BGSQD

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-10-12 20:00 - 21:30, 2016-09-14 20:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York)
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

Union Square Slam presents Sweet Action
2016-10-11 19:00 - 21:30
While the slammers are away at IWPS, the quieter side of Union Square Slam is taking over! Join workshop facilitator Sara Emily Kuntz as she hosts readings by her very special workshop crew! Come workshop with us, come read on the open mic, we might even bring snacks!
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
6pm: Free Writing Workshop with Sweet Action members!
7pm: Open Mic Sign-Ups
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:15pm: Readings from: Emily Blair, Mirielle Clifford, Betsy Guttmacher, Julie Hart, Phoebe Lifton, Cory Nakasue, Amy Klein
Sweet Action Poetry Collective was founded in 2014 by Mirielle Clifford and Julie Hart. The group is based in Brooklyn, and was originally named not for the beer, but for a line in a poem that references the beer. Now, to us at least, “Sweet Action” means gathering to share our poems with each other and the public. https://sweetactionpoetry.com/

Bios
Emily Blair’s poetry has appeared in The Boiler, Sixth Finch, The Mississippi Review and others. She received a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry in 2014 and in Fiction in 2006, and is the author of the illustrated chapbook Idaville (Booklyn Artists’ Alliance, 2010). Also a visual artist, she creates multimedia books and collaborates on community-based projects with social practice artist Michelle Illuminato. More of her work can be seen at emilyblair.com and nextquestion.org
Mirielle Clifford is originally from Texas, but she now lives and writes in Crown Heights. She is a co‑founder of the poetry collective Sweet Action, and she couldn’t ask for a better source of feedback and encouragement. She is working on a chapbook, entitled I Follow Beyoncé: A Valentine.
Marine Cornuet’s poetry has appeared in Handsy Lit, Yellow Chair Review (forthcoming), and Cactus Calamité (a French poetry magazine). She works at a Brooklyn not-for-profit exhibition and performance space that she loves, curates exhibitions, and is the production director of the Sonic Room, a group of music-lovers who organize concerts in unconventional places.
Betsy Guttmacher lives in Brooklyn NY where she is currently the Director of Volunteer Programs for a local non-profit organization. She likes taking pictures of found hearts on the sidewalk (@gumloveetc) and encourages everyone to look down more. She is relatively new to reading and writing poetry and is digging it!
Originally from Minnesota, Julie Hart has lived in London, Zurich and Tokyo and now in Brooklyn Heights. Her work can be found in Five Quarterly, Denim Skin, PANK Magazine, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Floor Plan Journal, Blue Lyra Review, Yellow Chair Review and at juliehartwrites.com.
Amy Klein is a poet, writer, and songwriter living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the Believer, Prelude, Asymptote, and Podium. Her poetry has received an Academy of American Poets Prize, an Edward Eager Award, and two Lloyd McKim Garrison Prizes. She was a two-time fellow of the Home School for poets and artists. Fire, her newest album of original songs, was released in June 2016 on the punk label Don Giovanni Records.
Sara Emily Kuntz has a BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and a MFA in Creative Writing from Carlow University. Sara is a workshop facilitator and organizer for Union Square Slam, a weekly reading series in New York City. She has been published in the Mom Egg Review, Rivet, Stone Highway Review, Cabildo Quarterly, Rust + Moth, and Cactus Heart. Sara lives in Brooklyn with a big grey cat named Miso, like the soup.
Phoebe Lifton lives in Brooklyn, NY and studied Indigenous Rights and Creative Writing in college. She now works at the Museum of Modern Art and spends most Wednesday nights going to ‘church’ at the Poetry Project in St. Marks. She is a helpful woman.
Cory Nakasue is a dance and theatre artist. She works as a movement teacher, therapist, and astrological guidance counselor. She recently co-founded Gemini Hill in the Hudson Valley, a community farm and arts incubator. Poetry is a new love that has been nurtured by the talented group at Sweet Action poetry. More: www.corynakasue.com

Sex of the Oppressed. What About Sex in Russia Under Putin.
2016-10-09 18:00 - 20:00
Join us for the NYC launch of Sex of the Oppressed and a conversation with artist and activist Nikolay Oleynikov, author of the book. Oleynikov will be joined by Jonathan Brooks Platt (translator of the book, author of the foreword, Professor of Slavic Studies at Pittsburgh University) and Yevegeniy Fiks (artist, NY).
This book is an experiment in introspection about sexualities, gender and radical sensibilities in Soviet and Post-Soviet culture. It speaks to a grass-roots politics focused on the historical/hysterical conditions of the Putin era. Why has “sex never happened” in Russia, why does it “not exist” and why will it probably never work? How is it that in contemporary late-Putinite Russia there is such incredible rage whipped up against the queer, gay and feminist theories and practices? What brought Russia to implement outrageous proto-medieval anti-gay laws? And how for fuck’s sake is it possible that there have been only few cases in the whole history of modern Russia, in which the questions of sexuality have reached the daylight of half-sane public debate.
Join us for a night with the author of the project, Nikolay Oleynikov, a recognized Russian left-wing activist and artist, member of Chto Delat collective, and originator of numerous important cultural initiatives. In SEX of the OPPRESSED, Oleynikov busily sets about answering these questions in dialogue with his close friends. These include the philosopher and poet Keti Chukhrov; Oxana Timofeeva, also a philosopher and a member of Chto Delat; the queer activist and scholar Grey Violet; and Kirill Medvedev, the renowned poet, translator, radical socialist activist and frontman of the Arkadiy Kots band.
SEX of the OPPRESSED is composed of four sincere dialogues in four modes: a “kitchen-table talk” with Keti Chukhrov on Soviet and post-soviet culture; a “police interrogation” with Grey Violet on queer activism, including her [he/she/its] personal account of working with Voina and Pussy Riot; an “intimate epistolary” with Oxana Timofeeva on animals and femininity; and a “question-question session” with Kirill Medvedev on male feminism. The edition also includes three new series of graphic works by Nikolay Oleynikov.
Translated into English by Jonathan Brooks Platt thanks to Musagetes (Canada), originally published in 2013 by The Free Marxist Press, an independent activist publishing house based in Moscow, SEX of the OPPRESSED it’s now published by Publication Studio Guelph and available here:
www.publicationstudio.biz/books/330
To reserve a copy of Sex of the Oppressed, please write to contact@bgsqd.com.

Rumi Missabu hosts: Six Twisted Views from The Left Coast
2016-10-08 19:00 - 21:00
The legendary Original Cockette Rumi Missabu returns to the Bureau from San Francisco with Donna Personna, Trangela Lansbury, Roxanne Redmeat, Bruja, Hayley Nystrom, and HRH Lee Mentley, joined by New York’s own Nicholas Gorham!
Photo credits:
Nicholas Gorham, photograph by James Miille
Bruja, photograph by David Wilson
Rumi Missabu, photograph by Fletcher Oakes
Donna Persona, photograph by Keith Gemerek
Roxanne Redmeat, photograph by David Wilson
Trangela Lansbury, photograph by Sloane Kanter

Eros & Dust Erotic Writing Workshop with Trebor Healey
2016-10-08 10:00 - 12:00
What are the challenges of writing good erotic prose and poetry? Is erotic writing a separate genre or can it be an integral part of all genres? If so, how do we get past the trap of the subjective and build erotic voices grounded in our various characters, setting and voice? How can using humor, bad sex or even problematic sex lend themselves to a fuller – and yes hotter – interaction between two characters? Ultimately what is the relationship between sex and literature and how can we make it naturally fit in the flow of a good story?
Suggested donation of $10.
Please bring pen and paper.
Limited to 15 participants.
Please write to Trebor Healey to sign up for the workshop: treborhealey@gmail.com

Trebor Healey is the recipient of a Lambda Literary award, two Publishing Triangle awards and a Violet Quill award. He is the author of three novels (A Horse Named Sorrow, Faun, and Through It Came Bright Colors) a book of poetry (Sweet Son of Pan) and a previous collection of stories (A Perfect Scar & Other Stories). He co-edited (with Marci Blackman) Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco and co-edited (with Amie M. Evans) Queer & Catholic. www.treborhealey.com.

Trebor Healey Reading and Q&A for new book, Eros & Dust
2016-10-07 19:00 - 21:00
A reading and q&a for Eros & Dust, a new collection of short stories by Trebor Healey, the author of the Ferro-Grumley Fiction Award-winning novel, A Horse Named Sorrow.
To reserve a copy of Eros & Dust, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Trebor Healey will conduct an erotic writing workshop at the Bureau on the morning of Saturday, October 8th. Details here.

Trebor Healey is the recipient of a Lambda Literary award, two Publishing Triangle awards and a Violet Quill award. He is the author of three novels (A Horse Named Sorrow, Faun, and Through It Came Bright Colors) a book of poetry (Sweet Son of Pan) and a previous collection of stories (A Perfect Scar & Other Stories). He co-edited (with Marci Blackman) Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco and co-edited (with Amie M. Evans) Queer & Catholic. www.treborhealey.com.

Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker
2016-10-05 19:00 - 21:00
David J. Skal discusses and signs Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula.
Introduction by Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters.
Bram Stoker, despite having a name nearly as famous as his legendary undead Count, has remained a puzzling enigma. In a talk with Christopher Bram based on his new book— Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula— David J. Skal exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who conjured an undying cultural icon. The psychosexual dimensions of Stoker’s passionate youthful correspondence with Walt Whitman, his punishing work ethic, and his slavish adoration of the actor Sir Henry Irving are examined in splendidly Gothic detail.
Following his talk, Skal will sign copies of Something in the Blood.
To reserve a copy of Something in the Blood, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Photograph by Brian J. Showers
David J. Skal is a leading American cultural historian and critic of horror ﬁlm and literature. The author of The Monster Show and Hollywood Gothic, he lives in Glendale, California.

Christopher Bram is the author of nine novels, including Father of Frankenstein, which was made into the Academy Award–winning movie Gods and Monsters, starring Ian McKellen. Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001, and in 2003, he received Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in Greenwich Village and teaches at New York University.

Union Square Slam presents Black Nerd Problems and the Nerd Slam
2016-10-04 19:00 - 21:30
What better way to kick off NYC’s ComiCon week with a Nerd Slam!!
Black Nerd Problems brings us a double feature from Will Evans and Lauren Bullock, hosted by Omar Holmon. Bring your nerdiest to the open mic, but be prepared to NERD OFF for the chance to read your poem!!
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups
7:30pm: Black Nerd Problems and the Nerd Slam
About our Features:
Lauren Bullock is a writer, performer, and reincarnated sailor senshi. She enjoys long walks in the woods and fighting crime as a costumed vigilante of many aliases. @LBullockPoetry
William Evans is the third of his name, Warden of the Midwest and Protector of the Realm. A scribe in many forms. An Ohio native by way of Wakanda. He married the real life Storm and apologizes to you all for the frequent thunderstorms. @willevanswrites
About Black Nerd Problems:
https://blacknerdproblems.com/
blacknerdproblems@gmail.com *
@blknrdproblems *
facebook.com/blacknerdproblems * instagram.com/blacknerdproblems *
Omar Holmon and William Evans met in the summer of 2007 in a city neither one of them is from surrounded by people neither of them knew very well. None of that is really important though. They’ve been friends and some years later, they decided to co-found an editorial and informative website that focused on popular, nerd and geek culture from the perspective of People of Color. On May 15th, 2014, this website was launched and it has only picked up steam ever since.
We have a great team of writers and personalities. We have a lot of fun on this site because there is no pretense or ceiling on how we express our nerd-dom and if you enjoy it half as much as we do, we’ll be doing this dance for a long time.
Come on in. Get comfortable. There’s always something new to digest. Stay a while. We’re glad you’re here.

Coney Island Babies: Visual Artists from The Brooklyn Drag Scene
2016-10-01 18:00 - 21:00
Taking its title from a song by Lou Reed dedicated to his trans lover Rachel, Coney Island Babies, curated by Chris Bogia and Montgomery Smith for Fire Island Artist Residency, brings together a group of visual artists working in and around Brooklyn’s flourishing young avant-garde drag scene. The artists here all do double duty as drag queens, musicians or designers, and the line between “artistic studio practice” and drag is blurred by their social practices and performance work. From their studios to the Bushwig mainstage, these artists are creating culture and community that is unapologetically rebellious, ferociously beautiful and superbly queer.

Coney Island Babies, presented by Fire Island Artist Residency at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, features a group of emerging artists working in a multitude of media including fashion, photography, video, sculpture, drawing, design and performance. Many of the artists incorporate their work from the studio in drag performances, and the exhibition will reflect this by including ephemera and recordings from drag performances alongside formal studio works. Free public programming will include live performances and conversations about the current Brooklyn drag scene, its legendary influences, and its evolving future.

The exhibition will include works by: Fred Attenborough/Sophi Skin-Tight, Tyler Ashley, Brad Callahan, Luc Craig/Lucy Balls, Harry James Hanson/Amber Alert, Hystée Lauder, Chris of Hur, Matthew de Leon/Untitled Queen, Raul de Nieves, Donald C Shorter, Sisters in the Attic/Anthony Argentina and Glossy Bohemond, Montgomery Perry Smith/Patti Spliff, Sasha Steinberg/Sasha Velour, Vincent Tiley/Jon Benet Glamsey, Victor-John Villanueva/Victor Pump.

Coney Island Babies will remain on view at the Bureau from October 1 through November 27, 2016.

About Fire Island Artist Residency:
Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) is an organization founded in 2011 which brings gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identifying artists to Fire Island, a place long-steeped in LGBTQ history, to create, commune, and contribute to the location’s rich legacy

Image: Fred Attenborough, Babes, 2010, Impossible Polaroid (taken at CLUMP at Trophy Bar)

Private Dick: An Aurally Stimulating Evening
2016-09-30 20:00 - 21:30
Chris Harder and Harder Candy Inc. are excited to uncover for YOU: PRIVATE DICK, queerly mysterious readings from gay and lesbian pulp fiction-with an added dash of the Hardy’s Boys and Nancy Drew too!
“Agents who weren’t like agents, homosexuals who weren’t like homosexuals — things were getting awfully mixed up.”*
“Frank noticed a suspicious bulge at the back of the man’s baggy trousers.”**
Drawing from a variety of authors and work, Harder, alongside Burlesque performer Nasty Canasta (Wasabassco Burlesque) and writer Issac Oliver (Intimacy Idiot) present an “aurally fixating” evening that juxtaposes the idealic and hard-boiled American detective with his (and her) even harder homosexual counterparts! Complete with Burlesque performances from Harder and Nasty and raffle prizes from Gun Oil Lube, The Pleasure Chest, and Harder Candy Inc.!
*From, “The Man From C.A.M.P.” by Victor J. Banis
**From, “The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked!” By Franklin W. Dixon
Private DICK at The Bureau
The Sleuthing and Stripping STARTS at 8pm!
$10 Suggested Donation

Two Natures Novel Launch & Poetry Reading
2016-09-29 19:30 - 21:30
An evening of gay literature with two award-winning authors.
Jendi Reiter kicks off her book tour for her debut novel, Two Natures (Saddle Road Press), the spiritual coming-of-age story of a New York City fashion photographer during the 1990s AIDS crisis. Midwest Book Review calls it “a powerful saga” with “intense revelations about what it means to be both Christian and gay”.

Charlie Bondhus will read from the revised (and remixed!) edition of his first book, How the Boy Might See It (reissued last year by Jane’s Boy Press), plus new work. His most recent book, All the Heat We Could Carry–voiced by a veteran of the Afghanistan war and his homefront lover–won the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. Carolyn Forché calls it “a rare, brilliant and necessary book”.
Join the conversation. Like The Good Men Project on Facebook.

Jendi Reiter is the author of the novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, forthcoming 2016) and four poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015). Her stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, American Fiction, The Adirondack Review, Bayou Magazine, and Literal Latte. Writing awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist’s Fellowship. She is the editor of WinningWriters.com, an online resource site for creative writers. Visit her blog at www.jendireiter.com and follow her on Twitter @JendiReiter .

Headshot by Alan Barnett
Charlie Bondhus‘s second poetry book, All the Heat We Could Carry, won the 2013 Main Street Rag Award and the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His work appears in Poetry, The Missouri Review, Columbia Journal, The Bellevue Literary Review, Nimrod, Copper Nickel, and others. He is assistant professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College (NJ) and is the poetry editor at The Good Men Project (goodmenproject.com).

Union Square Slam presents JIDAH
2016-09-27 19:00 - 21:30
*Mark your calendars: the last Tuesday of every month will feature a local musical performer.*
This week, we have the lovely and effervescent JIDAH! Come through for cool vibes and fire tunes.
About our Show:
6:00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic (Music + Poetry Are Welcomed Here!)
8:45pm: JIDAH
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
JIDAH, formerly “BurgundyBleu,” is a vibrant NYC Singer/Guitarist known for her jazzy hip-hop based tunes and colorful lyricism.
For JIDAH’s music, visit her at https://soundcloud.com/justjidah

Are Queers Ageist?
2016-09-25 18:00 - 20:00
Award winning artist Scottee thinks there’s a problem with ageism within the queer community. Our elders are often invisible, the older generation think the young queens know nothing about their history and the youngsters think 40 is old.

Scottee is hosting a dinner party discussion without the food and you’re invited. Around the table will sit some old queers and some young queers to share their ideas, explore where the problem is and ask the burning question – are queers ageist?

This discussion is part of the development of a new theatre piece Scottee is creating titled Queen, supported by AFO theatre.

scottee.co.uk
@scotteeisfat

* Presented in association with Queer New York International
www.queerny.org

Scottee is an artist from London, his work is often about outsiderness; race, sexuality, class, age and gender. He creates spaces where the perceived underdog is celebrated, at the forefront and no longer ignorable.
His work has been performed for audiences across the globe; Australia, Asia, Europe and America. In London his projects have been presented at some of the worlds leading spaces; Barbican, Royal Opera House, Tate Britain, Roundhouse, ICA and Southbank Centre but he prefers to make work in dodgy gay bars, public toilets, bedrooms, disused tanning shops and forgotten community centres.
In 2010 Scottee won the title of Time Out Performer of the Year, his debut solo tour
The Worst of Scottee won Total Theatre Award for Innovation in 2013 and in 2015 Scottee was included on Independent’s Rainbow List as one of Britain’s most influential LGBTQI+ people. He is currently an associate artist at the Roundhouse and with performance company Duckie.
Scottee is a co-host on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends; in 2015 his debut radio documentary My Big Fat Documentary was made BBC Radio 4’s Documentary of the Week. He also writes a weekly column for Vice’s i-D channel.
Scottee is not easily definable; artist, troublemaker, loudmouth, showoff and attention seeker. His work is live, brash, clumsy and will often leave you covered in confetti.

Book launch for Candyass by Nick Comilla
2016-09-24 19:00 - 21:00
Arsenal Pulp Press and the Bureau present the book launch of CANDYASS, the debut book by Brooklyn’s Nick Comilla: a coming of age novel about what it means to be young and queer today: “So young, so contemporary, so thoughtful and skillful in dissecting the exquisite corpse of gay life today.” —Edmund White; “A queer Casanova travelogue for the modern age that’s both bold and bittersweet.” —Slava Mogutin.
Featuring special guest Tommy “Teebs” Pico.

Nick Comilla is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at Concordia University in Montreal, and completed his MFA in poetry and fiction at The New School in New York. His work has appeared in Lambda Literary, Poetry Is Dead, Assaracus, and elsewhere. Candyass is his first book. He lives in Brooklyn.

Tommy “Teebs” Pico is author of IRL (Birds, LLC, 2016), Nature Poem (forthcoming 2017 from Tin House Books), and the zine series Hey, Teebs. He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, 2016 Tin House summer poetry scholar, and has poems in BOMB, Guernica, and the Offing.

Bi Visibility Day Open Mic!
2016-09-23 19:00 - 21:30
Bi Writers & Poets, Musicians & Singers, Artists & Photographers, & Comedians: express yourself & be visible! Everyone else is invited to listen in. Bring friends. Themes are bi visibility and celebrating bisexuality, so be your fierce bi self! Sign up sheet to perform at the door: first come, first serve. Everyone has 5 minutes. Host Sheela Lambert is director of the Bisexual Book Awards and the Bi Writers Association, the event sponsors. She is the editor of Best Bi Short Stories, the only book of bisexual short stories in the world. Best Bi Short Stories got the triple whammy: shortlisted by the Lammys, Rainbow Book Awards and Bisexual Book Awards. She also runs the Bi Book Club which meets monthly at the Bureau.
Equipment: If you need anything besides a mic, contact Sheela at the Bi Writers Assoc. as soon as possible and let me know what equipment you need and why.
RSVP: Bi Meetup Performers can post a comment about what they’ll perform on Bi Meetup too.
Note: Our definition of bi or bi+ includes bisexual, pansexual, fluid and many other identity words that imply emotional and/or sexual attraction to more than one gender. Questions? Write us.
@BiBookAwards https://www.facebook.com/biwriters

TELL 27: PEACE/EQUINOX
2016-09-22 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.
Peace/Equinox is the theme of the twenty-seventh installment of TELL. Featuring Miss Crimson Kitty, Laila, Ronnie Mae Painter, and Gabe Scelta.

$10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

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

Photo by David Ayllon
Called the female-on-female drag pioneer by Time Out New York, Miss Crimson Kitty is taking drag culture by storm one perfected lip-synch at a time! The drag daughter of Rebecca Glasscock of Rupaul’s Drag Race The Lost Season, she has created a haven for other queens at LADYQUEEN which is NYC’s only all female drag revue and created an education revolution by creating LadyQueen University; A 6 week workshop designed to turn any Lady into a LadyQueen!
Crimson has been featured in the press such as the Huffington Post, Oyxgen, Time Out, and Next Magazine for her gender illusionist skills and is known both nationally and internationally as one of the top reigning queens in her field. As a title holder for Dragnet and nominated for many nightlife awards, she is representing a realm of drag much overlooked in the community and aims to change the perception of drag solely based on gender.
Photo by David Ayllon

Laila is an Arab-American Chef de Cuisine. When not experiencing commuter rage, this queer Brooklynite can be found across NYC in someones kitchen whipping up deliciousness. Laila believes we are humans first and has a strong passion for social justice and feminism. She adores long and low dogs such as Dachshunds and Corgis and is an avid list maker.

A native New Yorker born and raised in Astoria, Queens, Ronnie Mae Painter is a Brooklyn-based artist who’s primary media are painting on canvas and works on paper. She is also a published author and poet. Her literary works can be found in the anthology “Are Italians White”, edited by Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno. Painter’s experiences growing up as a woman of African-American and Italian-American biracial descent during the 1970s are transcended through both her visual and literary works in energetic movements and a shouting tone.

Gabe Scelta is a painter, writer, and woodworker. He grew up in Williamsburg, moved everywhere else, and now lives just across the bridge in the Lower East Side. You can find more of his work at www.gabescelta.com

Queer Poetry Powerhouse: Jasmine Gibson, NM Esc, Andrea AK, Che Gosset, Melissa Buzzeo
2016-09-21 19:00 - 21:00
Queer poetry extravaganza with Jasmine Gibson, Andrea Abi-Karam, NM Esc, Che Gosset & Melissa Buzzeo slinging feelings & slaying language.

Che Gossett is Black trans femme writer and para academic theory queen. They are the recipient of the 2014 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award from the American Studies Association and the 2014 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the City University of New York. They have published work on blackness and animality on the Verso Press blog and have also contributed to Queer Necropolitics, The Trans Studies Reader Volume II, Captive Genders and forthcoming anthologies.

Melissa Buzzeo‘s fourth book The Devastation published by Nightboat Books was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Poetry in 2016. She teaches feminism, the poetics of healing and poetry and sexuality at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Currently she is working on a memoir called Writing.

Andrea Abi-Karam is a mixed race genderqueer punk poet writing on the art of killing bros, the intricacies of cyborg bodies, trauma & delayed healing. They recently completed the manuscript EXTRATRANSMISSION a book length piece against how patriarchy and US militarism produce the hypergendered subject. Andrea is both a writer, printer, & publisher whose founding small press project Mess Editions seeks to publish emerging writing from queers, people of color, and those involved in social movements yet uninvolved in poetry & art scenes.

NM Esc is a first-generation New York-grown brain-in-a-jar, floating in viscous queer soup. They write about how displacement shapes identity, dissociation and hyper-embodiment, cyborgs and ghosts, intimacy and technology. Between Ghosts, their latest chapbook and fourth project in their Reno Dakota series, co-written with SJ Lee, is available through Mess Editions. They recently completed a residency at Villa Magdalena K where they’ve been working on a project about wolf semiotics. In their day-to-day they’re a collective member at all-ages art space The Silent Barn where they organize events and cohost a monthly reading series called TFW.

Jasmine Gibson is a Philly jawn now living in Brooklyn and soon to be psychotherapist for all your gooey psychotic episodes that match the bipolar flows of capital. She spends her time thinking about sexy things like psychosis, desire and freedom. She has written for Mask Magazine and LIES Vol II: Journal of Materialist feminism and has now published a chapbook, Drapetomania, off of Commune Editions.

Union Square Slam presents Alain Ginsberg and NPS Qualifier 1.6
2016-09-20 19:00 - 21:30
Union Square Slam is super psyched to feature Alain Ginsberg and host our first of six qualifying slams for our 2017 National Poetry Slam Team, headed to Denver, CO next August!!
6pm: Free Poetry Workshop with IS Jones
7pm: Slam Sign-ups and Socialize
8pm: Slam (Round One)
(intermission)
Featured Poet: Alain Ginsberg
Slam (Rounds Two and Three)
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Alain Ginsberg is an agender writer and performer from Baltimore City, MD whose work focuses primarily on narratives of gender identity, exploration, and performance, sexuality, and mental illness and trauma. Their work has been featured or is forthcoming from Public Pool, Black Heart Magazine, Shabby Doll House, Voicemail Poems, Rising Phoenix Press, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, Crab Fat Magazine, and elsewhere. Alain has competed in the Individual World Poetry Slam (2014), Capturing Fire (2014, finals stage ’15 & ’16), Word War VII, Rouge Roulette Poetry Slam, 2015 Louder Than A Bomb (College Stage, 2nd place), as well as Baltimore’s slam scene Speak Out: Slammageddon and DC’s Beltway Poetry Slam. Outside of competitive poetry Alain has also been hired by Wesleyan University, Rowan University, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Women of The World Poetry Slam to run writing workshops.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are six opportunities to compete for the Union Square Slam National Team. The top two winners of each Open Slam have secured their spot in Finals.
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
– have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
Union Square Slam Nationals Qualifiers (Open Slams) are on the following dates:
September 20th
October 18th
November 15th
January 17th
February 21st
March 21st
Union Square Slam National Team Selection Finals will be held on April 18th.
The National Poetry Slam will be held in Denver, CO August 7-12th, 2017. All proceeds and donations to Union Square Slam go directly to funding travel, lodging and registration fees for representatives of Union Square Slam at national events.
In order to represent Union Square Slam at any National Competition, you must meet the following requirements:
Be 18 years old or older
Be an active member of PSI at the time of competition (register at www.poetryslam.com you cover your annual registration fee of $20 — questions? Talk to Cecily or the current slam manager)
Read, sign, and adhere to the PSI Code of Conduct
Participate in at least one Specialty Slam during the 2016-7 season. Specialty Slams include WOWPS qualifiers, Nerd Slams, Petty Slams, Iron Poet Slams, etc.

VideoOut Story Collection Day
2016-09-20 09:00 - 17:00
Join us at the Bureau on September 20th for a Story Collection Day event. The Bureau is partnering with VideoOut, a new LGBTQ organization that’s building the largest library of coming out stories ever curated. Add your voice, and help us collect 500 stories before October 11, National Coming Out Day.
To reserve a spot, check out the website here: https://www.videoout.org/yourstory/

VideoOut‘s mission is to share coming out stories with the world and support the LGBTQ community. In short, we’re a platform where you can share your story your way. VideoOut will exist in at least three phases: collect and share videos, learn and grow the VideoOut community, support and deeply engage LGBTQ people.

Queer Conflicts at the Brooklyn Book Festival
2016-09-17 13:30 - 15:00
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Forum @ St. Ann’s present:
Queer Conflicts
As courtroom battles turn into media frenzies and political wrangling, how are present conflicts redefining attitudes toward the queer experience in America? What conflicts are missing from dominant historical narratives about marriage, national security, social media, and policing of bathrooms, among others? The panel brings together activists, writers, and historians to discuss the changing political and social landscape of conflict in the LGBT community. Panelists include: Alexis De Veaux, James Downs, Sarah Schulman, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Timothy Stewart-Winter; with moderator Hrag Vartanian.

Saturday, September 17, at 1:30 pm
St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201
Free!
Queer Conflicts is a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event

Please note: The Bureau will be selling books by the participating panelists at this event. To reserve a copy of any book, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Co-Founder of The Center for Poetic Healing, a project of Lyrical Democracies (lyricaldemocracies.com) with Kathy Engel, and of the Flamboyant Ladies Theatre Company (with Gwendolen Hardwick), ALEXIS DE VEAUX, Ph. D., is an activist and writer whose work in multiple genres is nationally and internationally known. Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, Ms. De Veaux is published in five languages-English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Serbo-Croatian. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, and she is the author of Spirits In The Street (1973); an award-winning children’s book, Na-ni (1973); Don’t Explain, A Song of Billie Holiday (1980); Blue Heat: A Portfolio of Poems and Drawings (1985); Spirit Talk (1997); An Enchanted Hair Tale (1987), a recipient of the 1988 Coretta Scott King Award presented by the American Library Association and the 1991 Lorraine Hansberry Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature. Ms. De Veaux’s plays include Circles, (1972); The Tapestry (1975); A Season to Unravel (1979); NO (1980); and Elbow Rooms (1986).
She also authored Warrior Poet, A Biography of Audre Lorde (2004). The first biography of the pioneering lesbian poet, Warrior Poet has won several prestigious awards including the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Legacy Award, Nonfiction (2005), the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award (2004), and the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Biography (2004). In other media, Ms. De Veaux’s work appears on several recordings, including the highly-acclaimed album, Sisterfire (Olivia Records, 1985). As an artist and lecturer she has traveled extensively throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Japan and Europe; and is recognized for her on-going contributions to a number of community-based organizations. She was named “Best Literary Artist” for 2005 by Buffalo’s premier cultural newspaper, ARTVOICE. In 2007 she was awarded a “Literary Legacy Award” from Just Buffalo Literary Center for her lifetime commitment to literature and literary advocacy.
Ms. De Veaux was a member of the faculty of the University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 1992-2013; teaching, most recently, as an associate professor of women’s and gender studies in the Department of Transnational Studies. Recently back in New York City, she completed a novella, Yabo, published by Redbone Press (2014) and winner of the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. At present she is a member of the U.S. delegation of the “Feminists, Artists, Activists, and Academics: Crossing Black Geographies” dialogues, co-sponsored by NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the Inkanyiso Collective (South Africa).
Further information is available on her author website, alexisdeveaux.com. Follow Ms. De Veaux on Twitter: @AlexisDeVeaux

Jim Downs is an Associate Professor of History at Connecticut College where he is also the Interim Director of The American Studies Program. He was recently an Andrew W. Mellon New Directions Fellow at Harvard University, where he gained training in medical anthropology. While at Harvard, Downs was also a fellow at The Weatherhead Initiative on Global History. Jim recently published Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation (Basic Books, 2016), which explains how the outbreak of HIV in the early 1980s caused many historians, journalists and others to portray the 1970s as a period of unfettered sex in order to explain the outbreak of HIV in the 1980s. Stand by Me corrects this misinterpretation by uncovering forgotten episodes from the decade. He had published articles in New York Times, New York Daily News, Vice, New Republic, Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.

Sarah Schulman is the author of CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair (forthcoming in October) Her most recent novel is The Cosmopolitans, set in Greenwich Village in 1958.
Please note that copies of Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair (Arsenal Pulp Press) will be available for purchase at this event. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love (2015), a finalist for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the 2016 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Best New Writing, GLQ, Palimpsest, American Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, The Scholar and Feminist, Crab Orchard Review, Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize Stories, BLOOM, TriQuarterly, Feminist Studies, Baobab: South African Journal of New Writing and many others. A 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the winner of the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the Glenna Luschei Fiction Award, the James Baldwin Memorial Playwriting Award, and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Social Sciences Research Council, the Mellon Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Yaddo, the Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, and the Center for Fiction in New York City. Mecca is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at UMass Amherst, and is currently an American Academy of University Women Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow in Black Feminisms at Duke University, where she is completing a book manuscript on difference and poetic form in contemporary women’s literature of the African Diaspora.

Hrag Vartanian is editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic, a publication he founded in 2009 as a “forum for serious, playful and radical thinking”. He has curated projects, exhibitions, and has organized public events. Highlights of his curatorial efforts include exhibitions at BAM, Storefront Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and #theSocialGraphat Outpost, the world’s first multi-disciplinary exhibition of social media-related art in 2010. He has visited many universities and colleges as a visiting critic including RISD, Brooklyn College, UC Davis, Pratt, Columbia and UNLV, as well as moderated panel discussions and juried exhibitions for various organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and Chautauqua Institution. He writes and lectures about contemporary art, performance, multiculturalism, politics, the internet, literature, and visual culture. His curatorial interests are focused on theories and practices of decolonization and he prefers to work in unorthodox spaces. Hrag has contributed to numerous online and print publications including the Art:21 news Boldtype, The Brooklyn Rail, Huffington Post, AGBU News Magazine, Ararat Magazine, and NYFA Current. He has guest contributed to Al Jazeera, NPR, ABC, and WNYC.

Reading with Steven Gaines
2016-09-16 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for a reading with Steven Gaines, followed by an open mic Q&A.

Steven Gaines is the author of One of These Things First.
One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics.

To reserve a copy of One of These Things First, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors A Slide Lecture by Photographer Mark I. Chester
2016-09-15 19:00 - 21:30
Mark I. Chester is a San Francisco gay radical sex photographer who has documented his life in San Francisco’s gay sexual underground since the late 1970s. In a wide-ranging and visually explosive slide show presentation, Mark photographically traces his own personal and sexual evolution, which at the same time documents the men, women and community with whom he shared these politically, socially and sexually tumultuous years. Mark will have copies of his self-published photographic monograph, City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors – a dark explicit diary from San Francisco’s gay sexual underground, 1977-2015, for sale. It has been almost 20 years since Mark last gave lectures on his photographic work in New York City.
Doors open at 7pm and presentation starts at 7:30pm.
This is a ticketed event. Tickets are $10 per seat.
A total of 5 pay-what-you-wish tickets are available to the first 5 customers who claim them. If you select this ticket type you will have the option to make a donation to the Bureau, but this is not required.
Purchase tickets
If tickets remain available on the night of the event they can be purchased at the door.

Mark I. Chester is a San Francisco gay radical sex photographer who has used the photographic image to record, document and comment on his own life and the life of his community for nearly 4 decades. His work is politically provocative, socially aware and artistically taboo. His fine art photographs have been seen in shows in San Francisco, nationally and internationally. His photographs of Robert Chesley with ks lesions can now be seen in the traveling groundbreaking exhibition, Art AIDS America, which is on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts from July 13 to October 23, 2016.
In addition to exhibiting his own work, Mark has shown the work of other gay, radical and sexually underground artists in his guerilla gallery. Mark has also hosted a drawing group for gay men in his studio for the last 29 years.
City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors is a 132 page hard cover book with 89 images in both black and white and color. A self-published book produced digital on demand to avoid censorship, will be sold for the special price of $125 at the event (normally $150). The book may be purchased in advance with a pre-order sale for $115, with $5 from each sale going to the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division.
More examples of Mark’s work can be found at:
https://markichester.com
facebook.com/sfphotou
instagram.com/sfphotou

Union Square Slam presents the PETTY SLAM
2016-09-13 19:00 - 21:30
What is a petty slam?
Waiting to Exhale meets Poetic Justice. Eating all the chicken skin off everyone else’s meal. Hoping your ex goes bald from the forehead back. Putting a roach in your sister’s show.
In the climate of subtweets from Snapchat to Instagram, Union Square Slam wants to have a playful night of your most pettiest work. What is defined as petty can be loosely interpreted.
Bring up to three of your pettiest poems!! The winner receives a cash prize!!
Sign-ups start at 7pm
Draw at 7:45pm
Show starts at 8pm

Red Hen Press at the Bureau
2016-09-10 19:00 - 21:00
Enjoy a night of poetry with authors Julie Marie Wade, Corrina Bain, and t’ai freedom ford as they read from their latest at the Bureau!

Julie Marie Wade is the author of four collections of poetry, including When I Was Straight (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014) and Postage Due (White Pine Press, 2010), and four collections of lyric nonfiction, including Catechism: A Love Story(Noctuary Press, 2016) and Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Bywater Books, 2014; Colgate University Press, 2010). She has received an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir. She teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami.

Corrina Bain is a gender-liminal writer and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. He has a long history in poetry slam, has been a featured reader on finals stage in 2004, and is a member and coach of multiple slam teams. He has shared stages with Jim Carroll, Patricia Smith, Dorothy Allison, and Saul Williams. He is the author of the full-length poetry collectionDebridement (Great Weather for Media 2015,) and has also published work in journals and anthologies such as PANK, decomP, Muzzle Magazine, BOOTH, and the Everyman’s Library book Villanelles. Bain has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee. She received her MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Ivy, The Brooklyn Review, Bronx Biannual and Kweli, and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Tupelo Quarterly, Winter Tangerine, and others. In 2012 and 2013, she completed two multi-city tours as a part of a queer women of color literary salon, The Revival. In 2014, she was the winner of The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest judged by Evie Shocklee. She is a 2015 Center for Fiction Fellow and a 2015-16 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow sponsored by The Poetry Project. She lives in Brooklyn.

PERSONS OF INTEREST: LEGACIES ON THE WALL
2016-09-09 18:30 - 20:30
For the closing program in conjunction with Visual AIDS‘ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST, Visual AIDS presents a conversational panel on the legacy and lineage of an important group of under-recognized artists: Chloe Dzubilo, Tim Greathouse, Arnold Fern, Hudson, and Affrekka Jefferson.
PERSONS OF INTEREST: LEGACIES ON THE WALL will bring together diverse presenters close to or influenced by each artist: Andrew Durbin on Arnold Fern; Nancy Shaver on Hudson; Viva Ruiz on Chloe Dzubilo; Frederick Weston on Affrekka Jefferson; and Sur Rodney (Sur) on Tim Greathouse. Each presenter will share anecdotes and images about the artwork and lives of these artists, all of whom were deeply impacted by HIV/ AIDS. Consistently throughout our 28 year history, Visual AIDS has been steadfast in our commitment to supporting the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and preserving the legacy of the cultural contributions of the AIDS movement.
Featured artwork in event image: Affrekka Jefferson, Power of Performance, 1997, linoleum, 14 x 11.5.

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES
Andrew Durbin is the author of Mature Themes and the forthcoming novel Blonde Summer, both from Nightboat Books. He is writing about the work of the painter Arnold Fern and lives in New York.
Viva Ruiz is a community-educated multi-hyphenated artist and organizer born and raised in Jamaica Queens, the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants. Viva was mentored and mothered by Chloe Dzubilo, a life changing relationship that began in 1996 and continues to this day.
Nancy Shaver has been showing eclectic, object-based work in New York City since 1974. Hudson of Feature Inc. in Chicago presented her work in 1987. From 2000 to 2014 she showed work at Feature Inc. in New York City.
Frederick Weston is a visual artist working to find his place through various mediums including collage, mood boarding, story boarding, mail-art, copy-art, and happenings. He was friends with Paula “Affrekka” Jefferson, who was a gifted and remarkable artist as comfortable working with pencil and paper as with wood-working tools and printmaking.

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. On view through Sunday, September 18, 2016.

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.

Check out Holland Cotter’s review of Persons of Interest (and related exhibitions) that appeared in The New York Times on July 29, 2016.

Bi Book Club discusses Shakespeare's Sonnets (Folger Library edition)
2016-09-08 18:30 - 20:00
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.)

Shakespeare’s Sonnets tell the story of a bisexual love triangle, which scholars think was an episode from Shakespeare’s own life. Think bisexuality is new? Let’s read this and discover a piece of our bisexual heritage from more than four centuries ago: the 1590’s. (The Folger Library edition provides an explanation of each sonnet in modern English.)

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 Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Folger Library edition) 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)

Union Square Slam presents Jeanann Verlee and WOWPS Qualifier #1
2016-09-06 19:00 - 21:30
Union Square Slam kicks off its SLAM series with our very first Women of the World World Poetry Slam Qualifer, featuring none other than our very own punk rock goddess of grace, JEANANN VERLEE!!!
(note the new format: USS has opted to do either a poetry slam or an open mic each week, not both. This week, only people who have been assigned female at birth or are otherwise living their lives as women are eligible to slam)
6pm-7:30pm: FREE Writing workshop with I.S. Jones
7pm-8pm: sign ups and socialize
Show starts at 8pm:
SLAM: Round One (2 min round)
FEATURE: Jeanann Verlee
(brief intermission)
SLAM: Round Two (1 minute round)
SLAM: Round Three (4 minute round)
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Jeanann Verlee is author of two books, Said the Manic to the Muse and Racing Hummingbirds, which earned the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal for poetry. She has also been awarded the Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry. Her work appears in Adroit, Rattle, The Journal, and BuzzFeed Reader, among others. Verlee served as poetry editor for Union Station Magazine, For Some Time Now, and Winter Tangerine Review: Fragments of Persephone, as well as a number of individual collections. She is former director of the Urbana Poetry Slam reading series where she served as writing and performance coach, and she performs and facilitates workshops at schools, theatres, libraries, bookstores, and dive bars across North America. Verlee wears polka dots and kisses Rottweilers. She believes in you. Find her at jeanannverlee.com.
About our Poetry Slam:
WOWPS is:
a) an acronym for Women of the World World Poetry Slam
b) one of three national poetry slam events put on annually by Poetry Slam, Inc.
c) held in Dallas, TX from March 15-18th, 2017
Union Square Slam WOWPS Qualifier rules:
Qualified competitors are poets who are female assigned or identified individuals who are 18+. This includes gender non-conforming individuals.
8 poets, 3 rounds. Cumulative Scores.
2 min (all)
1 min (all)
4 min (top 5)
cumulative score wins the slam
Top three winners of each Qualifier are in Finals (December 13th). Finals will be 4 ROUNDS — all cumulative!!!
Our WOWPS Qualifier dates are as follows:
September 6th
November 1st
November 22nd
December 13th: FINALS

Bureau Closed for Labor Day Weekend
2016-09-02 - 2016-09-04
The Bureau will be closed Friday, September 2, through Sunday, September 4, after which we will return to our regular hours:
Wednesdays – Sundays, 1 to 7 PM.

Union Square Slam presents Adam Melchor
2016-08-30 19:00 - 21:30
Join Union Square Slam for our inaugural MUSIC NIGHT!! Mark your calendars: the last Tuesday of every month will feature a local musical performer. And we’re beyond thrilled to open this series with the ever-talented, ever-charming … Adam Melchor!
6:00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Adam Melchor
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
Adam Melchor is a songsmith hailing from Northern New Jersey. Christine Bochicchio of the Aquarian Weekly writes “Adam Melchor’s angelic vocals and poetic lyrics make him an act that deserves to be heard” after giving him 5 out of 5 stars on his debut EP.
The singer/songwriter has gained the attention of NYU’s Songwriting Program, MTV’s “Streamed Dumplings” and The Aquarian Weekly Magazine. He is an avid performer in clubs around the Tri-State area, holding residency at The Bowery Electric in NYC and Grimaldi’s in Hoboken.
For more about Adam: adammelchor.com
