BGSQD

Written on the Body/Queer*Sex*Life
2018-09-22 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Celebrate the publication of two new books: Don Shewey‘s THE PARADOX OF PORN: Notes on Gay Male Sexual Culture and Ishmael Houston-Jones‘s FAT AND OTHER STORIES: some writing about sex. The authors will read from their work, answer deeply personal questions, and give away vintage porn.

Ishmael Houston‐Jones is an author, performer, teacher, curator as well as a three-time New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award-winning choreographer. His essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in numerous anthologies, including Writers Who Love Too Much (Nightboat Books, 2017); Aroused, A Collection of Erotic Writing (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001); Best Gay Erotica 2000 (Cleis Press, 2000); Best American Gay Fiction, volume 2 (Little Brown, 1997); and Out of Character: Rants, Raves and Monologues from Today’s Top Performance Artists (Bantam, 1996). His work has also appeared in Performing Arts Journal, Movement Research Journal, Contact Quarterly, Porn Free, and other publications.

Don Shewey is a writer, therapist, and pleasure activist in New York City. As a journalist and critic, he has published three books about theater and written hundreds of articles for the New York Times, the Village Voice, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He has chronicled his psycho-sexual-spiritual adventures in essays that have been included in numerous anthologies, including The Politics of Manhood, Best of the Best Gay Erotica, The Queerest Art: Essays on Gay and Lesbian Theater, and Men Like Us: the GMHC Guide to Gay Men’s Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Well-Being. An archive of his writing is available online at donshewey.com. His psychotherapy practice specializes in sex and intimacy coaching.

Here Nor There–Online Fantasies/Offline Reality Photo Book Launch Party
2018-09-21 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join image-based artist, Sam Rosenthal, for the of launch his newest photo book, Here Nor There, published by bd-studios.com. Rosenthal presents a selection of images appropriated from “netcams” and talks social alienation and the refuge he found on the Internet.
Reception at 7pm, artist presentation at 7:30pm followed by Q&A and mingling! Please email samrosenthalphoto@gmail.com to reserve a copy of Here Nor There.

Sam Rosenthal (b. 1994) is an image-based artist examining Queerness in context of the digital age. He uses electronics, both modern and obsolete, to define the mutability of an image by employing unconventional, and often, experimental modes of processing. These methods include the exploitation of internet camera networks, data and signal manipulation, and scanography to represent his Queer experience.

TELL 46: The Time of Your Life
2018-09-15 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.
The Time of Your Life is the theme for the 46th installment of TELL. Featuring Vie Paula, Lorena Russi, and Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li.

$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. 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.

South Bronx bred, performance fed, Vie Paula is a Caretaker, Thing Maker, Singer/Songwriter, and Licensed Massage Therapist striving to learn how to tell the whole truth and spend as much time as possible with their roommate’s cat. With night life entertainment in the far away past and a recent foray into all things extra, Vie wants to see you and be seen by you. They are currently working on staying connected and engaged, figuring out what fun is, and creating a life worth staying awake for.

Lorena Russi is a comedian-actor-videographer centaur whose experience ranges from 8 years in improv/sketch comedy to head writer for Spotify’s web series to a career as a pro soccer player.

Originally from Taiwan, Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li earned his Master’s degree in Performance Studies at New York University. He works as director, playwright, performer, and performance artist, having created projects addressed upon sexuality, philosophy, and politics, to give his unique perspectives on time, space, and power relations. His thesis performance piece “Kiss Me, so I am Queer”, curated by Chashama, talks about the temporality of queerness and the social construction of queer identity. Currently, he is the Associate Artistic Director of the Living Theatre, and the New York Directing fellow of Drama League.

Nurse Jackie, Therapies and Histories: Book Launch Party
2018-09-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
UK academic Christopher Pullen, Queens College academic Noah Tsika and TV historian Steven Capsuto, invite you to their book launch party.
At the event, Chris will launch his new book Heroism, Celebrity and Therapy in Nurse Jackie exploring the potential of the TV series to offer therapy, whilst framing the significance of its leading actor Edie Falco. Noah is launching his new book Traumatic Imprints: Cinema, Military Psychiatry, and the Aftermath of War, which explores the historical significance of film to rehabilitate soldiers and civilians during and after World War II. Steven shares his new work in updating his landmark book (originally released in 2000) Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television: 1930’s to the Present.

Presentation 1 by Christopher Pullen
The Irresistible addiction of TV’s Nurse Jackie, and the Transcendent Potential of Edie Falco
Chris’s presentation explores his research process in developing his new book: Heroism, Celebrity and Therapy in Nurse Jackie. He examines key storylines within Nurse Jackie, while relating the significance of heroism, the context of celebrity culture and the significance of therapy, and social action.
Chris has chosen to launch this book at the Bureau, not only for its New York setting (where Nurse Jackie takes place), but also due to the proximity of the now sadly lost Saint Vincent’s Hospital. Chris argues not only that the hospital may have been the inspiration for the series, but also that its star Edie Falco, and its main screenwriters Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem, relate their own experiences of addiction in producing such an engaging television event
Nurse Jackie’s exploration of prescription drug addiction, relating both the challenge to healthcare workers who become addicted often in trying to meet the demands of the job, and the interaction with family and community members who often are unable to comprehend the addict’s life, reveals the rich complexity of the series and its continuing value. For queer and ‘not so queer’ audiences, Edie Falco’s performance as Nurse Jackie speaks directly to the human condition and the context of the outsider and the ‘other’, revealing both our vulnerability, but also our inherent connectedness. Nurse Jackie reveals a need for society, and for individuals, to take action.
Through exploring how Chris researched the story of Nurse Jackie relating his own identification with the series, this book event offers something for existing fans of the series, and those who may never have heard of Nurse Jackie, possibly not realising that TV could be so immersive and meaningful.
Discounted copies of the book will be available at BGSQD.

Christopher Pullen is widely published on queer identity in the media, including a number of authored books such as Documenting Gay Men: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and Documentary Film (2007), Gay Identity, New Storytelling and the Media (2012), Straight Girls and Queer Guys: The Hetero Media Gaze in Film and Television (2016) and Pedro Zamora, Sexuality, and AIDS Education: The Autobiographical Self, Activism and The Real World (2016). Also he has also produced a number of edited collections: LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media (2012), Queer Youth and Media Cultures (2014), LGBT Identity and Online New Media – with Margaret Cooper (2010) and Queer Love in Film and Television – with Pamela Demory (2013).

Presentation 2 by Noah Tsika
Traumatic Imprints: Cinema, Military Psychiatry, and the Aftermath of War
‪Forced to contend with unprecedented levels of psychological trauma during World War II, the United States military began sponsoring a series of nontheatrical films designed to educate and even rehabilitate soldiers and civilians alike. Traumatic Imprints traces the development of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic approaches to wartime trauma by the United States military, along with links to formal and narrative developments in military and civilian filmmaking. Offering close readings of a series of films alongside analysis of period scholarship in psychiatry and bolstered by research in trauma theory and documentary studies, Noah Tsika argues that trauma was foundational in postwar American culture. Examining wartime and postwar debates about the use of cinema as a vehicle for studying, publicizing, and even what has been termed “working through” war trauma, this book is an original contribution to scholarship on the military-industrial complex.

Noah Tsika is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. Among his books are Nollywood Stars and Pink 2.0.

Presentation 3 by Steven Capsuto
Revisiting Alternate Channels
Steven Capsuto is now preparing a revised edition of his acclaimed book Alternate Channels: an activist history of lesbian and gay images in 20th-century broadcasting. The book also documents prime-time bisexual and transgender characters, though these were exceedingly scarce in that era.

Alternate Channels draws on the author’s interviews with TV producers, script writers, show runners, and pioneering lesbian and gay activists, as well as network censors’ notes, and documentation of Religious Right crusades against queer visibility. While preparing the book, Steven also collected notes on more than 4,000 relevant broadcasts dating from 1930 to 2000. He contextualizes the on-air depictions within the changing status of sexual minorities in American culture over those 70 years.

Steven Capsuto is an independent scholar who presents video-illustrated lectures about American television’s portrayal of LGBT lives. His book on that subject, Alternate Channels, was a semi-finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in 2001. He began researching queer television images in the 1980s while volunteering at a crisis hotline. Many of the callers were suicidal gay teens who had built their self-image on the grim depictions seen on television at that time. Steven has contributed media-history articles to periodicals and reference books, has presented papers at academic conferences in several countries, and served on the research teams for documentaries seen on PBS and Bravo cable. He was the head archivist of the GLBT Archives of Philadelphia from 1997 to 2003. In his day job, he is a translator. He recently translated Manuel Ángel Soriano’s book Homophobia in 1970s Spain into English for the Egales publishing company.

Affirmative Laughter
2018-09-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe brings some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.

The September 13th edition will feature:
Chewy May
Camille Theobald
Sarah Kennedy
Yedoye Travis
Venessa Peruda

Red Hen Press at the Bureau
2018-09-12 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
We are sorry to report that Amber Flora Thomas will not be able to join the Red Hen Press reading tonight, but two poets have joined the line-up. So please join us for a poetry reading featuring Corrina Bain, Michael Broder, Jason Schneiderman, and tammy lynne stoner.

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 collection Debridement (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.

Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books, 2016) and This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He holds a BA from Columbia University, an MFA from New York University, and a PhD in Classics from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Michael is the founding publisher of Indolent Books, the founding director of the Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, and the founding director of the HIV Here & Now project. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

Jason Schneiderman is Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly and Poetry Editor of Bellevue Literary Review. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn.

tammy lynne stoner’s work has been selected for more than a dozen anthologies and literary journals. Stemming from what her grandmother calls her “gypsy blood,” tammy has lived in 15 cities, working as a biscuit maker, a medical experimentee, a forklift operator, a gas station attendant, and a college instructor—among other odd jobs. She is also the creator of Dottie’s Magic Pockets, and the publisher of Gertrude, and wrangle of the GERTIE book club, based in Portland, OR, where she lives with her lady-friend, Karena, and their three kids. You can find her at TammyLynneStoner.com.

Sophie Labelle in NYC - US tour 2018 - Assigned Male comics
2018-09-09 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Sophie Labelle, the pink-haired French Canadian cartoonist of Assigned Male comics, will launch her new comic book Trans-Lucid and her American tour at the Bureau! Come and get your books signed. The event is kid friendly!

Seeing Ourselves: Cast of Characters
2018-09-08 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Featuring portraits by over 100 queer artists, Cast of Characters celebrates and honors queer people. Liz Collins conceived of this exhibition as a kind of family portrait, a “family of queers.” As we approach the end of the exhibition, Collins and the Bureau bring together a few of the participating artists to discuss how we look, individually and collectively.

What do the portraits in Cast of Characters reveal about queer people and queer communities? How do we picture and present ourselves and the queer communities to which we belong? What does it mean to see ourselves as queer people, and how do our identities as queer people inform our ways of living in the world?
What can we learn from the inviting, playful, and colorful environment that Collins created for the portraits in Cast of Characters? How do we make space for ourselves in contexts that are hostile to our very existence? Nearly 50 years after the Stonewall rebellion, what can we learn from our history and what futures do we envision?
Join us for a lively discussion about the exhibition, the portraits, and queer utopian visions!

Liz Collins and Greg Newton, co-founder of the Bureau, will be joined in conversation by the following artists:
Nayland Blake
Deborah Bright
Barbara Hammer
John Kelly
Myles Loftin

This event will take place in room 301 of The LGBT Community Center. ADA Accessible.

Reception 5 to 6
Panel Discussion followed by Q&A 6 to 7:30
Celebration 7:30 to 9

Installation view: Regan Wood Studio

Stephen S. Mills's and Robert Siek's Books Launch Party
2018-09-07 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join Stephen S. Mills and Robert Siek to celebrate the release of their new poetry collections, Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution and We Go Seasonal, both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. Mills and Siek will each read poems from their new books, and then folks are welcome to hang out, meet the poets, buy books, have fun.

Stephen S. Mills is the author of the Lambda Award–winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices and A History of the Unmarried, both from Sibling Rivalry Press. He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Knockout, The Rumpus, and others. He is also the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award and the 2014 Christopher Hewitt Award for Fiction. His third poetry collection Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution releases September 4, 2018, from Sibling Rivalry Press. He lives in New York City with his partner and two schnauzers. Website: https://www.stephensmills.com/

Robert Siek is the author of the poetry collections Purpose and Devil Piss (2013) and We Go Seasonal (2018), both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. His chapbook Clubbed Kid was published by New School University in 2002. His poetry has most recently appeared in Yes Poetry, The Columbia Poetry Review, Impossible Archetype, Court Green, The Good Men Project, Bushwick Daily, visceral brooklyn, and NANCY, as well as the Brooklyn Poets Anthology. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Her
2018-09-05 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please join us for Her (2013), written and directed by Spike Jonze, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlet Johansson.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.

Synopsis: In the near future, a lonely man going through a divorce falls in love with an operating system.
Running time: 2 hour 6 minutes.

Hot August Night: Readings in Lust and Desire
2018-08-22 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Christopher Stoddard, Philip F. Clark, and Tom Cardamone share recent work exploring the darker side of gay life and New York City in all it’s sweaty allure.

Christopher Stoddard’s new novel At Night Only from Itna Press released this June, which has been praised by Kirkus, Lambda Literary, and authors Edmund White and Gary Indiana. Featured in OUT Magazine’s “Tastemakers” issue in 2015 for his contributions to LGBT literature and publishing, he’s written two other novels: Limiters (Itna Press, 2014), and White, Christian (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Philip F. Clark, a native New Yorker, received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry at City College, New York, in 2016, where he is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in English. He was the graduate editor of The Promethean Literary Journal. His poetry has been published in Assaracus Journal of Gay Poetry, The Good Men Project, “Between: New Gay Poetry, published by Chelsea Station Editions, The HIV HERE AND NOW Project, and most recently, Transition: Poems In the Aftermath, published by Indolent Press. His poetry reviews and interviews have been published in Lambda Literary. His blog The Poet’s Grin can be seen at https://philipfclark.wordpress.com His current debut volume of poetry The Carnival of Affection, is published by Sibling Rivalry Press. It was a winner of the Jerome Lowell De Jur Award for Poetry in 2016.

Tom Cardamone is the author of the erotic fantasy novel The Lurid Sea and the Lambda Literary Award-winning speculative novella Green Thumb as well as other works of fiction. Additionally, he has edited The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered and The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy! You can read more about him and his writings at www.pumpkinteeth.net.

We're Still Here East Coast Launch Party!
2018-08-18 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
Stacked Deck Press takes Manhattan! Come to the East Coast Launch Party for We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division! Join Jeanne Thornton and Tara Madison Avery for trans comics and adult refreshments! Get your copy of this groundbreaking anthology at the Bureau!
To reserve a copy of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology please email the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com. Thank you!

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Monogamish
2018-07-18 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please note that the first Wednesday (our regularly scheduled night) is the 4th of July so we are meeting on July 18th.
Please join us for Monogamish (2014), directed by Tao Ruspoli and featuring interviews with Dan Savage, Stephanie Coontz, and Christopher Ryan.
We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: After going through a difficult divorce, director Tao Ruspoli examines monogamy and relationships through interviews with relationship experts, his family, and his neighbors. Running time: 1 hour 13 minutes.

BESPOKE: Post-Pride Edition
2018-06-28 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
BESPOKE: Post-Pride Edition. Get your rainbow raiments ready! (Be sure to roll those r’s while doing so.) It’s time, as Gwendolyn Brooks wrote, to “jazz June!” On Thursday, June 28 the Bureau will feature Dreya St. Clair, Alejandro Morales, and Thomas March at Bespoke, a bimonthly queer series where featured readers dress fun, fancy, or flirtatious, while supporting the Bureau and resisting fascism. Our sinfully sartorial series presents fashionable femmes, dapper dykes, chic twinks, trendy trans* folk, & frothy FTMs. Featured writers are encouraged to suit up or dress down : readers’ choice.

Open mic readers: whose name shall be drawn from the rainbow top hat this month? General attendees: which incredible edibles from Dylan’s Candy Bar will find their way to the insatiate maws of our deviant demimonde?

Your hosts are the sinfully sartorial trio Christina “CQ” Quintana (writer/ playwright/ dyke about town), Tim Murphy (longtime LGBTQ journalist, activist and author of the novel Christodora), Jerome Ellison Murphy (poet, critic and NYU Creative Writing Program administrator) who invite you to turn out in your Thursday best (dressing up is welcome & encouraged, not mandatory) every other month for drinks and chat before & after our reading.

Dréya St. Clair is an interdisciplinary, Jamaican-born, transgender woman actor, artist, writer, activist and nonprofit fundraising professional. She holds an Honors B.A. in Sexuality and Society from Brown University, an MA and MFA, respectively in Performance Studies from New York Univeristy/Tisch School of the Arts and in Acting from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Her visual art has been seen in museums, NYC galleries and in permanent exhibits and collections.
St. Clair has performed on regional and off-Broadway stages, in film and video and is SAG-AFTRA eligible.
She is based in New York, NY. Reach her on Twitter and Instagram @DreyaStClair

Originally from Springfield, IL, Thomas March is a poet, teacher and critic based in New York City. His poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Good Men Project, Pleiades, and Public Pool, among others. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Believer, The Huffington Post, and New Letters. Appearing regularly in Lambda Literary Review, his poetry column, “Appreciations,” offers appreciative close readings of excellent poems from recent collections by LGBTQ poets. A past recipient of the Norma Millay Ellis Fellowship in Poetry, from the Millay Colony for the Arts, he has also received an Artist/Writer grant from The Vermont Studio Center. In recent years, he has written and performed monologues at a number of venues in New York City, including Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, The Peoples Improv Theater, and Sid Gold’s Request Room. Aftermath, his first poetry collection, was selected by Joan Larkin for The Word Works Hilary Tham Capital Collection.

A former playwright, Alejandro Morales’s plays have been presented and developed at theaters such as INTAR, South Coast Repertory, HERE Arts Center, Mabou Mines and The Public Theater, where he was a 2008 Emerging Writer. He is the recipient of a Van Lier Fellowship, the Whitfield Cook Award and an Overall Achievement Award from the New York International Fringe Festival for his play expat/inferno. His plays have been published by NoPassport Press and excerpts from his first novel The Furies of Hialeah have been published in ImageOut Write and Callisto. He was also a runner up for litrejections.com’s Story Prize. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a former Co-Artistic Director of Packawallop Productions, an independent theater company he cofounded and helped run for 20 years. He is currently at work on his second novel.

Aural Fixation: A Post-Pride Fiction Extravaganza
2018-06-26 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Ready for summer? We know we are. Please join us for an evening of sultry tales and sizzling yarns as authors VIET DINH (After Disasters), DENNIS NORRIS (“Food 4 THOT”), ERIC SASSON (Admissions, Margins of Tolerance), and JONATHAN VATNER (Carnegie Hill) provide the aural delights. Your ears will never be the same.

Photograph by Martirene Alcantara

Eric Sasson is the author of the short story collection Margins of Tolerance and the novel Admissions. His stories have been nominated for the Robert Olen Butler prize, the Pushcart prize, and one is in The Best Gay Stories 2013. For three years, he wrote “Ctrl-Alt,” a column on LGBT culture for the Wall Street Journal, and he is now a regular contributor to Vice, The New Republic and GOOD magazine. His articles have been featured on “Meet the Press” and “Morning Joe Scarborough,” and in February 2017, he was part of the team that was awarded the National Magazine award “Ellie” for Personal Service. Other publication credits include pieces in them., Salon, Five Points, William and Mary Review, The Puritan, BLOOM and Nashville Review. He received his MA in Creative Writing from NYU and has taught fiction writing for the Sackett Street Writers Workshop in Brooklyn, where he was born, bred, and still resides.

Jonathan Vatner is the author of Carnegie Hill, a novel about life and death in a luxe Upper East Side co-op building, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press in 2019. His stories have been published in Confrontation, Jonathan, Chelsea Station, and the Best Gay Stories anthology. A journalist for the past 16 years, he works as the staff writer for Hue, the magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology. He has an MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Harvard University in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Viet Dinh was born in Vietnam and grew up in Colorado. He attended Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston and currently teaches at the University of Delaware. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Delaware Division of the Arts, as well as an O. Henry Prize and the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction. His stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Witness, Fence, Five Points, Chicago Review, the Threepenny Review, and Best American Non-Required Reading 2017, and his debut novel, After Disasters, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, was released in 2016.

Dennis Norris II is a 2017 MacDowell Colony Fellow, a 2016 Tin House Scholar, and a 2015 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. They are the author of Awst Collection—Dennis Norris II a chapbook published by Awst Press, and other writing appears in Apogee Journal andSmokeLong Quarterly. Their story, “Where Every Boy is Known and Loved” was recently named as a Finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Anthology, forthcoming from Braddock Avenue Books, and their story “Last Rites” appears in the collection “Everyday People: The Color of Life”, forthcoming in August 2018 from the Atria Books imprint of Simon and Schuster. They currently serve as Fiction Editor at Apogee Journal, Assistant Fiction Editor at The Rumpus, and co-host of the popular podcast Food 4 Thot. You can find more information at their website: www.dennisnorrisii.com.

Bold Strokes Books Pride Reading
2018-06-19 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
To celebrate Pride in NYC Bold Strokes Books is proud to present an array of talented, queer writers reading from across genres at the Bureau!

Ann Aptaker will read from Criminal Gold
Tom Cardamone will read from The Lurid Sea
Nora Olsen will read from Frenemy of the People
Andrew J. Peters will read from The Sim Ru Prophecy
Alexa Black will read from The Outcasts
Nell Stark will read from The Princess Deception

Public Opening Reception for Cast of Characters
2018-06-15 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Cast of Characters
An Immersive Exhibition by Liz Collins
June 14 – September 16, 2018
Download the press release for Cast of Characters.
Donors reception
Thursday, June 14, 2018, 6-9 PM
(for donors of $85 or more to Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign)
Kickstarter campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st. Thanks to all who donated!!!
Public opening reception:
Friday, June 15, 2018, 6-9 PM
RSVP required for Public Opening Reception.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are much appreciated!
Please RSVP here.

Exhibition
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Room 210, LGBT Community Center
VIP Donors Reception (June 14) and Public Reception (June 15)
Room 101, LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present Cast of Characters, a dramatic transformation of the Bureau by artist Liz Collins featuring a salon-style exhibition of portraits by 95 LGBTQ artists. Inspired by lavishly decorated and richly ornamented nineteenth-century libraries and salons, this immersive installation brings vibrant colors, dynamic geometric patterns, and lush textures to the Bureau’s utilitarian aesthetic of plywood and cardboard. The exhibition will transform the Bureau into a warm, bright lounge, inspiring contemplation and conversation, beckoning visitors to linger, look, and read.
Made possible by a grant from The Kors Le Pere Foundation and by individual donations to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign.
In order to attend the VIP Donors Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters please donate $85 or more to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign by the deadline of Thursday, May 31, 2018. Please select the appropriate reward in order to attend. Thank you for your support! Kickstarter campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st. Thanks to all who donated!!!
Exhibiting artists

Paula Allen
Lani Asuncion
Aziz + Cucher
Shimon Attie
Hannah Barrett
Nayland Blake
Marissa Bluestone
Chris Bogia
Justin Vivian Bond
Deborah Bright
Nancy Brooks Brody
Dietmar Busse
Nao Bustamante
Jai Carrillo
Anna Campbell
Cassils
Geoffrey Chadsey
Caroline Wells Chandler
Kyle Coniglio
Marco DaSilva
Niko Darling
Leah DeVun
Katrina del Mar
KD Diamond
Vincent Dilio
Angela Dufresne
Nicole Eisenman
Scott Ewalt
Alesia Exum
Avram Finkelstein
C. Finley
Daphne Fitzpatrick
Lola Flash
Chitra Ganesh
Andrea Geyer
Gary Graham
Stephanie Gudra
Martine Gutierrez
Barbara Hammer
Michelle Handelman
Jesse Harrod
Clarity Haynes
Karen Heagle
Mars Hobrecker
Elizabeth Insogna
Rindon Johnson
John Kelly
Amanda Kirkhuff
Carmelle La Sirena
Kia LaBeija
Doron Langberg
Rebecca Levi
Myles Loftin
Shelley Marlow
Rodolfo Marron III
Aaron McIntosh
Eric McNatt
Bobbi Menuez
Lucas Michael
Troy Michie
Midori
Rodrigo Moreira
Carlos Motta
Zanele Muholi
Em North
Samantha Nye
Sig Olson
Alice O’Malley
Allison Michael Orenstein
Maia Cruz Palileo
Anna Parisi
Vick Quezada
LJ Roberts
Jason Rodgers
Gabriel García Román
JD Samson
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
M. Sharkey
Lauryn Siegel & Virgil B/G Taylor
Charan Singh
SKOTE (Alex P White & Jill Pangallo)
Buzz Slutzky
Tuesday Smillie
Allison Smith
Pamela Sneed
Alexander Stadler
A.K. Summers
Aarav Sundaresh
Corinne Teed
Gail Thacker
Mickalene Thomas
Vincent Tiley
Boris Torres
Nicola Tyson
Conrad Ventur
Mickey Vered
Courtney Webster & Meg Turner
Ketch Wehr
Matthew Weinstein

Liz Collins is an artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, NY, and in her work surrounds the viewer in vibrating color and pattern fields to explore the boundaries between painting, fiber arts and installation. The cacophonic play of optics, texture, color and scale recreates her wavering experience of the world as a place of stupendous wonder and cosmic energy.
Collins has had solo exhibitions at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Heller Gallery, NY; AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee to name a few. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions including at the ICA/Boston; Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; the Museum of FIT; the New Museum; the Museum of Arts and Design and MoMA, and numerous group shows at galleries around the world. Collins’ awards include a USA Fellowship, a MacColl Johnson Fellowship, and residencies at AIR Alaska, Haystack, MacDowell, the Siena Art Institute, Stoneleaf, Yaddo, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She is a Queer Art Mentor, serves on the board of the Fire Island Art Residency, is a new member of the Exhibitions Committee at the Leslie Lohman Museum, and is one of the artists in the 2018-2020 Open Sessions program at the Drawing Center.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space that opened in New York City in 2012 and has been hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center since 2014. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting a wide variety of cultural events, including readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing.

Established in 1983, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center empowers people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center celebrates diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity. Each year, The Center welcomes more than 300,000 visits to our building in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan from people who engage in our life-changing and life-saving activities. To learn more about our work, please visit gaycenter.org.

Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
@The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 210
NY, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesdays—Sundays, 1-7 PM. Closed Mondays.
Summer hours (July & August): Wednesdays—Saturdays, 1-7 PM.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, & Sundays.
Image credit:
Wallpaper designed by Liz Collins, produced by 4Spaces
Portraits by:
top row: Shelley Marlow, Cassils, Lani Asuncion
middle row: Dietmar Busse, Martine Gutierrez, Zanele Muholi
Bottom row: Nao Bustamante, Hannah Barrett, Paula Allen

VIP and Press Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters
2018-06-14 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Cast of Characters
An Immersive Exhibition by Liz Collins
June 14 – September 16, 2018
Download the press release for Cast of Characters.
Donors reception
Thursday, June 14, 2018, 6-9 PM
(for donors of $85 or more to Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign—(campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st)
Press Preview
Members of the press will be admitted to the exhibition at 5 PM on Thursday, June 14th. Please contact Greg Newton at contact@bgsqd.com with the subject line “RSVP for Press Preview of Cast of Characters” and please include your affiliation.
Public opening reception:
Friday, June 15, 2018, 6-9 PM
RSVP required for Public Opening Reception.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are much appreciated!
Please RSVP here.
EXHIBITION
BUREAU OF GENERAL SERVICES—QUEER DIVISION
ROOM 210, LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER
VIP Donors Reception (June 14) and Public Reception (June 15)
ROOM 101, LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER
208 WEST 13TH STREET
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present Cast of Characters, a dramatic transformation of the Bureau by artist Liz Collins featuring a salon-style exhibition of portraits by 95 LGBTQ artists. Inspired by lavishly decorated and richly ornamented nineteenth-century libraries and salons, this immersive installation brings vibrant colors, dynamic geometric patterns, and lush textures to the Bureau’s utilitarian aesthetic of plywood and cardboard. The exhibition will transform the Bureau into a warm, bright lounge, inspiring contemplation and conversation, beckoning visitors to linger, look, and read.
Made possible by a grant from The Kors Le Pere Foundation and by individual donations to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign.
In order to attend the VIP Donors Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters please donate $85 or more to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign by the deadline of Thursday, May 31, 2018. Campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st,

Exhibiting artists

Paula Allen
Lani Asuncion
Aziz + Cucher
Shimon Attie
Hannah Barrett
Nayland Blake
Marissa Bluestone
Chris Bogia
Justin Vivian Bond
Deborah Bright
Nancy Brooks Brody
Dietmar Busse
Nao Bustamante
Jai Carrillo
Anna Campbell
Cassils
Geoffrey Chadsey
Caroline Wells Chandler
Kyle Coniglio
Marco DaSilva
Niko Darling
Leah DeVun
Katrina del Mar
KD Diamond
Vincent Dilio
Angela Dufresne
Nicole Eisenman
Scott Ewalt
Alesia Exum
Avram Finkelstein
C. Finley
Daphne Fitzpatrick
Lola Flash
Chitra Ganesh
Andrea Geyer
Gary Graham
Stephanie Gudra
Martine Gutierrez
Barbara Hammer
Michelle Handelman
Jesse Harrod
Clarity Haynes
Karen Heagle
Mars Hobrecker
Elizabeth Insogna
Rindon Johnson
John Kelly
Amanda Kirkhuff
Carmelle La Sirena
Kia LaBeija
Doron Langberg
Rebecca Levi
Myles Loftin
Shelley Marlow
Rodolfo Marron III
Aaron McIntosh
Eric McNatt
Bobbi Menuez
Lucas Michael
Troy Michie
Midori
Rodrigo Moreira
Carlos Motta
Zanele Muholi
Em North
Samantha Nye
Sig Olson
Alice O’Malley
Allison Michael Orenstein
Maia Cruz Palileo
Anna Parisi
Vick Quezada
LJ Roberts
Jason Rodgers
Gabriel García Román
JD Samson
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
M. Sharkey
Lauryn Siegel & Virgil B/G Taylor
Charan Singh
SKOTE (Alex P White & Jill Pangallo)
Buzz Slutzky
Tuesday Smillie
Allison Smith
Pamela Sneed
Alexander Stadler
A.K. Summers
Aarav Sundaresh
Corinne Teed
Gail Thacker
Mickalene Thomas
Vincent Tiley
Boris Torres
Nicola Tyson
Conrad Ventur
Mickey Vered
Courtney Webster & Meg Turner
Ketch Wehr
Matthew Weinstein

Liz Collins is an artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, NY, and in her work surrounds the viewer in vibrating color and pattern fields to explore the boundaries between painting, fiber arts and installation. The cacophonic play of optics, texture, color and scale recreates her wavering experience of the world as a place of stupendous wonder and cosmic energy.
Collins has had solo exhibitions at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Heller Gallery, NY; AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee to name a few. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions including at the ICA/Boston; Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; the Museum of FIT; the New Museum; the Museum of Arts and Design and MoMA, and numerous group shows at galleries around the world. Collins’ awards include a USA Fellowship, a MacColl Johnson Fellowship, and residencies at AIR Alaska, Haystack, MacDowell, the Siena Art Institute, Stoneleaf, Yaddo, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She is a Queer Art Mentor, serves on the board of the Fire Island Art Residency, is a new member of the Exhibitions Committee at the Leslie Lohman Museum, and is one of the artists in the 2018-2020 Open Sessions program at the Drawing Center.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space that opened in New York City in 2012 and has been hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center since 2014. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting a wide variety of cultural events, including readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing.

Established in 1983, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center empowers people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center celebrates diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity. Each year, The Center welcomes more than 300,000 visits to our building in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan from people who engage in our life-changing and life-saving activities. To learn more about our work, please visit gaycenter.org.
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
@The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 210
NY, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesdays—Sundays, 1-7 PM. Closed Mondays.
Summer hours (July & August): Wednesdays—Saturdays, 1-7 PM.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, & Sundays.
Image credit:
Wallpaper designed by Liz Collins, produced by 4Spaces
Portraits by:
top row: Shelley Marlow, Cassils, Lani Asuncion
middle row: Dietmar Busse, Martine Gutierrez, Zanele Muholi
Bottom row: Nao Bustamante, Hannah Barrett, Paula Allen

Indolent Books Pride Poetry Reading
2018-06-10 15:00 - 16:30 | NY
Join Indolent Books for a celebration of Queer Pride with readings by Risa Denenberg, Kay Gabriel, Jason Schneiderman, Grey Vild, and Jayson P. Smith.

Risa Denenberg is the author of three chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, including “Whirlwind @ Lesbos” (Headmistress Press, 2016) and “slight faith” (MoonPath Press, 2018). She currently lives a quiet life on the Olympic peninsula in Washington State. A member of ACTUP NY and a volunteer at the Community Health Project from 1987-1995, she worked for many years as a nurse practitioner in HIV/AIDS and end-of-life care. She is co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press, a publisher of LBT poetry. Online at risadenenberg.weebly.com.

Kay Gabriel is the author of Elegy Department Spring (BOAAT Press, 2017), finalist for the 2016 BOAAT chapbook prize selected by Richard Siken. She is one-fifth of Negative Press, a gay Marxist poetry collective, and co-edits Vetch: A Journal of Trans Poetry and Poetics. Find her recent and forthcoming writing in Lambda Literary Poetry Spotlight, Salvage, TAGVVERK, Tripwire, The Believer and
elsewhere. Twitter: @unit01barbie.

Grey Vild is a Queer Art Mentorship & Brooklyn Poets fellow. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Them, Fault, Elderly, Vetch, and Winter Tangerine. He is beginning his MFA at Rutgers University and is working on his first collection of poems, The M4T Files.

Jason Schneiderman is the author of Primary Source (Red Hen Press 2016), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Prize; Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press 2010), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize, and Sublimation Point (Four Way Books 2004), a Stahlecker Selection. He edited the anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press 2015). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has received He fellowships from Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center, and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, as well as the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is Poetry Editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, and Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly. He is an Associate Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

Jayson P Smith is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Their work appears in publications such as West Branch, 92Y, Gulf Coast, Nepantla, Vinyl, fields magazine, & The Offing. Jayson has received previous support from The Poetry Project, The Conversation Literary Festival, Callaloo, & Millay Colony for the Arts. Jayson currently lives/works in Brooklyn as founder of NOMAD Reading Series and a Spark House teaching artist.

TELL 45: Lost and Found
2018-06-09 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.
Lost and Found is the theme for the 45th installment of TELL. Featuring Maybe Burke, Thomas Dolan, Ronnie Mae Painter, and Melissa Rocha.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. 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.

Maybe Burke is a New York based theatre artist and trans advocate interested in telling the stories that haven’t been told. They are excited by new material that can honestly and realistically portray marginalized groups of people. They have worked with Joe’s Pub, Cherry Lane Theatre, Ars Nova, La Mama, HERE Arts Center, The Flea, The Duplex, and more. Maybe is a co-curator of the Trans Theatre Festival at The Brick and the founder of The Trans Literacy Project. Artistic Associate, Honest Accomplice Theatre. BA Directing, Pace University. maybeburke.com @believeinmaybe

Thomas Dolan is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at George Washington University, focusing on Middle Eastern diaspora and race. A recent recipient of the Calouste Gulbenkian Global Excellence Scholarship, Thomas’ research has also been supported by the Institute for Middle East Studies, Dr. Philip M. Kayal Fund for Arab American Research, Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, Bentley Historical Library Bordin-Gillette Fellowship, Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. He is an alumnus of NYU, the New School’s Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, and Yale University. Last semester, Thomas was a visiting researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and has recently published in Huffington Post, Muftah, and HowlRound. Prior to returning to graduate school, Thomas performed and produced work at Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Studio 54, among others.

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.

Melissa Rocha is a brooklyn based comic. She’s very nice and is looking forward to spending the evening with you.

On Euphoria: A closing celebration with Jarrett Key, Anuradha Golder, and Marco DaSilva
2018-06-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
For the closing of Marco DaSilva‘s solo exhibition No Reason To Be Careful, please join us on Friday, June 8th, for an evening of performance and celebration at the Bureau in response to the notion of Euphoria. With performance pieces by Jarrett Key, Marco DaSilva and music by Anuradha Golder.

Marco DaSilva‘s No Reason To Be Careful remains on view at the Bureau until Sunday, June 10th.

Jarrett Key was born in Seale, AL. Key attended Brown University where they studied Theater Arts and Public Policy. Since moving to New York, Key has been featured in exhibitions and residencies at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, La MaMaGalleria, The Columbus Museum, Gallery 67, Swiss House/MGLC, Galerija Kresija, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, Caelum Gallery, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Outlet Fine Art, Former Pfizer Pharmaceutical Factory, Secret Dungeon, La Maison D’Art, Shanghai Theater Academy, and East Meet West Gallery. Key has work is in the collections of the Schomburg Center, MoMa Library, The Metropolitan Museum of ArtLibrary, among other institutions. The HAIR PAINTING series has been featured at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Harlem Arts Festival in Marcus Garvey Park, as well on television: SLAY TV, and CBS 2 NYC. Key will be moving back to Providence to pursue an MFA in Painting at RISD.

Anuradha Golder is a Bronx-based, Bangladeshi-born DJ, curator, playwright, organizer, and zine-maker. Sonically, she plays around with Afro-diasporic and indigenous-to-the-Americas instrument samples. She has performed with the Buenos-Aires political arts collective Hiedrah as well as their sister group Salviatek in Montevideo. Golder also spearheads the multi-lingual Club Etiquette zine, which focuses on issues both broad and trivial that rise in nightlife and set tangible guidelines practiced at their accompanying parties. She has a BFA in Theatre with a concentration in Playwriting from Barnard College.

Marco DaSilva is a native New Yorker whose symbol-based paintings explore hybridity through the intersections of his Brazilian-American, queer identity and manic experience. He has exhibited works at The Brecht Forum, IMAGE Gallery, Heath Gallery, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art among many others. Last year he was a NYFA Artist as Entrepreneur fellow and is currently a Visual Arts fellow for Queer Art Mentorship’s 2017-2018 cycle. He creates work at his studio in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Marco has a BFA in Painting and Drawing from SUNY New Paltz.
While in the waiting room at Bellevue Hospital in his manic state, DaSilva was extremely hyper and had an unlimited supply of uninhibited energy. While listening to his party playlist through big headphones, he danced uncontrollably, sweating non-stop for hours while everyone sat and stared. In this state he felt like a star, and loved every moment of it. DaSilva will recreate this manic dance in the waiting room at the Bureau. While he will be listen to his own music, the audience will listen to an audio recording of his self- published manic book of poetry, My Quaint Struggle. These poems were mini- epiphanies DaSilva had and wrote down in this euphoric state when he did not sleep for four days straight.

Book launch of Patrick E. Horrigan's novel PENNSYLVANIA STATION
2018-06-07 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A party and reading to mark the publication of the novel PENNSYLVANIA STATION (Lethe Press) by Patrick E. Horrigan

Copies of Pennsylvania Station are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Photograph by Frank Marando

Born and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, Patrick E. Horrigan is the author of the novel PORTRAITS AT AN EXHIBITION (Lethe Press), about a young man’s search for the meaning of life amid a gallery of old master portraits. PORTRAITS won the Dana Award for fiction as well as the Mary Lynn Kotz Art-in-Literature Award, sponsored by the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He is also the author of WIDESCREEN DREAMS: GROWING UP GAY AT THE MOVIES (University of Wisconsin Press), an analysis of several popular films from the 1960s and 70s. He has written artists’ catalogue essays for Thion’s LIMI-TATE: DRAWINGS OF LIFE AND DREAMS (cueB Gallery, London) and Ernesto Pujol’s LOSS OF FAITH (Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York). His essay “The Inner Life of Ordinary People” appears in Anthony Enns’ and Christopher R. Smit’s SCREENING DISABILITY: ESSAYS ON CINEMA AND DISABILITY (University Press of America). His play MESSAGES FOR GARY, composed entirely of answering machine messages received by the activist and socialist scholar Gary Lucek, was a critically-acclaimed hit of the Third Annual New York International Fringe Festival. With his husband, the actor and writer Eduardo Leanez, he co-wrote the solo show YOU ARE CONFUSED! about the relationship between a gay Venezuelan boy and his charismatic mother. He and Mr. Leanez are the hosts of ACTORS WITH ACCENTS, a recurring variety show on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Winner of Long Island University’s David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, he is Associate Professor of English at LIU Brooklyn. He lives in Manhattan.

Book cover design by Franco La Russa, aka Thion

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Mediterranean Food
2018-06-06 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please join us for Mediterranean Food/Dieta Mediterránea (2009), directed by Joaquín Oristrell and starring Olivia Molina, Paco León, and Alfonso Bassave.
We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: In this Spanish romantic comedy, Sofía, Toni, and Frank grow up together in a seaside village. While Frank encourages Sofía’s ambition to be a world-famous chef, she is also drawn to Toni’s vision of traditional family life. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Women Your Mother Warned You About
2018-06-05 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for Women Your Mother Warned You About, an explosive evening of uncensored vulnerability, magic, and hope from the best trans women and CAMAB non-binary writers in the country! Hear fantastic stories and celebrate the Lammy nomination of Resilience with Heartspark Press Editor Sugi Pyrrophyta and a short-list of incredible artists we’re thrilled to be sharing the stage with. Come out and support trans women writers!
THE WRITERS JOINING US
JEANNE THORNTON
APRIL DANIELS
SARA OLIVER WIGHT
A.K. BLUE
TYLER VILE
SUGI PYRROPHYTA
& MORE
ABOUT THE RESILIENCE ANTHOLOGY
Take a journey through the worlds of over thirty (C)AMAB* trans writers in what is currently the largest collection of poetry and prose made for and by us. Featuring new work by Luna Merbruja, Magpie Leibowitz, Moss Angel, KOKUMO, Joss Barton, Ariel Howland, Casey Plett, Sascha Hamilton, A.K. Blue, Oti Onum, Rahne Alexander, Tobi Hill-Meyer, Lawrence Walker, Connifer Candlewood, Serafima Mintz, Talia Johnson, Tyler Vile, Lina Corvus, Bridget Liang, erica inchoate, Lillita Lustre, CHRYSALISAMIDST, Ana Valens, Larissa Glasser, Lilith Dawn, AR Rushet and more, including an introduction by Julia Serano!
Curated and Edited by Amy Heart, Sugi Pyrrophyta, and Larissa Glasser.

Copies of Resilience are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

SARA OLIVER WIGHT
Sara Oliver Wight is a Brooklyn based model, author, and aspiring lesbian farmer. Her current work focus is how to convey queer femme sexuality through noodles and sandwiches. Her work can be found on vice.com, in the Resilience anthology and on her Instagram @saraoliverwight
A.K. BLUE
Andreia Kundry Blue lives in the Hudson Valley. She writes science fiction, trans fiction, and eccentric mash-ups of the two. Her story in Resilience, “God Empress Susanna,” is part of her work in progress, Sea of Nightmares, a collection of linked SF stories. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and a member of the Brooklyn Trans Writing Workshop.
TYLER VILE
Tyler Vile is a writer, performer, and activist from Baltimore, MD whose novel-in-verse, Never Coming Home, is available on Topside Press. She is a member of the board of Hinenu: The Baltimore Justice Shtiebl, a radically inclusive synagogue, and was the vocalist in a punk band called Anti-Androgen. Her interactive poetry zine, Hassidic Witch Murderer is available on her website, tylervile.wordpress.com. Her work has appeared in the Lambda Literary Award nominated anthology, Resilience, published by Heartspark Press, as well as the magazines Femmescapes, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Rogue Agent. She hopes to one day become the world’s greatest transsexual lesbian yenta.
SUGI PYRROPHYTA
Sugi works against the hegemony that academic institutions have on knowledge and that financial institutions have on power, specifically the roles that capital and obedience to oppressive structures play in upholding/withholding those institution and the rewards. She has been working most of her life on collecting stories of the lived experience of those most oppressed while attempting to make impossible the powers that hold us down. She knows first-hand and viscerally how hard it is to carve out time/energy to create while fighting every step for her and her friends’ survival, and has no further accolades to dress herself in here because you can do anything, you don’t need a fancy degree or an income or to have been published before; you are the fire that keeps us warm.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe and Christopher Bram in Conversation: Storytelling and Community
2018-06-03 17:00 - 18:30 | NY
Launching her new novel, THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, Lucy Jane Bledsoe will be in conversation with Christopher Bram. They’ll discuss how communities function in crisis, and the role of storytelling in shaping community and culture, with a queer twist on all of the above.

Copies of The Evolution of Love are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is the author of six novels, including the just-released THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE and recently-released A THIN BRIGHT LINE. Her fiction has won a California Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, an American Library Association Stonewall Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, a Pushcart nomination, a Yaddo Fellowship, and two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships. Her story collection, LAVA FALLS, is forthcoming this fall. Bledsoe lives in the Bay Area where she spends as much time as possible kayaking in the bay, as well as hiking and cycling in the hills.

A novelist and critic, Christopher Bram is the author of nine novels, including GODS AND MONSTERS, which was made into the movie starring Ian McKellen and Lynn Redgrave. He has written nonfiction for a broad range of publications, including Out, the Huffington Post, and Architectural Digest. Bram’s book of essays, MAPPING THE TERRITORY, and his books SURPRISING MYSELF, HOLD TIGHT, IN MEMORY OF ANGEL CLARE, and GOSSIP were reissued by Open Road Books in 2013. He was a 2001 Guggenheim fellow and winner of the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. His recent books include EMINENT OUTLAWS: THE GAY WRITERS WHO CHANGED AMERICA (Twelve, 2012) and THE ART OF HISTORY: UNLOCKING THE PAST IN FICTION AND NONFICTION (Graywolf, 2016).

Book Launch - A Reprobate Sense by Hunter O'Hanian
2018-05-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
This artist’s book explores the origins of anti-same sex attitudes found in modern society. The author, Hunter O’Hanian, uses a book written in 1049, The Book of Gomorrah, which for the first time, cataloged the sins associated with same-sex behavior.

O’Hanian researched Peter Damian’s life, the origin of the book and its impact on modern day society. A Reprobate Sense contains selected excerpts from Damian’s work illustrated with screen shots from 1970s films made to entertain gay males.

Gay writer and historian Hugh Ryan will interview O’Hanian about the book.

Copies of A Reprobate Sense are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

About Hunter O’Hanian – With degrees from Boston College and Suffolk University Law School, Hunter O’Hanian has held leadership positions at visual arts programs including the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, MA), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Snowmass Village, CO), Massachusetts College of Art and Design Foundation (Boston, MA), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (New York, NY), and College Art Association (New York, NY). He has served on non-profit boards and panels for more than 30 years. His contributions have been recognized through an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boston and a permanently endowed fellowship in his name at the Fine Arts Work Center.

About Hugh Ryan – A journalist, curator, and speaker write for folks like The New York Times, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, VICE, and Slate, and other places. He mostly covers queer culture, art, and politics, but also Rube Goldberg machines, racism on reality television, the renaissance of Shirley Jackson, non-linear non-fiction, and the literary origin of zombies in America. Recently, he became the resident historian at them, the new Conde Nast LGBTQ publication, where we writes a column called “Themstory” every two weeks. This year, he will be a resident artist at The Watermill Center as he finishes his new book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, due out with St. Martin’s Press in March of 2019.

Affirmative Laughter
2018-05-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Come celebrate Elsa Waithe‘s 30th bday the only way she know how… WITH LAUGHTER!!! On May 25th @ 7pm, Bureau of General Services-Queer Division is gonna be packed as we ring in Elsa’s new decade with this hot lineup:

Beth Maria
Margo Reiss
Shelly Colman
Sarah Hartshorne
Norah Yahya
Mamoudou N’Diaye

$10 suggested donation to benefit the Bureau and Affirmative Laughter performers. No one turned away for lack of funds!!!!

Queer/Literary Defiance!
2018-05-20 15:30 - 17:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Cultural defiance has maintained Queer identity, keeping alive a culture rich in creativity, zest, and courage. In today’s political and social environment, when LGBTQ rights and legitimacy are again under attack, Queer cultural defiance is a bulwark against forcing the community back into hiding.

On Sunday, May 20th, five acclaimed Queer writers—poets, playwrights and novelists—will celebrate Queer/Literary Defiance. Each will read a short passage from their work, followed by a discussion of the role of defiance in their writing; how it shapes it, informs it, gives it fire. This award-winning lineup of authors represents a diversity of social and cultural experience in the Queer community. As writers, they distill those experiences into art.

Featuring Ann Aptaker, Ella Boureau, JP Howard, Jee Leong Koh, and Trace Peterson.

Gay Artists of the Negro Renaissance
2018-05-19 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Join longtime activist, scholar of African American studies, and friend of the Bureau James Wright and guest speakers for a discussion of gay artists of the Negro Renaissance.

Featuring a historic overview of Harlem, the Negro Renaissance, and biographical information on several gay artists of the period, including Countee Cullen, Wallace Thurman, Alain Locke, and Bruce Nugent.

We will screen Brother to Brother (2005, written and directed by Rodney Evans, 90 minutes), a dramatic film about the life and times of Bruce Nugent.

James Wright has organized events at the Bureau exploring the lives and works of James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, as well as an event focused on Bruce Nugent and the first and only issue of the black literary journal FIRE!!, which Nugent created with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis in 1926.

About the image: In 1926, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis created the first and only issue of the black literary journal FIRE!!, which included Nugent’s explicitly gay poem “Smoke, Lilies and Jade.”

John Fleck Is Who You Want Him to Be: Screening with Director Kevin Duffy and Guest Lucy Sexton of Dancenoise
2018-05-18 19:30 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
JOHN FLECK IS WHO YOU WANT HIM TO BE is a documentary film by Kevin Duffy examining the legendary performance artist who was at the center of the culture wars during the AIDS crisis. The film includes contemporary cinema vérité footage of Fleck’s performances in New York and LA, a sit-down interview and archival footage reaching back over 30 years, including never before seen footage of the performance that sparked the NEA 4 crisis and the subsequent US Supreme Court decision.
Director Kevin Duffy will engage in a Q&A following the screening.

A Q&A will follow the screening with the filmmaker hosted by Moderator Lucy Sexton of DANCENOISE, the subject of the recent retrospective “Don’t Look Back” at the Whitney Museum.

Reception 7:30 PM
Screening 8 PM

JOHN FLECK (Subject) is a performance artist and actor based in Los Angeles, California. In 1990 he and 3 other performance artists became known as the NEA-4 denied funding by the National Endowment for the Arts because of religious and political pressure. Fleck’s latest venture BLACKTOP HIGHWAY premiered @ REDCAT in Los Angeles and recently made its NYC debut @ Dixon Place receiving rave reviews and a critic’s choice in the NY Times. His last show MAD WOMEN won the 2012 LA Weekly Award for ‘Outstanding Solo Performance’ and was nominated for a Bessie Award.

KEVIN DUFFY (Filmmaker) directed, produced, shot and edited the documentary feature, JOHN FLECK IS WHO YOU WANT HIM TO BE. The film has screened at the American Cinematheque, Los Angeles, the Los Feliz 3 Cinema, the New York Indie Theater Film Festival and CalArts. Duffy’s first independent feature, BECOMING BLOND (2010) starring Mink Stole is distributed by Ariztical Entertainment and has screened on Here TV. Duffy’s short film, cheap flight, (1996) screened on the Sundance Channel, at the Hamptons International Film Festival, the American Cinematheque and other venues. A graduate of New York University, Duffy won a Fellowship in Playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He received an M.F.A. in screenwriting from the American Film Institute.

Lucy Sexton is a Brooklyn-born choreographer, director, and producer who works in the fields of dance, theater, and film. With Anne Iobst, she created the dance performance duo DANCENOISE. She directed the off-Broadway plays Spalding Gray; Stories Left to Tell and Tom Murrin’s The Magical Ridiculous Journey of Alien Comic; and produced the Charles Atlas films The Legend of Leigh Bowery and TURNING with Antony and the Johnsons. Since 2009, she has served as the Executive Director of the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies.
