Post-Stonewall Rebellion he was influential in the development of the modern gay liberation movement. As such, he is referenced in most books on the LGBT movement—from 1971 in The Gay Militants and Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation; to 2012 in Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution; and in 2015, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle. He was a member of Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1969 and was an effeminist and coeditor of Double-F: A Magazine of Effeminism.
During the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, from 1983 to 2001, he served as a volunteer with Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and Body Positive. As a hospital administrator and psychotherapist, he worked in the undeserved communities of New York City. He wrote the books, Now Dare Everything: Tales of HIV-Related Psychotherapy (1994) and Nobody’s Children: Orphans of the HIV Epidemic (1997).
As a frequent contributor to the Gay and Lesbian Review, he has written essays about everything from camp to Gore Vidal and Malcolm X to queer culture. His essay, “On Anger: The Months After the Stonewall Rebellion,” was anthologized in After Homosexual: The Legacies of Gay Liberation (2013) and “The Effeminist Moment,” in Smash the Church, Smash the State!: The Early Years of Gay Liberation (2009).
His photography has been in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Massachusetts, and Las Vegas and has been published in LensWork (2012), Art and Queer Culture (2013), and Protest!: Photographs of Social Justice in the 21st Century (2016).

Union Square Slam presents GOWRI K
2016-06-21 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
This week, we host the fantabulous DC-based poet/author/organizer extraordinaire, GOWRI K!!!
7:00pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
9:00pm: Featured Poet: Gowri K.
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our feature:
Gowri K. is a Tamil American poet, performing artist, teaching artist, and lawyer whose parents immigrated from Sri Lanka. Her advocacy has addressed animal welfare, the environment, the rights of prisoners and the criminally accused, and justice and accountability in post-war Sri Lanka. Gowri was a member of the 2010 DC Southern Fried Slam team and has performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Capital Fringe Festival, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and conferences in the U.S. and Canada. She serves as poetry coordinator at BloomBars, a poetry events host at Busboys and Poets, senior poetry editor at Jaggery (a South Asian inspired arts journal), and co-editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Gowri tweets on-the-spot haiku @gowricurry.

Lorraine Hansberry: Activist & Writer
2016-06-18 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Join us for an evening of talks on the life of Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun, with a Focus on Her Political Activism and the People Who Influenced Her
Q & A to follow
Guest Speakers:
Reginald Manning, Union Organizer
Karen Murphy, Actor & Writer
Leila Ortiz, Poet & Activist
James Wright, African American Scholar
Program:
James Wright: Biographical Overview of the Life of Lorraine Hansberry
Reginald Manning: Lorraine Hansberry’s Involvement With the Civil Rights Movement
Leila Ortiz: Lorraine Hansberry as a Feminist and Lesbian
Karen Murphy: Lorraine Hansberry’s Journalism

TELL 25: Success
2016-06-17 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.
Success is the theme of the twenty-fifth installment of TELL. Featuring Marcus Hicks, Roni Laytin, Larry Darnell Penn Whitfield, Ashley Young, and Judy Yu.

$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.

Marcus Hicks is a designer/performer living in Brooklyn NY. Originally from Ca. SDNBrooklyn.com

Roni Laytin is an actress, writer, mover, shaker, improviser and lover of story. She graduated from Pace University with a BFA in Acting and additionally pursues film production. Recent credits include “Mother May I?”, “Be Our Guest” feature film, “Mad Full of Dreams” and most proudly a laundry detergent B2B where her hands did all the talking. She’d like to thank Drae for this awesome opportunity and everyone else that is allowing others a glimpse into their world tonight. You can read about creative updates as well as contact her at ronilaytin.com.

Larry Darnell Penn Whitfield is a NYC based actor, writer, singer and aggressive mover. He is creator of Confessions of a Plussizetwink a one man cabaret series. Southern and sassy roots govern his everyday creativity. Live. Love. Create.

Ashley Young is a Queer feminist poet, author and teacher. Her work has been published in three anthologies, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press), All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color (University of Wisconsin Press) and Glitter and Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy (Portland Studio). She a contributor at Elixher magazine and has been featured in various online magazines, such as Autostraddle, Rvkvry Journal and more. She is a 2010 Voices of Our Nation’s Foundation Poetry Fellow and a 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation Nonfiction Fellow, to return summer of 2016. She has taught her biomythography workshop at the Fire and Ink Conference in 2015 and at the Northeast Queer and Trans Conference at NYU. She performs her work at various readings throughout the country and will be reading at her first solo show at Bluestockings Bookstore, Cafe and Activist Center in New York City. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and prose entitled Chronicles of Bipolar Living and is completing her first novel, a biomythography entitled The Liberation of the Black Unicorn. Ashley lives in New York City with her wife, four wild cats and her sweet service dog.

Judy Yu writes stories on the number 2 or 3 train from Brooklyn to Harlem, and advocates for LGBTQ youth in the youth justice system at the Juvenile Justice Project of the Correctional Association of NY. She has lived in New York for over 20 years and calls Brooklyn home. She has an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence and an MPH from Hunter.

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-06-16 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 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

When Your Child Is Gay: Reading, Book Signing, and Q & A with Authors Wesley C. Davidson and Jonathan Tobkes, M.D.
2016-06-15 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for a reading from When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need to Know, by Wesley C. Davidson and Jonathan L. Tobkes MD, with foreword by Cason Crane. Davidson and Tobkes will read from their book, followed by a Q&A.

About When Your Child Is Gay: What You Need to Know:
Coming out can be fraught with difficulty for both parents and child—but Wesley C. Davidson, a popular blogger on gay rights issues, and Dr. Jonathan Tobkes, a New York City-based psychiatrist, provide a road map so families can better navigate this rocky emotional terrain. Emphasizing communication and unconditional love, Davidson and Tobkes help parents untangle their own feelings, identify and overcome barriers to acceptance, encourage strong self-esteem in their child, handle negative or hostile reactions to their child’s sexual identity, and more. Filled with case studies and interviews, along with useful action plans and conversation starters, this is a positive, progressive guide to raising healthy, well-adjusted adults.

Wesley C. Davidson has written about parenting and health for such publications as Adoptive Families, Good Housekeeping, and Family Fun. The mother of a gay adult son, she has guest blogged for parenting websites on the topic of raising gay children, a subject she tackles in her own blog .https://straightparentgaykid.blogspot.com. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and The Authors Guild. Wesley lives in Vero Beach, Florida. Her web address is www.wesleycullendavidson.com.

Jonathan Tobkes, M.D. is a psychiatrist in Manhattan. His practice includes straight parents who have gay and lesbian children as well as gay children. He teaches and supervises psychiatry residents at The New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. Dr. Tobkes lives in New York City with his husband and their two children. His web address is www.jonathantobkesmd.com.

Union Square Slam presents: The Super Cute and Adorable Book Release of "Depression Cupcakes" By Thomas Fucaloro
2016-06-14 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is delighted to roll out our new summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a truly stellar featured artist.
This week will be the book release of Thomas Fucaloro‘s Depression Cupcakes by Yes, Poetry
7:00pm: Mingle and socialize
7:30pm: Open mic begins
8:00pm: Spotlight Features
8:45pm: Featured Poet: Thomas Fucaloro
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
We will also have some amazing poets for you as well:
Elisabet Velasguez
Aimee Herman
Patrick Roche
Roya Marsh
There will be depression cupcakes there to be eaten backed by the great poet
Trae Durica

About our Feature:
Thomas Fucaloro is an NYC poet. He has 2 books out by three rooms press, his latest one, “It Starts from the Belly and Blooms” has received rave reviews. He has graduated with an MFA at the New School for Creative Writing. He is a co-founding editor of Great Weather for Media and NYSAI press. He is a writing coordinator at the Harlem Children’s Zone. He just recently won a performance grant from the Staten Island Council of the Arts and the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs. His new chapbook “Mistakes Disguised as Stars” by tired hearts press was released in March and his next chapbook “Depression Cupcakes” will be released in June through “Yes, Poetry.”

Bertie Marshall reads From Sleepwalking to Sleepwalking
2016-06-11 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A reading of From Sleepwalking to Sleepwalking, a new novella by Bertie Marshall.

They are not what you expect, these spiralling invitations to regret…

camera flashes of surprise, sharp insights, luminous imagery. Little trips toward oblivion that are almost the opposite—laments, in fact, about our inability to forget— a stunning tribute to the indestructibility of the creative brain.

Bruce Benderson.

Part artist notebook, part meditation on grieving, From Sleepwalking to Sleepwalking is above all an apparitional soundtrack through memory and 21st century cityscapes that haunts like a dream through waking hours;

Travis Jeppesen.

Reading by Leslie Lawrence from her new book: The Death of Fred Astaire--and Other Essays From a Life Outside the Lines (SUNY Press)
2016-06-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Author Leslie Lawrence will read from her debut collection, The Death of Fred Astaire–and Other Essays from a Life Outside the Lines (SUNY Press).

As a child of the sixties, Leslie Lawrence knew she didn’t want to duplicate her parents lives, yet she never imagined she’d stray so far outside the lines of their and her own expectations. The Death of Fred Astaire opens with the story, both wrenching and funny, of how Lawrence says her goodbyes to the iconic images she’s held since her youth; she then proceeds to bear a child and raise him with her lesbian partner. Some essays in this debut collection reflect on legacies Lawrence inherited from her Jewish family and culture. In others, she searches gamely for a rich, authentic life a voice, a vocation, a community, even a god she can call her own.

Always a seeker, an adventurer resisting fear, Lawrence, a city girl, creates a summer home in the back woods of the Live Free or Die state. She attempts the flying trapeze and takes part in a cross-dressing workshop. Traveling alone to Morocco, she assists a veterinarian tending to an ailing donkey. Teaching in a vocational high school in Boston, she questions her methods and assumptions about race and class. With rare honesty, she confronts the complexities of motherhood, of caring for her ill partner, and of widowhood. In “Wonderlust,” the collection’s most ambitious piece, she explores the role of beauty and creativity in our spiritual lives, revealing how lifelong learning in dance, music, and the visual arts can make us all more alive even as we age.

Leslie Lawrence was raised in Queens and attended New York City’s public schools. A graduate of Oberlin College, Brown University, and Goddard College’s M.F.A. program (now Warren Wilson), Lawrence was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her work has been widely published in many journals, periodicals and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Witness, The Boston Globe, The Women’s Review of Books, Women on Women, Feeding the Hungry Heart, Lesbians Raising Sons et al. She is a world traveller and an active practitioner of contact improvisation.

Bi Book Club discusses Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown
2016-06-09 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 June 9, The Bi Book Club will discuss:
Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown
A landmark coming-of-age novel that launched the career of one of this country’s most distinctive voices, Rubyfruit Jungle remains a transformative work more than forty years after its original publication. In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes—and she refuses to apologize for loving them back. This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after.
We will be reading this “lesbian classic novel”, that is really quite bisexual in its telling, through a bisexual lense.
Come and join the discussion, even if you haven’t read the book. We take turns reading passages aloud from the book and discuss them-anyone can participate!
Please purchase your copy of Rubyfruit Jungle from the Bureau!

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

From Harlem to Broadway: A reading and conversation with two New York novelists
2016-06-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
At first glance, these two debut novels don’t seem to have much in common. Richard Taylor Pearson‘s The Role explores the comedy and tragedy that goes on behind the curtain of a contemporary Broadway play, while Joe Okonkwo‘s Jazz Moon presents a personal and artistic odyssey set against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance and glittering Jazz Age Paris. However, both books feature tantalizing drama with highly creative protagonists who face challenges in art, life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Join us for a lively reading and discussion.

Richard Taylor Pearson is a triple threat: author, actor, and attorney. He grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he appeared in many plays and musicals. After graduating from Rhodes College, Richard went on to obtain a law degree from Rutgers School of Law. While he works as an attorney by day, his nights and weekends are spent writing novels and performing in theatrical events all over New York City. Richard lives in Jersey City with his brilliant husband, Brian, and their amazing daughter, Natalie.

Joe Okonkwo is a Pushcart Prize nominee who has had stories published in a variety of print and online venues including Promethean, Penumbra Literary Magazine, Chelsea Station, Shotgun Honey, and Best Gay Stories 2015. In addition to his writing career, he has worked in theater as an actor, stage manager, director, playwright and youth theatre instructor. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from City College of New York. Jazz Moon is his debut novel.

Union Square Slam presents: TEXT ME BACK (Melissa Lozada-Oliva & Olivia Gatwood)
2016-06-07 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
This week, we feature the dynamic duo of Melissa Lozada-Oliva and Olivia Gatwood as TEXT ME BACK. Come see what these two have been cooking up as they prepare to launch their summer tour!!
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Featured Poet: TEXT ME BACK
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
HI R U THERE? Melissa Lozada-Oliva and Olivia Gatwood are full-time spoken word artists and educators based out of Boston and New York. Collectively, they are National Poetry Slam and Women of the World Poetry Slam finalists and have had their work featured in Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post and Upworthy. Melissa and Olivia are devoted members of the Crazy Girl Sisterhood, Crop Top Collectors and Mom-Jean Aficionados. They keep their read receipts off. Text them back???????

PopDaddy: Boy Meets Boy Meets Baby Reading and Q&A
2016-06-04 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Jeffrey Roach, author of PopDaddy: Boy Meets Boy Meets Baby, will be joined by his husband Ken Manford and their son Jackson as Jeffrey reads from his new memoir. PopDaddy is the true story of boy meets boy meets baby. Ken and Jeffrey’s lives take a sudden and unexpected turn when their best friend announces she’s pregnant. Ken wants a baby too. What follows is a hilarious, heartwarming and intensely personal story of two gay men in their thirties who decide to pursue an international adoption from Guatemala. The story is told from Jeffrey’s perspective and begins with the big announcement in January of 2001 and ends with their son’s first birthday party in October of 2002. In between the boys have to work hard to overcome bad luck, bad karma and Jeffrey’s fat childhood to get to their storybook ending.
PopDaddy has been well received by critics and readers and has drawn comparisons to Dan Savage, David Sedaris and Dan Bucatinsky. Jeffrey’s personal favorite comparison is one made by a reader who called him a gay Erma Bombeck. “The voice of the 50s housewife—that sounds about right,” he says.
To reserve copies of PopDaddy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com
Reception with the author to follow the reading. Beer, wine, and sparkling water available for purchase.

The Fourth Annual Bisexual Book Awards at Westbeth Artists Housing and Center for the Arts
2016-06-03 06:30 - 17:00 | NY
The Bi Writers Association presents A Multi-Arts Celebration of Bisexual Writing: The Fourth Annual Bisexual Book Awards at Westbeth Artists Housing and Center for the Arts

Readings by finalists of the Bisexual Book Awards, live music and a comic book art presentation capped off with the Bisexual Book Awards Ceremony and an after-party.
The Bureau will be will selling books!
Schedule: 6:30pm book signings, 7-10:30pm stage program, 10:30pm book signings, 11-1 after-party
Tickets: $15 in advance (seating is limited) or at the door
Program:
Host: Sheela Lambert, Director, Bi Writers Association
Author Readings-multiple genres:
Memoir: Kate Evans / Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit, and Travel
Biography: Emily Bingham / Irrepressible: The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham
Speculative Fiction (Fantasy): B.R. Sanders / Ariah
Romance: Francis Gideon / A Winter in Rome
Mystery: Michelle Moore & Reesa Herberth / Peripheral People
Erotic Fiction: Heidi Belleau & Sam Schooler / Dead Ringer
Romance: Megan Mulry / Bound with Honor
Teen/Young Adult: Erica Yang / Bad Idea
Fiction: Redfern Jon Barrett / Giddy Death of the Gays & Strange Demise of Straights
Non-fiction: Sheela Lambert / Bisexuality in Education, edited by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
Comic Book Art Presentation: Elizabeth Beier “Bisexual Trials & Errors”
Live Music: Michael David Gordon & “Honeybird” Monique Mizrahi
Bisexual Book Awards Ceremony: Presentation of Awards
After-party: Dinner & drinks at Malaparte Restaurant, 753 Washington St. @ Bethune St. (a few steps away from Westbeth) cash bar/food. No entrance fee.
More performer details
Directions: Option 1-Take A train to 14 St. Walk west to Washington Street. Turn L on Washington and walk down to Bethune. Make R on Bethune.
Option 2-Take #1 train to Christopher St../Sheridan Sq. Walk west on Christopher to Washington St. Make R on Washington and walk up to Bethune. Turn L on Bethune.
Need info on Advance tickets or other questions?
fuscialadybug (at) netzero (dot) com 917-583-1797

Persons of Interest
2016-06-02 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.
PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.
The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

The Bureau is a queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City that seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops.
Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums and publications – while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS.
Persons of Interest will remain on view at the Bureau through Sunday, September 4, 2016.
Event image: Raynes Birkbeck, Bad Billy, 2016, clay and mixed media

To Be Queer, Gifted and Black
2016-06-01 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Playwright Azure D. Osborne-Lee and Author and Poet Ashley Young present an evening of works-in-progress highlighting the experiences of Queer Black characters in fiction and non-fiction narratives. Join them in sharing the development of their work and celebrate their contributions to the queer community as writers of color.
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the readers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee is an award-winning writer and theatre maker from South of the Mason-Dixon Line. He earns a living working as an arts administrator, and lives in Brooklyn with one small cat named Cream Cheez and one flamboyant fish named Lucius.
Azure holds an M.A. in Advanced Theatre Practice from Royal Central School of Speech & Drama (2011), where he studied site-specific, experimental, and collaborative theatre. Azure also holds an M.A. in Women’s & Gender Studies (2008) and a B.A. in English & Spanish (2005) from The University of Texas at Austin.
Azure is an inaugural Field Leadership Fund Arts Manager Fellow (2015-2017) as well as a Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting (2015 & 2016). He is an alumnus of The Fire This Time Festival (2015), Rising Circle Theater Collective’s INKtank (2014), and EMERGENYC, the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program (2014).
Azure has held playwriting residences with Brooklyn Community Pride Center (2015), New Shoes Theatre (2011), and Freedom Train Productions (2010). He was recently awarded the 2015 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Award for his first full-length play “Mirrors,” and has been a finalist for the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and The I Am Soul Playwright’s Residency at National Black Theatre as well as a semifinalist for Ars Nova’s Play Group and New York Theatre Workshop’s Emerging Artists Fellowship.
Azure’s short play “The Sandbox” has been published in Glitter & Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy as well as the forthcoming anthology Emerge: 2015 Lambda Literary Fellows Anthology. Azure has written multiple articles for HowlRound.com on gender and theatre, and his short plays “Vector: Episode One” and “Vector: Episode Two” were produced at The Flea Theater as part of #serials@theflea this past December.
Azure has recently performed at BRIC, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), HERE Arts Center, and BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange. In the past year he has presented his writing at Fire & Ink IV: Witness, and has been invited to participate in panels at The Black Lavender Experience 2016 at Brown University and Bodies at Work: Performance, Labor, and ATHE, the upcoming Association for Theatre in Higher Education 2016 Conference.
Azure has a number of engagements this summer, including a reading at National Black Theatre on June 13th. You can keep up with Azure’s work at https://azureosbornelee.com. You can donate to Azure’s Lambda Literary Retreat Fundraiser at https://lambdaliterary.donorpages.com/WritersRetreat2016/AzureOsborneLee/.

Ashley Young is a Queer feminist poet, author and teacher. Her work has been published in three anthologies, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press), All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color (University of Wisconsin Press) and Glitter and Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy (Portland Studio). She a contributor at Elixher magazine and has been featured in various online magazines, such as Autostraddle, Rvkvry Journal and more. She is a 2010 Voices of Our Nation’s Foundation Poetry Fellow and a 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation Nonfiction Fellow, to return summer of 2016. She has taught her biomythography workshop at the Fire and Ink Conference in 2015 and at the Northeast Queer and Trans Conference at NYU. She performs her work at various readings throughout the country and will be reading at her first solo show at Bluestockings Bookstore, Cafe and Activist Center in New York City. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and prose entitled Chronicles of Bipolar Living and is completing her first novel, a biomythography entitled The Liberation of the Black Unicorn. Ashley lives in New York City with her wife, four wild cats and her sweet service dog.

Union Square Slam Presents: Reparations
2016-05-31 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
This week, come through to catch REPARATIONS in all their collective glory before they head out to compete at the Rustbelt Regional Slam in Columbus, Ohio June 3-4!!
6:00pm: Workshop w/ Taylor Steele
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Featured Poet: Reparations Collective
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
Workshop // $10

About our Feature:
Reparations is a poetic performance collective who will take over the world without the help of white folk. They don’t need you. Unless it’s monetary. Then, give it to them. These radical, black, queer poets perform and teach workshops around identity, activism, trauma, and healing. Reparations, comprised of Ashley August, Timothy DuWhite, Roya Marsh, and Taylor Steele, became a collective after winning the 2015 Northbeast Underground Tournament Slam.
Individually, they have performed at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Triad Broadway House, The Apollo, Cherry Lane Theatre, BAM, the United Nations, and many slam venues and universities across the nation. They have been published by such distinguished journals as Apogee Journal, Huffington Post, Blavity, The Body is Not an Apology, Blackberry: a magazine, The Rumpus, and many more. Their faces have been featured on Button Poetry, SlamFind, Def Jam, and “Orange is the New Black” — well, only one of them. They are ready to start a revolution. As a wise woman once said, “Pay me what you owe me!”

TELL 24: Open Mic
2016-05-28 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.
Queers! Bring Your favorite true five minute story about your self. Tell is having its first open mic slam!
7 PM Sign-up
7:30 PM Story-telling
$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.

Five $ Fukt
2016-05-27 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Max Steele, Slava Mogutin, Billy Miller, Nicholas Gorham, and Walt Cessna will be reading brief bits from Cessna’s book Fukt 2 Start With & Slava Mogutin’s book Food Chain. Nicholas Gorham will be surprising us with a special performance. Cessna will also be introducing his friend Scott Osman (aka DJ Scotto) as he previews key pieces from his Studio 4312 collection of NASA swoosh shirts & hoodys, and yes there will be a couple of samples for purchase.
Very limited copies of FUKT for $5 will be available as well as a selection of random B&W limited edition 5 X 7 prints from Cessna’s WOLFPACK! (2012) photo book for $5 each. Signed & #’d. It will definitely be a chill evening. 4312 collection of NASA’s exclusive model, muse and extremely correct blue haired young man Scott Osman will be our special guest. Cessna has been collaborating with Scott Osman on images for NASA that will be running in Vaczine Magazine #3 and he’s excited to share the results. Friday May 27th 7-9 PM @ the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division/ Extremely casual. Come correct.
Photo credit: Stanley Stellar
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

CAPSID : Book Launch and Reading
2016-05-26 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join us for the book launch and party for Capsid : A Love Song by Joseph Osmundson.

Published in April by Indolent Books, Capsid is a hybrid essay that uses personal narrative and lyrical science writing to confront contemporary realities of living with HIV regardless of HIV status. After 30 years, HIV has fundamentally shifted how we understand bodies and health, sex and sexuality, activism and art. With pre- and post-diagnosis anti-retroviral therapy continuing to change the shape HIV infections, we badly need new HIV narratives that confront and explain our contemporary interactions with the virus.

Osmundson will be joined by Jennie Gruber and Darnell L. Moore in readings that will deal with bodies and health and sex and joy. Indolent Books founder Michael Broder will introduce the chapbook.

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

Darnell L. Moore is a Senior Correspondent at MicNews, Co-Managing/Editor at The Feminist Wire and writer-in-residence at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University. Darnell’s advocacy centers on marginal identity, youth development and other social justice issues in the U.S. and abroad. A prolific writer, Darnell has been published in various media outlets including MSNBC, The Guardian, Huffington Post, EBONY, The Advocate, OUT Magazine, Gawker, Truth Out, VICE, Guernica, Mondoweiss, Thought Catalog, Good Men Project and others, as well as numerous academic journals including QED: A Journal in GLBTQ World Making, Women Studies Quarterly, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media & Technology, Transforming Anthropology, Black Theology: An International Journal, and Harvard Journal of African American Policy, among others.

Jennie Gruber is a writer, educator, media-maker, queer punk, and true karaoke believer. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence. Her writing has appeared on Vice, Helix Queer Performance Network, Fleshbot, and Gaga Stigmata, in The Believer, AORTA, and Whore! magazines, and in several Cleis Press anthologies. Her workshops and readings have been featured at a variety of venues, including Red Umbrella Diaries, Perverts Put Out, Lesbian Sex Mafia, and the Feminist Porn Conference. Born in Northern California, Gruber now lives in Manhattan with a very sweet bear. Her books include Love Not Given Lightly and a recent how-to guide to sexting aptly titled Sexting.

Joseph Osmundson is a writer and scientist from rural Washington State. He is an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow in Systems Biology at NYU. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The LA Review of Books, Gawker, The Rumpus, Salon, and The Feminist Wire, where he is an Associate Editor.
