BGSQD

Closed on Sundays in July & August
2022-07-31, 2022-08-07, 2022-08-14, 2022-08-21, 2022-08-28, 2022-09-04 | NY

Harsh Cravings Reading (in person & live-streaming)
2022-08-04 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Author Jason Haaf reads from his debut novel, Harsh Cravings by Polari Press. Harsh Cravings is a diary style memoir influenced by Mary MacLane’s I Await the Devil’s Coming. Written over the course of 90 days, it is a reflection of what it is to navigate a queer life, marriage and memories in New York City in 2020.

Copies of Haaf’s Harsh Cravings ($15) are currently available for purchase at the Bureau and will be available at the event. Or purchase on the Bureau’s online store (click link above).
To reserve a copy, please email us at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books by us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Jason Haaf is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. His works have appeared in “Hello Mr.” magazine, “Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics & Poetry” and “The Trapartisan Review.” He is the editor and contributor of “Bent Book: a queerish anthology.”

You Can't Escape Lithuania (2016) screening + Q&A with Romas Zabarauskas (in person)
2022-08-11 19:00 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a screening of a queer road movie You Can’t Escape Lithuania (2016, 80 min.) + Q&A with the director Romas Zabarauskas!
The screening will take place in person, but we will live-stream the Q&A on the Bureau’s YouTube channel at approximately 8:30 PM EDT.
To stream the film You Can’t Escape Lithuania view the options here.
Plot: After his star actor, Indre, murders her mother, a wealthy and egocentric filmmaker Romas decides to help her escape Lithuania. Romas’ Mexican boyfriend Carlos reluctantly joins the trip. On the road, Romas starts shooting an improvised experimental film, provoking Indre and Carlos for his art and personal amusement.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/YXKWJMitrks
Scholar Clinton Glenn*: “the film’s primary focus is less about depicting accurate and positive representations of LGBT characters and more about the potential for a queer critique of narrative, be it cinematic or nationalist. … Zabarauskas’ films represent a potential origin point for LGBT representation in Lithuanian cinema, and as such, remain fascinatingly outside the binary of affirmative versus negative representation, and can perhaps be seen as a Lithuanian take on New Queer Cinema”.
Filmmaker, Anthology Film Archives Co-Founder Jonas Mekas**: “You’re conscious why this film is being made; it refers to itself, it constantly reminds you that there is a reason. … it’s Brechtian, self-referential … and that is why I think it succeeds … politically and cinematically”.
*2020, “We are the new Lithuania” Deconstructing Queerness and Nationalism in Romas Zabarauskas’ You Can’t Escape Lithuania (Nuo Lietuvos nepabėgsi) and Porno Melodrama, Lambda Nordica, 25(3-4)
**2016, at the Bushwick Film Festival premiere
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Ish brown’s “Clique” Pilot Live Performance Fundraiser
2022-08-12 18:30 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
$10 Tickets to join in person or online (tickets required)
All funds go towards the production of the pilot episode of “Clique”

IN PERSON:
To purchase a ticket to attend the live performance in person at the Bureau click here.
IN PERSON AUDIENCE LIMITED TO 35
Any remaining tickets will be available at the door

ON ZOOM:
To purchase a ticket to watch the livestream on Zoom please click here.
Once you have purchased a ticket on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have purchased a ticket.

DOORS OPEN AT 5:30pm
SHOWTIME AT 6:30pm
Q&A at 8:30pm

My name is Ish Brown, a young driven and aspiring Producer/Director from Harlem USA. I’m raising funds to shoot my pilot for an original scripted LGBTQ+ show. “Clique” is based around five friends all from the diaspora living in New York City, facing challenges & triumphs in their lives with subjects around careers, friendships, love, & society. We are doing this live performance of the pilot episode to help raise the funds for us to officially shoot the pilot episode. So come out and witness an exclusive performance with these amazing talented actors and actresses!
Cast:
Ish Brown (@iishonnishbrown) as Romeo Christian
Neicy Carter (@neicysounbothered) as Alexis Carter
Mikella Matthias (@keli.b) as Monica Dupree
Tyshawn Judd (@Mr_Tyboogs) as Sebastian Morretto
Erik Dawson (@Meeterik) as Terrell James
Tokyo Lei (@_tokyolei101) as Marcus Porter
Samaj McDonald (@wheres_maji) as Jay Combs
Keith G Tolbert III (@K_gq_t36) as Lamont Irving
Joshua Jenkins (@j.andrew32) as Jaquan Smith
Michael Katz (@Michaelkatzofficial) as John Carpenter
Shai Pratt (@Shaiboogie_) as Kwan King
John-Deric Mitchell (@johndericmitchell) as Michael Coooper
Julianne Lorndale (@julianneisfunny) as Amanda Reed-Bangel
Jay Huncho (_popsmurff) as ZaMeek aka Meek
Krystal Norman (@__krysssss) as Giselle Jones
Kira Janine Bennett (@kira.Janineb) as Milan Deveroé
Linda Collins (@lindacollins.nyc) as Katherine Reed-Bangel
Tia Armani (@itsjsttia) as Robyn Davis
Featuring a brief introduction by Damien Alan Lopez of Garden State Equality.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Sebastian J. Plata in Conversation with Lev A.C. Rosen (in person & live-streaming)
2022-08-31 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Author Lev AC Rosen will be in conversation with Sebastian J. Plata, whose recently-released first adult thriller, Seeing Strangers, was named one of LGTBTQ Reads’ and CrimeReads’ Most Anticipated Novels of 2022. Seeing Strangers is a stylish novel of obsession and social satire set in a world where sex is just a swipe away.
Life is going well for Greg Kelly. He’s married to the handsome and kind Cristian, a Spanish-born artist who is also a talented cook. Greg’s work as a translator for an IT startup allows them to live comfortably in a stylish Bushwick two bedroom and enjoy just about all NYC has to offer—including sleeping with other men, since Greg and Cristian’s marriage has been open for the past few years. This arrangement has been particularly appealing to Greg and his exceptional sexual appetite. Now approaching their mid-thirties, fatherhood calls and they enlist a friend to act as surrogate.
In order to focus on building a family, Greg and Cristian decide to close up the marriage when the baby arrives. Greg is going to miss his hookups, but at least he has the summer for one last hurrah. He methodically plans his hookups via Grindr and Tinder, carefully coordinates train routes for quick lunchtime hookups, and scouts potential candidates anywhere, anytime, like an old time Hollywood casting director.
As their baby’s due date draws closer, anxiety sets in over Greg’s impending parental responsibilities, the loss of his sexual freedom, and even his marriage to Cristian. But before he can sort out his feelings, a spurned hook-up reappears—Russell, an arrogant tv producer, who had wanted a relationship with Greg. And the problem is, Russell just won’t go away, infiltrating himself into Greg’s life in the worst ways possible, threatening his marriage and sanity. Greg is left asking, what does it mean to find happiness but still crave more?

To reserve a copy of Seeing Strangers (Agora Books, 2022, hardcover, $26.99) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.
Sebastian J. Plata was born in Poland, grew up in Chicago, and spent most of his twenties in Tokyo. In addition to writing, he also works in the subtitle translation industry. He is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Seeing Strangers is his first thriller. Find him online @sebastianjplata.
Lev Rosen writes books for people of all ages, most recently Camp, which was a best book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show, amongst others and is a Lambda finalist, an ALA Rainbow List Top Ten and is being adapted into a film directed by and starring Billy Porter. His next book, Lavender House, will be released fall of 2022. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com and @LevACRosen

History and Present of Trans Survival: an Intergenerational Community Town Hall, Presented by Pinko Magazine (in person & live-streaming)
2022-09-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Pinko Magazine presents an intergenerational community town hall on the history and present of trans survival.
The current anti-trans political climate has left many people feeling apocalyptic. One of the aims of the anti-trans/queer political movement is to destroy intergenerational spaces for queer community. But our community does exist, and it holds wisdom about what we have seen before. This community town hall will bring together discussants from different generations to share what we have seen in the past, what have we done to oppose it, what has worked, what is scaring us, what are we seeing for the first time, and what can be done.
Lou Cornum, a Pinko Magazine editor, will moderate a panel discussion followed by a Q&A.
Panelists:
Cecilia Gentili, Kiara St. James, Nsambu Za Suekama, & Nikki Easterday
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please bring proof of vaccination and a photo id!
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.
Panelists’ bios:
Cecilia Gentili is an advocate, organizer, and storyteller working at the intersections of sex work, immigrant rights, incarceration issues, and trans liberation. Originally from Argentina, Cecilia came to the United States and survived for 10 years as an undocumented immigrant, gaining a living through sex work. She has years of experience working in direct services with organizations like The LGBT Center and Apicha Community Health Center, which led to her moving into policy work, becoming the Director of Policy at GMHC before creating Trans Equity Consulting to advocate directly for better policy for trans people at the local, state, and federal level. Cecilia is also a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working towards the decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of people in the sex trade. Cecilia has also performed in the hit FX Show Pose, in her one-woman show The Knife Cuts Both Ways, and in countless storytelling events across the country.

Kiara St. James has been a community organizer and public speaker. She has used her intersectional identities as a platform to highlight and bring tactile and systemic change to a very diverse audience, encouraging everyone to speak with their authentic voices, their truth to power. She has been instrumental in changing shelter policies that were discriminatory towards the Trans community, and presented workshops concerning marginalized communities at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria and the United Nations, as well as at other conferences and academic institutions. Kiara has also been coordinating meetings with legislators to discuss the importance of passing Gender Expression Non Discrimination Act, a bill that will enrich the lives of all New Yorkers through creating culturally affirming spaces, which was legislated into law on January 28, 2019. Kiara is the Founder and current Executive director of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG inc), a grassroots 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is Trans-led and intent on creating new opportunities for the Black Trans community through various partnerships and sustainable innovative initiatives with an aim for long term impact.

Nsambu Za Suekama, ‘a blessing in disguise,’ or Bl3ss for short (they/she) is a disabled New Afrikan of nonbinary and transgender experience. They are engaged in mutual aid work and political education with the informal collective Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas and are a member of the Pan-Africanist organization Forward Ever, Backward Never (as part of the Third World People’s Alliance). Her theoretical work sits at the crossroads of Black Ecology, Third Worldism, and transfeminism, the most well known of which include “Femme Queen, Warrior Queen: Beyond Representation, Towards Self-determination,” “To The Ones Who Can Fly: A Message from the Whirlwind,” and “Who’s Man Is This? Black Radical Ecology and the Anthropogenic Question.” Nsambu is also a poet and performer and likes to spend weekends on boat rides.

Nikki Easterday (they / them / theirs) is a Staff Attorney with the Trans Health Project at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF). Mx. Easterday has significant experience contesting barriers to accessing gender-affirming care. Previously, Mx. Easterday worked as a Health Attorney with Community Health Advocates (CHA) and Community Health Access to Addiction and Mental Healthcare Project (CHAMP) advocating for access to health care and challenging discriminatory health care policies. Mx. Easterday also assisted with the federal implementation of the Affordable Care Act as a research associate with George Washington University, with a focus on anti-discrimination provisions.

Michael Gillespie and Hugh Ryan in Conversation (in person event)
2022-09-07 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join translator and scholar Michael Gillespie and writer and curator Hugh Ryan for a conversation about Gillespie’s new book, Berlin Garden of Erotic Delights. Set among the glittering clubs and grimy side streets of 1920s Berlin (with detours to Italy and Paris), these charming, witty, and erotic tales capture the trials and triumphs of early 20th-century gay life without apology or shame. Granand’s exciting stories are told with humor, emotional acuity, and deep compassion for his gay subjects. Twice banned and long suppressed in Germany and never before available in English, this rediscovery of a lost gem allows 21st-century readers to experience the thrill of positive depictions of queer life from a time when that was almost unthinkable.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Berlin Garden of Erotic Delights is available for purchase at the Bureau’s physical store and can be purchased at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.
Author photo credits:

Hugh Ryan: M. Sharkey

Michael Gillespie: Phil Cantor

Rocks in the River Book Launch with John Ollom (in person and live-streaming)
2022-09-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Rocks in the River is the third book by author and art journeyman John Ollom, MFA. Founded on 22 years of movement, artistic teaching, and guidance, Ollom has expanded his methodology to bring in new embodied ways to find peace and vision in times of fear or change. This book is divided into three currents in the river so we can navigate this metaphor together. It is a place where people are processing change and turmoil in their lives. Do they stay on the same rock they have known all their life? Do they give up and surrender to the overpowering currents? What complex is pulling them under? What current excites us? Ollom offers us a place of respite, an artistic vision of insight and revelation in this turbulent river journey.
“A true original and visionary.”
—Charles Busch, Award-Winning Actor, Playwright, Cabaret Performer, Drag Legend

“This is art therapy on steroids.”
—Brendan Rowe, Sexual Abuse Activist and Counselor

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel
Rocks in the River ($25) will be available for purchase at the event, as well as t-shirts ($20). John will be happy to sign copies!
John Ollom’s previous book, Internal Landscapes ($30), will also be available for purchase.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Ollom is an art journeyman, author and art director. His book Internal Landscapes reveals the evolution of his Internal Landscapes© method and provides an extensive reference that combines movement art with Jungian Depth Psychology. His book of poetry Dark Matter is shown on video at ollomart.com . John received his MFA from Goddard College and his BFA in Ballet from Texas Christian University.
John’s work has been the subject of numerous articles and documentary films including: Late Bloomers by Annette Cyr, Professor of Art at the National University in San Diego; The Making of M.U.D.: An Exploration of the Work of John Ollom and Ollom Movement Art by Robert Kazmayer, MA; There’s Something About John by Emma McCagg, “About, or in, the Liminal Space: John Ollom at 954 Dance Movement Collective”, in Phindie, and an ArtAsAir.com featured artist. He can also be heard in the Goddard in the World podcast.
He has been teaching in New York City and around the country since 2000. His methodology has been taught at the Eastern Michigan University, Kalani Retreat Center in Hawaii, Atmananda Yoga Sequence, Baruch College, CUNY Hostos, CUNY in the Heights, Easton Mountain Retreat Center, and Smith College. During the pandemic, he has been working with clients through Zoom and in Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan.
In 2010–2011, John Ollom was chosen as the Artist in Residence at the Eastern Michigan University Dance Department. In 2022, John was asked to be an art journeyman presenter at the Rutgers University Queer Health Colloquium Part 2: Spectrums.
John has served as the Artistic Director of Prismatic Productions, Inc./Ollom Art since 2002, where he has choreographed such works as The Catalyst, Love and Longing, The Journey, John Ollom’s The Journey, Anatomy of Woman, Dido and Aeneas, The Other Species, Love Stories, Internal Landscapes, Man of War, M.U.D. (Men Under Dirt), Kuan Yin’s Compassion, Nemetona, The Portal, and Prisoner of My Projection. His choreography and direction can also be seen in the film Karpos and Kalamos.
For more information, please visit www.johnollom.com. For more information about the nonprofit Prismatic Productions, Inc. or Ollom Art, please visit www.ollomart.com.

Rajiv Mohabir and Anastacia-Reneé at the Bureau (in person & live-streaming)
2022-09-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
If you’re in the NY area, come listen to Rajiv Mohabir read from his gorgeous, award-winning memoir Antiman (out now in paperback) at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division! The winner of our 2019 Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Antiman explores the fraught constellations of race, sexuality, and cultural heritage that have shaped Rajiv’s experiences as an Indo-Guyanese queer poet and immigrant to the United States. Rajiv will be in conversation with queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker and podcaster, Anastacia-Reneé. Anastacia-Reneé’s forthcoming book of poems, Side Notes from the Archivist (HarperCollins, March 2023), is a rich and beautiful collection of verse and image—a multi-part retrospective that traverses time, space, and reality to illuminate the expansiveness of Black femme lives.
Moderated by Chaelee Dalton
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel
This event is free and open to all!
Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Copies of Antiman are also available at the Bureau’s physical store and can be purchased at the event. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Rajiv Mohabir is the author of Cutlish (2021, Four Way Books, finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award), The Cowherd’s Son (2017, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Prize) and The Taxidermist’s Cut (2016, winner of the Four Way Books Intro to Poetry Prize and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2017), and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (1916) (2019), which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award and the 2020 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His essays can be found in places like the Asian American Writers Workshop’s The Margins, Bamboo Ridge Journal, Moko Magazine, Cherry Tree, Kweli, and others, and he has a “Notable Essay” in Best American Essays 2018. Currently he is an assistant professor of poetry in the MFA program at Emerson College. His debut memoir, Antiman, won the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.

Anastacia-Renee (She/They) is a queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker and podcaster. She is the author of (v.) (Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish) and, Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere and Sidenotes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). They were selected by NBC News as part of the list of “Queer Artists of Color Dominate 2021’s Must See LGBTQ Art Shows.” Anastacia-Renee was former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017), Arc Artist Fellow (2020) and Jack Straw Curator (2020).
Her work has been anthologized in: Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, Furious Flower Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Afrofuturism, Black Comics, And Superhero Poetry, Joy Has a Sound, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and Seismic: Seattle City of Literature. Her work has appeared in, Hobart, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, Poetry Northwest, A-Line, Cascadia Magazine, Hennepin Review, Ms. Magazine and others. Renee has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency.

Chae(lee) Dalton is a wintertime poet and summertime ice cream maker. They are the author of the chapbook Mother Tongue (Gold Line Press 2021) and their work appears in The Offing, Pinwheel, Penn Review, and elsewhere. A queer Korean adoptee, Dalton currently live in New York, where they teach kids science and make things with their friends.

Office Hours Broadside Exhibition
2022-09-16 18:30 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for the Office Hours Poetry Broadside Exhibition Opening Night Event on September 16th, 2022. We’ve paired up eight LGBTQ+ poets with eight visual artists to craft unique broadsides showcasing their remarkable poems. Doors open at 6:30 PM to peruse the broadsides and enjoy light refreshments. Poetry reading to follow at 7 PM. The exhibition features visual artists: Jihyun Hong, Sy Klipsch-Abudu, Jardley Jean-Louis, Lee Maxey, Brandon Menke, Meesh Nah, Luciana Pinchiero, and Mojdeh Rezaeipour. And features poets: Danielle Badra, Shangyang Fang, T’ai Freedom Ford, Jen Levitt, Holly Mitchell, James Fujinami Moore, Janelle Tan, and Paul Tran.
The reading will also be live-streamed on the Bureau’s YouTube channel starting at 7 PM.
Office Hours Poetry Broadside Exhibition will be on view at the Bureau from Wednesday, September 14th, through Sunday, September 18th.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

This event is free and open to all!
Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. We provide continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. The workshop culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work.
We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are womxn-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.
The workshop fellowship meets every two weeks following the fall and spring academic calendar with optional sessions like book club and generative write ins. We charge zero fees to join. Interested writers should submit 6 pages of work to be reviewed by the workshop facilitator sarahmariesala@gmail.com or drop us a line to learn more!

The Bruising of Qilwa meets The Stardust Thief, live with the authors! (in person & live-streaming)
2022-09-18 17:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Mainstream speculative fiction has long borrowed elements from West Asian (Middle Eastern) storytelling, but only in recent years have West Asian authors themselves been brought into the fold to tell stories inspired by our cultures. In celebration of the launch of The Bruising of Qilwa, a debut novella set in a queernormative Persian-inspired world, Persian-Chicagoan author Naseem Jamnia will be in conversation with Chelsea Abdullah, Kuwaiti-American author of The Stardust Thief. After a brief reading, they’ll discuss their books, West Asian storytelling traditions, and bringing their cultures into a secondary world, with opportunity for a Q&A. Signing will be available after the event.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Both books will also be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Chelsea Abdullah is an American-Kuwaiti writer born and raised in Kuwait, where she grew up listening to stories about mysterious desert creatures and wily (only sometimes likable) heroes. Consumed by wanderlust, she has put down roots in various states. After earning her MA in English at Duquesne University, she moved to New York, where she currently lives. When not immersed in her own fictional worlds, she spends her free time playing video games, doodling characters, and hoarding books she doesn’t have the shelf space for.

Naseem Jamnia is a Persian-Chicagoan, former scientist, and fiction MFA graduate from the University of Nevada, Reno. Their work has appeared in The Washington Post, Bitch Media, Cosmopolitan, The Rumpus, The Writer’s Chronicle, and other venues. A Lambda Literary, Otherwise, and the inaugural Samuel R. Delany Fellow, Naseem is the managing editor at Sword & Kettle Press and the author of The Bruising of Qilwa.

Paradise Regained: Black Queer Writers Read (in person and live-streaming)
2022-09-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Three Black gay writers, each of whom released a new book in 2022, gather for a fierce read. Hosted by the inimitable Pamela Sneed. Featuring Jafari Allen, David Ambrose Jackson, & Cary Alan Johnson.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.
Cosponsored by:
Bloom International
and
Other Countries: Black Gay Men Writing
Books by all of the authors available on the Bureau’s online store and at our physical store. These books will also be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy (copies) of any of these titles, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Jafari Allen is is Director of Africana Studies and Co-Director of the University of Miami Center for Global Black Studies. His monograph, There’s a disco ball between us: a Theory of Black Gay Life, was published by Duke University Press in 2022 .

David Ambrose Jackson was a Lambda Literary Award finalist for his debut novel, State of the Nation. His new novel, Unlawful DISorder, has been lauded as “…a cutting portrayal of the failings of America’s mental health system.”

Cary Alan Johnson is an author, activist, and Africanist and. founder of the Other Countries writer’s collective. His debut novel, Desire Lines, was published in September 2022 by Querelle Press.

Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer, visual artist, and educator. She is the author of Funeral Diva (City Lights Books, 2020), Sweet Dreams (Belladonna*, 2018), KONG (Vintage Entity Press, 2009), Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery (Holt, 1998), and others. Sneed has performed the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, The High Line, the New Museum, and the Toronto Biennale. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s “The 100 Best African American Poems,” and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.

Opening Reception: Satanic Panic, Catalina Schliebener Muñoz
2022-09-22 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Catalina Schliebener Muñoz from their series Satanic Panic, on view from September 22, 2022 – January 8, 2023, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 22, 2022, 6-8 pm. Additional programming to be announced during the exhibition.
This show, featuring small- and large-scale mixed media collages and a site-specific mural, draws on Catalina Schliebener Muñoz’s ongoing Satanic Panic series, which they began in 2019. This series references the moral panic that originated in the US in the 1980s, spreading through many parts of the world in the late 1990s, including their home country of Chile. This collective hysteria drew on cold war mythologies, misogynist ideas surrounding care work, racist tropes about outsiders, and conservative responses to the AIDS crisis. As a queer, brown, South American immigrant living in the US and working in the field of early childhood education, Schliebener Muñoz is particularly interested in the fact that many of those accused of crimes tied to this moral panic were queer and/or BIPOC childcare workers.
The Satanic Panic series comprises two primary types of work: large-format collages/murals, and installations of juxtaposed objects such as porcelain figurines and articulated plastic characters from different Disney/Pixar movies. The collages combine fragments of Disney books published in the 1990s with portions of pedagogical books created in the 1960s and 70s. Questions raised by the work center how the activities and games outlined in these books replicate the gender, sexuality, race, and class stereotypes of the adult world, and how those interact with the equally regulated fantasy world of Disney. In this series, Schliebener Muñoz explores the possibility of creating third images that in a subtle way bring all the narratives depicted in the original material into question.
Click here to download a PDF of the press release.
This event is free and open to all!
Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

This exhibition was made possible through a Visual Grant from the Café Royal Cultural Foundation.

Catalina Schliebener Muñoz, is a Sudamerican, Chilean-born visual artist who works primarily with collage, installation, and murals. Their work draws on images, objects, and narratives associated with childhood and explores gender, sexuality, and class. Their work has been exhibited in Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago, Chile), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York, NY), Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, NY), Children’s Museum of Manhattan (New York, NY), Boston Center for the Arts (Boston, MA), Centro Cultural de España (Santiago, Chile), Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Center for Books Arts (New York, NY), Catalyst Arts (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn, NY), Hache Galería (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Jardín Oculto (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Metropolitana (Santiago, Chile), and Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (New York, NY), among others. A recipient of multiple FONDART Grants (Cultural and Arts Development Fund of the Government of Chile), Schliebener Muñoz also received grants from DIRAC (Board of Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Relations of Chile) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (New York, NY). They also received a Queer Artist Fellowship from the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (2017), and an Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) Fellowship from the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2018).
In addition, Schliebener Muñoz has extensive teaching experience, from early childhood education to undergraduate education, on topics ranging from philosophy and art theory to art instruction in schools, studios, and museum settings. They are currently working as a teaching artist with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and The Queens Museum, and they facilitate gender and sexuality trainings for the Early Childhood Professional Development Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY). They received a Bachelor of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Universidad de Arte y Ciencias Sociales (ARCIS; Santiago, Chile).

Featured image: Catalina Schliebener Muñoz, Satanic Panic Series, 2021 (detail) / Collage, graphite and thread on mat / 30 x 40 x 2 in

Art in Odd Places 2022: STORY presents "What's Your Story?" (in person and live-streaming)
2022-09-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2022: STORY is scheduled for September 23-25, 2022, for its seventeenth annual public visual and performance art festival featuring 40+ local, national, and international artists’ projects from the Disabled, Incarcerated, Elder, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and Allied communities taking place along 14th Street in Manhattan, NY – from Avenue C to the Hudson River. “What’s Your Story” is a selection of some of the artists telling their story. Hosted by the curator, Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn.
Featuring Nick Daniels, Jana Greiner, Juan Hernadez with Mai Tran, Vivek Sebastian, Heather Sincavage, and Yu-Ching Wang.
Photo credit: Yu-Ching Wang, Breathing in New York, March 2020
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel
This event is free and open to all!
Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

AiOP is an annual festival that presents visual and performance art in public spaces along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC from Avenue C to the Hudson River each October. Active in New York City since 2005, founded by NYC artist Ed Woodham and led by Executive Director Furusho von Puttkammer, AiOP aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. Using 14th Street as a laboratory, this project continues AiOP’s work to locate cracks in public space policies and to inspire the popular imagination for new possibilities and engagement with civic space.

Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy at a young age. The muscle-wasting disease has left her as a wheelchair user. She uses living with a disability to inform her work and educate society about differences.

Office Hours Broadside Exhibition Artist Conversation (virtual event)
2022-09-24 15:00 - 17:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for the Office Hours Poetry Broadside Exhibition Artists’ Conversation! Poets will read their broadside work and then dialogue with their visual artist about the process of designing a unique broadside from concept to design to installation at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (9/14-9/18/22).
View and purchase the broadsides here!
You can join on Zoom (and engage with the speakers) by registering on Eventbrite. AFTER you’ve registered, please return to the Eventbrite page at the event time (Saturday, 9/24, at 3 PM EDT) and click on “Access the event” (at right, below Tickets ).
This event will also be live-streamed via the Bureau’s YouTube Channel.
It’s free and open to the public!
Office Hours is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. We office free Craft Classes, Manuscript Editing Workshops, and a weekly writing workshop for fellows. The workshop culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. For more, visit us at: http://sarahmsala.com/office-hours

Participants:
Jardley Jean-Louis is an NYC born award-winning artist, animator, art director, and filmmaker based in Queens, NY. Their work leans on their intersectional identities in Blackness, queerness, and the First (or Second) generation American experience.

Born in Arkansas, Lee Maxey lives and works in Brooklyn. Recent exhibitions include Be Not Afraid, a solo show at Olympia, NYC. Lee is an alumna of the Fire Island Artist Residency and the Hercules Studio/Art Program. She received her MFA in 2016 from Boston University and her BFA in 2011 from the University of Central Arkansas.

Brandon Menke is a queer poet, designer, and postdoctoral fellow in English at the University of Notre Dame. He received his Ph.D. from Yale and his MFA in poetry from NYU. His work appears or is forthcoming in The Yale Review, Court Green, Post45: Contemporaries, Columbia Journal, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere.

Meesh Nah is a multi-disciplinary artist currently working with flowers, watercolor, ink, and acrylic. She draws inspiration from the ground, the skies above, and the spaces in between. She’s currently based in London.

Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China. A Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, his works appeared in The Nation, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. He is the author of the poetry collection, Burying the Mountain (Copper Canyon Press, 2021).

James Fujinami Moore’s work has appeared in Barrow Street’s 4×2, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received support from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives in Los Angeles.

Holly Mitchell is a poet from Kentucky, now based in New York. Holly’s debut collection, Mare’s Nest, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books in Spring 2023.

Celebrating Joy - A reading from I Feel Love: Notes on Queer Joy (in person event)
2022-09-24 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
A reading and Q&A panel featuring Samantha Mann, the editor for I Feel Love: Notes on Queer Joy along with a few of the contributors. Featuring special guest R/B Mertz will be there to discuss their memoir Burning Butch.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Samantha Mann writes personal and nonfiction essays covering LGBTQ life, mental health, and feminism. Her work can be found on BUST, Emry’s Journal, The Establishment, Bustle, and Washington Post Magazine. Samantha lives with her wife in Brooklyn, NY.

MARKET OF VAIN DESIRE (in person event)
2022-09-25 17:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
A One Night Pop-Up Installation Of Queer History & Memorabilia from Visual Storyteller/Identity Curator Rumi Missabu Slated as a Donation to The LGBT Community Center National History Archive
Curated By Devlyn Camp
With Co-Hosts
Hucklefaery Ken
Fussy Lo Mein
Robert Croonquist
Agosto Machado
Jean Stevens
Daniel Ryan Johnson
& Joe E. Jeffreys
Plus Special Appearance By
Rumi Missabu Via Zoom!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.
Rumi’s photograph in the flyer is by Harry James Hanson & Devin Antheus for their book The Legends of Drag: Queens of a Certain Age, available from the Bureau’s online and physical stores!

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

A few examples of the donated materials included below!

Steven Thrasher and Linda Villarosa on The Viral Underclass and Under the Skin, Moderated by Hugh Ryan (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-09-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join Steven Thrasher and Linda Villarosa at the Bureau to discuss Dr. Thrasher’s debut book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll when Inequality and Disease Collide and Villarosa’s Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation. Moderated by Hugh Ryan. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone. Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings. In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

STEVEN W. THRASHER, PhD holds the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair at Northwestern University’s Medill School, the first journalism professorship in the world created to focus on LGBTQ research. He is also a faculty member of Northwestern’s Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. A columnist for Scientific American, his writing has been widely published by The New York Times, Nation, The Atlantic, Journal of American History, BuzzFeed News, Esquire and New York Magazine. In 2019, Out Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential and impactful people of the year and the Ford Foundation awarded him a grant for Creativity and Free Expression. An alumnus of media jobs with Saturday Night Live, the HBO film The Laramie Project and the NPR StoryCorps project, Dr. Thrasher has also been a staff writer for The Village Voice and a columnist for The Guardian. He holds a PhD in American Studies and divides his time between Chicago and New York. The Viral Underclass is his first book. Twitter: @thrasherxy. Author photo by C. S. Muncy
Linda Villarosa is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, where she covers the intersection of race, inequality and health. She is a professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator. His recent book, The Women’s House of Detention, was named one of the best books of the year by Vulture / New York Magazine. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, won a 2020 New York City Book Award, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. He was honored with the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association, is a nonfiction faculty member at the Bennington Writing Seminars, and sits on the Board of the Stonewall National Museum and Archive.

Official Book Launch for The Certain Body (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join us for the official book launch for Julia Guez’s THE CERTAIN BODY (out this fall from Four Way Books). We hope to see you in-person or online that night; the event will be live-streamed. Very special guests include Francisco Márquez, t’ai freedom ford, Jenny Johnson and Mark Bibbins. You can buy books directly from the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division. Reception at seven. Reading at 7:30. Book signing at 8:30.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Copies of The Certain Body and other books by our readers will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Mark Bibbins is the author of four poetry collections, most recently 13th Balloon (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. His first book, Sky Lounge (Graywolf Press, 2003), received a Lambda Literary Award. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at The New School and Columbia University, and in NYU’s Writers in Florence program.

t’ai freedom ford is the author of two poetry collections, how to get over from Red Hen Press and more black from Augury Books, winner of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn where she is an editor at No, Dear Magazine.

Julia Guez is a writer and translator based in the city of New York. The Certain Body is her second collection of poetry, written while she was recovering from COVID in the spring of 2020.
For her poetry, fiction and translations, Guez has been awarded the Discovery/Boston Review Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship and The John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize in Translation as well as a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For the last decade, Guez has worked with Teach For America, New York; she’s currently the senior managing director of design and implementation there. She teaches creative writing at NYU and Rutgers.
You can find more of her work online at www.juliaguez.net and if you are so inclined, can buy all of her books here at the Bureau. She would be happy to sign them for you(!)

Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship, and a NEA Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, New England Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop. She lives in Pittsburgh.

Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. A graduate of the MFA program at NYU, his work appears in The Brooklyn Rail, The Yale Review, and The Best American Poetry anthology, among other publications. He has received support from the Tin House Writer’s Workshop, The Poetry Project, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a 2019-2020 Poetry Fellow. He is Assistant Web Editor at Poets & Writers and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

First Consonants: John Whittier Treat with Sarah Van Arsdale & Stephen Greco (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Come celebrate the launch of John Whittier Treat’s novel First Consonants.
Brian is an unremarkable child, until he isn’t. As other children start to babble, adding to their vocabularies day by day, Brian grows quieter with age, stumbling over the words he needs to lead a normal life: He is a stutterer. This speech disorder defines his formative years, filled with prejudice and bullying, as he creates his own scales of right and wrong, both justified and unjustified. He uses his fists whenever words fail him. As he increasingly fills with rage after life-changing abuse at the hands of a priest who takes advantage of his vulnerability, he resorts to ever greater acts of violence, risking everything he has worked hard for in life. Brian’s one hope for his redemption? Alaska. An elderly Brian moves to the Alaskan outback, and here he attempts to redeem himself and the world.
“A compelling, at times relentless novel that gives the term antihero a brand-new spin.” —Felice Picano, author of Like People in History, The Book of Lies, and Onyx
“A flame of rage burns at the core of Brian Moriarty, ignited by a traumatic birth and fueled by a lifetime of debasement and abuse because Brian stutters. Treat’s First Consonants is incendiary, placing the reader in the furious heart of Brian’s world. As we may decry his actions, we cannot help but want a balm for him, a cool soothing of his implacable ire, lest it consume and reduce him to ash.” —Terry Wolverton, the author of Stealing Angel
“First Consonants touches on the origins of violence, of love, and what it means to find one’s way through the maze that is the world. Here is a story that is engrossing, vulnerable and wise in a way that few books are these days.” —Jim Krusoe, author of The Sleep Garden
“Written in ludic, kinetic prose, at turns beautiful and harrowing, it has an expansiveness and ethical import that is rare.” —Alistair McCartney, author of The Disintegrations

First Consonants will also be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

John Whittier Treat has lived in the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska, for forty years. His fiction has won the Christopher Hewitt Prize, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His novel The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House, was a finalist for the 2016 Lambda Prize for Best Gay Fiction. A novella, Maid Service, was published in 2020 and his second novel, First Consonants, is forthcoming from Jaded Ibis Press in 2022. His opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times and the Huffington Post. Treat is currently at work on his third novel, set among survivalists in rural eastern Washington State, entitled The Sixth City of Refuge. johnwhittiertreat.com

Sarah Van Arsdale’s sixth book, Taken, a poetry collection, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. She is the author of four books of fiction including Toward Amnesia (Riverhead, 1995) and Blue (winner of the 2002 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel) and a single book-length poem, titled The Catamount (Nomadic Press, 2017), illustrated with her watercolors. She serves with the Ferro-Grumley Award in LGBTQ Fiction, teaches creative writing in the Antioch/LA Low-residency MFA Program, and works as a private manuscript consultant. sarahvanarsdale.com

Stephen Greco is Editorial Director of InsideRisk and Editor-at-Large of the magazine Upstate Diary. He has contributed to and/or served as editor for Air Mail, Elle Décor, Interview, MTV online, New York, The New York Times, Opera News, Stagebill, Trace, and The Village Voice, among others. Greco is author of the novel Now and Yesterday (Kensington, 2014). His most recent novel, Such Good Friends, based on the friendship of Truman Capote and Lee Radziwill, will be published by Kensington in May, 2023. For the stage, Greco has written Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, an orchestral-theatrical work from Giants Are Small, the partnership of Edouard Getaz and Doug Fitch, that premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2017. With Fitch, Greco has written the multi-media works How Did We…? (2014; University of Buffalo Center for the Arts) and Punkitititi/Breakfast Included (2020; Salzburg Marionette Theater, Salzburg Mozarteum). Greco wrote the libretto for the Victoria Bond opera How Gulliver Returned Home in a Manner that was Very Not Direct, and is working on musical theater projects with composers Scott Wheeler and Douglas Cuomo.
Greco lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Finnegan Presents: Queer Underground Poetry (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Legendary New York City poet Finnegan and prolific street photographer Efrain Gonzalez present an evening of poetry and photography hosted by Johnny Art. Soak yourself in electric verse, ripped straight from the womb of your worst nightmares (or your darkest fantasies!) and coughed up on your mother’s dining room table. Enjoy an evening of radical queer poetry and candid behind-the-scenes photography from the heyday of Finnegan’s poetry troupe, Dark Star Crew. The evening will include interviews with Finnegan and Efrain talking about their adventures with Dark Star at CBGBs, the Knitting Factory and other infamous NYC venues.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Books of poetry by Finnegan will be available for purchase at the event.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Finnegan has been performing his poetry in New York City and beyond for more than thirty years. He has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Knitting Factory, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and CBGB’s and has been featured in the Village Voice, New York Times, Seven Days magazine and Vanity Fair.

New York City photographer Efrain John Gonzalez says he’s “not a professional photographer, just OCD.” He describes his work as telling “a story of people finding the path to their souls, finding their bliss with piercings, branding, cuttings, tattoos, latex, implants, leather, and a whole lot of radical sex and sexuality.”

John “JohnnyArt” Pavlou is a visual artist and songwriter based in Yonkers, New York. His sculptures have been in numerous shows and he has created several sculptural installations. He has also created a Youtube series in which he uploaded a spoken word piece every day for a year.

Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments & Queer Forgetting (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-16 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Who determines what is remembered and commemorated, and why? How can we commemorate something that is both in the past and a daily reality? In Take ‘Em Down, Simon(e) van Saarloos is inspired by the historically invisibilized lives of LGBT people and queers. They demonstrate the power of forgetting and wonder if and how it’s possible to live without a past. At the same time, Van Saarloos criticizes the way that a ‘white memory’—including their own—treats some stories as self-evident while other histories are erased. An afternoon of conversation, performance and an abundance of presence. hosted by Simon(e) van Saarloos and the Bureau with Megan Fernandes, Waqia Abdul-Kareem, and a video contribution by Claudia Rankine.
“I love the expansive nature of ways of thinking about commemoration in Take ’Em Down; the role of physicaland imaginative space. I also love that the essayistic form is informed by the process of adaptability, informed by Simon(e) van Saarloos’ childhood history, and that van Saarloos reflects the ability as a writer to know the limits of their own imagination. The notion of stumbling stones implies being tripped up and so becomes both commemorative and process-defining. There is so much to say and love about this book!” — Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric
“The scholarship that excites me the most is not only well- reasoned and accessible, but also synthesizes ideas that take multiple positionalities into account, and takes the courage to be outspoken and revolutionary. In Take ’Em Down, Simon(e) van Saarloos does all those things, incisively. It partakes of the act of radical allyship amongst the marginalized. A lovely book.” —Nalo Hopkinson, author, The Salt Roads
“Amidst a global pandemic that has fundamentally changed our world, along with Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Topple Monuments Movements and ongoing struggles for LGBTQIA liberation, Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Take ‘Em Down asks us to reenvision monuments and acts of commemoration. They also champion forms of Queer forgetting as acts of resistance. They call upon the work of some of the greatest thinkers, scholars and writers Arendt, Orwell, Halberstam, Rankine, Moten, Hartman and more to raise critical issues around memory, mourning and social justice. In this text Saarloos joins their ranks in creating important new visions and challenges for our world. It’s a text demanding to be contemplated and shared widely.” – Pamela Sneed, author of Funeral Diva, City Lights, 2020
Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting includes a foreword by Pamela Sneed and is published by Publication Studio.
Copies of Take ‘Em Down will soon be available on the Bureau’s online store, and will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Waqia Abdul-Kareem is a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist and interdisciplinary scholar. They hold an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute and are pursuing a Ph.D. in American Studies at New York University. Their academic research considers the historical-ecological entanglement between blackness and the more-than-human in the South Carolina Lowcountry region. Relatedly, their art practice employs archival research, sound/music, video, performance, and storytelling. They have exhibited work at the Hirshhorn Museum, Abrons Art Center, Movement Research, Dixon Place, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Before their academic studies, they worked as an art educator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Megan Fernandes is a writer living in New York City. Fernandes has published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Boston Review, Rattle, PANK, The Common, Guernica, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, among others. Her most recent book of poetry, Good Boys, was a finalist for the Saturnalia Poetry Prize, the Kundiman Poetry Prize, and was published with Tin House Books in 2020. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of English and the Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette College where she teaches courses on poetry, environmental writing, and critical theory. She is a Yaddo fellow and holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MFA in poetry from Boston University. In 2021, she was a book reviewer for the Poetry Foundation. Her forthcoming poetry collection, I Do Everything I’m Told, will also be published by Tin House Books in summer 2023.

Simon(e) van Saarloos is the author of four books in Dutch, including a novel and an ethnographic court report about the “discrimination trial” of Geert Wilders. Two of their books were translated into English: Playing Monogamy (Publication Studio, 2019) and most recently Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (Publication Studio, 2022). They are currently working on Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (Emily Carr University Press) and a theatre play about abortion for Ulrike Quade Company, premiering April 2023. Van Saarloos also work as an artist and curator. Their most recent projects include Cruising Gezi Park (with Kübra Uzun), the spread of a mo(nu)ment, and Through the Window an ongoing queer solidarity project between Turkey and the Netherlands, aimed to circulate funds among queer artists.They have participated in artist residencies such as the KAVLI Institute for Nanosciences, Deltaworkers New Orleans and Be Mobile Create Together at IKSV in Istanbul. Together with Vincent van Velsen, Van Saarloos curated the ABUNDANCE exhibition, (“We must bring about the end of the world as we know it” – Denise Ferreira da Silva) at Het HEM, Amsterdam in 2022. Upcoming projects include their role as a curator for International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) and Studium Generale Rietveld Academy. They currently pursue a PhD in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Author photo: Isabelle Janssen

Violet Hour (virtual event)
2022-10-20 19:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for an evening of short readings by 2SLGBTQ writers from Canada. This special online edition will feature writers Christopher DiRaddo (The Family Way), Suzette Mayr (The Sleeping Car Porter), Matthew James Weigel (Whitemud Walking) and Jane Walsh (The Inconvenient Heiress).
To participate in the event on Zoom please register on the Eventbrite page.
AFTER you’ve registered, please return to the Eventbrite page at the time of the event and click on “Access link” under “When and Where/location.”
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $5 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to join, with or without donation. You can make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page, or make a tax-deductible donation on the Bureau’s Fractured Atlas page. Thank you for your support!

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Christopher DiRaddo is the author of the novels The Family Way and The Geography of Pluto. In 2014, he created the Violet Hour reading series and book club, which has to date provided a platform for more than 200 LGBTQ writers. He is past president of the Quebec Writers’ Federation. https://christopherdiraddo.com/

Suzette Mayr is the author of six novels, including her most recent, The Sleeping Car Porter, published in 2022. Her novels have won the ReLit Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize, and have twice been longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her fiction has also been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean region, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Best First Book and Best Novel Awards, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction. https://www.suzettemayr.com/

Matthew James Weigel is a Dene and Métis poet and artist born and raised in Edmonton. Currently pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Alberta, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences. He is the designer for Moon Jelly House press and his words and art have been published by people like Arc Poetry Magazine, Book*Hug, The Polyglot, and The Mamawi Project. Matthew is a Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize finalist, National Magazine Award finalist, Nelson Ball Prize finalist, Cécile E. Mactaggart award winner, and winner of both the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award and 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award for his chapbook “It Was Treaty / It Was Me.” His debut full-length collection “Whitemud Walking” recently won the Alcuin Society Award for book design and is available now from Coach House Books. https://www.matthewjamesweigel.com/

Jane Walsh is a queer historical romance novelist who loves everything Regency. She is delighted to have the opportunity to put her studies in history and costume design to good use by writing love stories. She owes a great debt of gratitude to the local coffee shop for fueling her novel writing endeavors. Jane’s happily ever after is centered on her wife and their cat and their cozy home together in Canada. https://www.janewalshwrites.com/

ARMY OF LOVERS release. K.M. Soehnlein in Conversation with Maria Maggenti (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-22 18:30 - 21:30 | The LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Lambda Literary Award-winning novelist K.M. Soehnlein, in conversation with filmmaker Maria Maggenti, for the New York launch of his new novel, ARMY OF LOVERS, which follows a young gay man swept up in the excitement, fury, and poignancy of the AIDS activist group ACT UP. ​
Arriving in New York City full of idealism, Paul discovers the queer community gathering strength in the face of government inaction and social stigma. As he protests, parties, and makes a new home, he finds himself pulling away from his HIV-negative boyfriend to pursue an intense bond with a passionate, HIV-positive artist. Paul’s awakening parallels ACT UP’s rise, successes, and controversies. And then everything shifts again, as his family is thrust into their own life-and-death struggle that tests him even further.
Born out of the author’s activism inside the vibrant queer community of the ’80s and ’90s, ARMY OF LOVERS blends history and fiction into an exploration of memory, community, love, and justice.
Soehnlein and Maggenti were roommates in the East Village while members of ACT UP and Queer Nation. Join them for a public conversation about art, friendship and activism.
Presented by The LGBT Community Center and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
This event will take place in person at The LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, NY, NY 10011.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Copies of Army of Lovers (Bywater Books, 2022, paperback $20.95) will soon be available on our online store and at our physical store. Copies will also be available at the event. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
K.M. Soehnlein is the author of the novels THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS, YOU CAN SAY YOU KNEW ME WHEN, and ROBIN AND RUBY, along with essays and journalism in numerous publications. He is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award, Henfield Prize, and SFFILM Rainin Grant in Screenwriting. Raised in New Jersey, he lived in New York City in the late ’80s and early ’90s, participating in direct action with ACT UP and cofounding Queer Nation. These years were the inspiration for ARMY OF LOVERS, released by Amble Press in Oct. ’22.
Maria Maggenti is an activist, screenwriter (BEFORE I FALL) and director of the beloved indie films THE INCREDIBLY TRUE ADVENTURE OF TWO GIRLS IN LOVE and PUCCINI FOR BEGINNERS.

Emptying the Pews: Life after Conservative Christianity (in person event & live-streaming)
2022-10-23 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Lauren O’Neal and Chrissy Stroop (coeditors of Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church) for a panel discussion about making art and living life after leaving conservative Christianity, featuring Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House), Daniel Lavery (Something That May Shock and Discredit You), and Maud Newton (Ancestor Trouble).

About Empty the Pews :
Following the 2016 election of President Trump, Stroop coined the hashtag #EmptyThePews on Twitter as a call to take a moral stance against the kind of fundamentalist, authoritarian, or otherwise conservative churches that helped bring about the current political situation and all its cruelty, division, and hate. The hashtag continues to circulate with the eye-opening and often heartbreaking stories of those who found the resolve to leave evangelical, Mormon, Catholic, and other religious communities. Empty the Pews continues this campaign by sharing the unflinchingly honest stories of those who escaped hardline religious ideology—and how it failed to crush their spirits.

Contributions include essays from a diverse group of established and up-and-coming writers, including Garrard Conley, Lyz Lenz, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Carmen Maria Machado, Isaac Marion, Maud Newton, Julia Scheeres, Linda Tirado, and more, as well as a foreword by Frank Schaeffer, the former Christian Right leader turned trenchant critic.

A provocative anthology of undeniable importance and power, Empty the Pews reflects upon the disoriented worldview of harmful, narrow-minded religious ideologies and also offers a clear call to action: to those who refuse to be complicit in the bigotry and abuse present in so many churches, now is the time to empty the pews.

Copies of Empty the Pews are also available at our physical store and will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Daniel Lavery is the author of Texts From Jane Eyre and Something That May Shock and Discredit You, the co-founder of The Toast, and the former Dear Prudence at Slate.

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, among others. Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, The Believer, Guernica, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

Maud Newton is a writer and critic. Her first book, Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation (Random House, March 2022), has been called “a literary feat” by the New York Times Book Review and a “brilliant mix of personal memoir and cultural observation” by the Boston Globe. Excerpts from the book have appeared in Esquire, Time, and the Wall Street Journal. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Oxford American, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. Maud grew up in Miami, lives in New York City, and has degrees in English and law.

Lauren O’Neal is a writer and editor in New York City. She is the coeditor, with Chrissy Stroop, of the essay anthology Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, and the cohost of the podcast Sunday School Dropouts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Nylon, and a bunch of websites that don’t exist anymore.

The coeditor (with Lauren O’Neal) of Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, an anthology of personal essays by former conservative Christians, Chrissy Stroop was raised evangelical and subjected to intense indoctrination in Christian schools. Now a vocal critic of the Christian Right and an atheist, Stroop is a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches and a columnist for openDemocracy. She holds a PhD in modern Russian history from Stanford University, and her work has also appeared in Foreign Policy, The Boston Globe, Playboy, DAME Magazine, Alternet, The Conversationalist, and other outlets, including peer-reviewed academic journals. An advocate for pluralist coexistence as an essential component of healthy democratic society, Stroop is proud of her record of working with both religious and secular organizations in pursuit of the common good. Stroop came out as a transgender woman in 2019 and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
