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

Bureau Closed on Sundays in July and August
2016-07-03, 2016-07-10, 2016-07-17, 2016-07-24, 2016-07-31, 2016-08-07, 2016-08-14 | NY
For the months of July and August the Bureau will be closed on Sundays.
The Bureau will be open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 1 to 7 PM.

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

CANCELED! 20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-07-06 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
Tonight’s meeting has been canceled. Stay tuned for announcement about the next 20Something Meetup.
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We hold our meetings on the second Wednesday of every month from 8-10 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Union Square Slam presents an evening with the poets of La SoPA
2016-07-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
We have been committed to exposing all the poetry this city has to offer. We want communities to merge and form into bigger communities. For this show we are happy to have the great poets of La Sopa.
Here’s a little more about La Sopa:
La Sopa (School of Poetic Arts) is a community-based arts program with its intellectual roots in the poetics of the Nuyorican, Black Arts, and Beat movements. From its home base at Loisaida Inc., a historic enclave for artists and people of color on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, La Sopa serves as an incubator for poets, performers, and other creatives to explore and expand their artistic selves, develop their voices, distribute the works in live performance and exhibition, and promote their works in various media.

This week, we welcome the poets of La Sopa (School of Poetic Arts)
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: La SoPA
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5

About our Features:
“Nessa” Acevedo is a Colombian American Artist and Social Worker who aims to serve as a catalyst for therapeutic and authentic expression; exposing her heart, mind, and spirit as an invitation for you to do the same and live to tell about it. She has been expressing herself through the written word since childhood, breaking through to the open mic in early 2012 at Capicu Culture’s: People’s Open Mic. She has since performed and/or featured at open mics and events including: La SoPA, The Nuyorican Poet’s Café, The New York Poetry Festival, Word at 4F, The DoJo, Great Weather for Media’s: Spoken Word Sundays, El Fogon, and Smokin’ Word and Drum.
Eric Acevedo is a very young man with an old soul who has been writing and performing poetry since 2008. He loves writing about Puerto Rican history, his abuelita, and what he sees going on in his hood and around the globe. He strives to influence his generation and is an aspiring English teacher. In his goal toward exploring what makes us who we are, he released a self-published chapbook, El Rice Is Cooking, in 2012. Acevedo has performed at universities including Columbia and Fordham and has been featured at Muevete, Queensboro Lit Crawl, Brooklyn Gypsies: Ghetto Hors d’Oeuvres and 35 poets for Oscar López Rivera. Eric hopes to obtain an MFA in the near future as he continues to be an artivist.
Sarah Serrano is a Puerto Rican educator, poet, writer, visual artist, actress, singer and voice actress. Pulling strength from adversity, she strives to connect with and educate her audience using personal experiences with domestic violence, mental health, mortality, social issues and cultural identity.
Known for her powerful spoken word poem entitled “Boricua,” Sarah was recently featured in the upcoming film Project Ñ (link), a documentary about Latino cultural awareness and identity. She has been featured and performed at the historical Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, WHCR Radio 90.3 FM, The National Black Theater feat. Full Circle Ensemble, CAPICU! Cultural Showcase, The Bushwick Starr Theater, Camaradas, Performance & Pints, Areito Live, Bowery Poetry Club, Bridging Boroughs, and I Know Some Tough Girls.
You can connect with her via Twitter & Instagram @cantfightthefro

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: 1st session
2016-07-13 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
A 5-Week Workshop, Wednesdays July 13, 20, 27, August 3 and 10, 6 – 8 p.m. Led by Ann Aptaker.
Is there a Queer perspective to writing crime & mystery fiction? This 5-week workshop will take students through the art and craft of crime and mystery writing, as experienced through Queer characters. Students will learn the importance of “voice,” character development, how character drives plot, and the distinctions of the genre’s various styles (cozy, hard boiled, noir, thriller, who-done-it, etc.,) through Queer experience. Students will write each week.
Cost: $50 per student for 5 week course.
Register at: QueerWriting@gmail.com
Ann Aptaker’s 2016 Lammy winning and Goldie finalist Tarnished Gold and 2015 Goldie finalist Criminal Gold have earned excellent reviews from Curve Magazine, Crimepieces, Rainbow Reads, and other print and internet venues. Her Cantor Gold crime series celebrates her favorite themes: Queer life, crime and mystery fiction, and New York City history. The third book in the series, Genuine Gold, is scheduled for release in January 2017 from Bold Strokes Books. Like her protagonist, Cantor Gold, Ann resides in her beloved hometown, New York.

Bi Book Club discusses Ariah by BR Sanders
2016-07-14 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On July 14, the Bi Book Club will discuss Ariah, by BR Sanders
Ariah, by BR Sanders, won the Speculative Fiction category of the Bisexual Book Awards and explores both bisexuality and polyamory. Ariah’s magical training has been interrupted. Forced to rely on a mentor, Dirva, who is not who he claims to be, and a teacher who is foreign and powerful, Ariah is drawn into a culture wholly different from the elven one that raised him. As his friendship with Dirva’s brother blossoms into a surprising romance, and he slowly learns how to control the dangerous magic in his blood, life finally appears to be coming together for Ariah—but love and security are cut short by a tyrannical military empire bent on expanding its borders. War, betrayal, passion, and confusion follow Ariah as his perilous journey leads him beyond the walls of the Empire, and into unfamiliar territory within himself. Along the way, he’ll discover just how much he’s willing to give up to find his place in the world, and he’ll learn what it means to sacrifice himself for freedom—and for love.
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 Ariah from the Bureau!
Next book: The Life and Death of Sophie Stark. Get your copy 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 the USS Nationals Team Send-Off and Fundraiser
2016-07-19 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The National Poetry Slam is right around the corner! Come celebrate and get a sneak peak at all the hard work the team has put in this summer, and pick up some sweet treats and a copy of the team’s limited edition chapbook!!
7pm: Sign-Up and Socialize
8pm: Open Mic
9pm: The USS National Team: Kearah Armonie, Patrick Roche, Nkosi Nkululeko, and Taylor Steele
Entry: $5
Chapbook: $20 ($15 with paid entry fee)
Cookies: $3, 2 for $5
Made by our lovely volunteer Theo!! Choose from the following:
– Chocolate Chip
– Rosemary Ginger w/ White Chocolate Chips
– Honey Jack Lemon
– Peanut Butter
– Apple Oatmeal
Meet the Team:
Nkosi Nkululeko is the 2016 NYC Youth Poet Laureate, and a Callaloo Fellow. He has been nominated for the Independent Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize. He was a member of the 2015 Urbana Slam Team and currently on the 2016 Union Square Slam Team. Nkosi”s work is published in VINYLpoetryandprose, No Token, decomP, and elsewhere. He lives in Harlem, New York.
Taylor Steele is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based writer and performer. Her work can be found at such esteemed publications as Apogee Journal, HEArt Journal, Rogue Agent, Blackberry Magazine, The Body is Not an Apology, and many forthcoming. Her chapbook Dirty.Mouth.Kiss will be available Fall 2016 on Pizza Pi Press. She is a triple-Taurus who believes in the power of art to change, shape, and heal.
Kearah-Armonie (Kearmonie) is a Brooklyn based poet, spoken word artist, MC, Filmmaker, Blogger, and Writer. She currently finishing up her B.A. in Documentary Film Production at Brooklyn College. Having been performing spoken word since 2011, she is now a mentor and teaching artist.
Patrick Roche is a New Jersey-based writer and performer who graduated from Princeton University. He has competed or featured at multiple national competitions, events, and universities around the country. His work has been featured on Button Poetry, SlamFind, UpWorthy, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and others, accumulating over 6 million views.

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: 2nd session
2016-07-20 18:00 - 20:00 | NY

PERSONS OF INTEREST: PORTRAITURE & PERSONA
2016-07-21 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Visual AIDS’ Artist+ Members Lucas Michael, Luna Luis Ortiz, and Frederick Weston discuss their artwork in the second program in conjunction with Visual AIDS’ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST. PERSONS OF INTEREST: PORTRAITURE & PERSONA, moderated by Alex Fialho, brings together these artists to discuss the ways in which they use the camera and photography as means of performance and a space in which to play with identity.
Lucas Michael‘s editorial photography for New York Magazine includes photographing polaroids of celebrities such as Lupita Nyong’o, Hugh Jackman, Lena Dunham, and Adele, while his artwork “Still Life (LM Squared)” finds him outfitted as a drag double of Liza Minelli.
Luna Luis Ortiz was inspired to pick up one of his father’s cameras after he became HIV positive at the age of 14 in 1986, beginning the birth of his self-portraits as a way to leave images for his family in remembrance before he became what he considered the images of AIDS in the 1980’s.
Frederick Weston communicates the soul of a thoughtful man feeling his way through physical realities and representation in America, often through themes of style, fashion, and the commercial male image.
PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.
PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds.
The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

Pictured works, from left: Luna Luis Ortiz, Self-portrait-Egyptian Pharaoh, 2003; Frederick Weston, “I’m In Here Somewhere”, Plaster, 10 x 6 x 5; Lucas Michael, polaroid self-portrait

Union Square Slam presents Veda Leone and Brenda Snyder and our GET VIDEO(d) Fundraiser
2016-07-26 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are thrilled to feature our witchy sisters from the north, Veda Leone and Brenda Snyder, following our GET VIDEO(d) open mic!!
GET VIDEO(d): Justin Woo has generously donated his videographer skills to you as a benefit to Union Square Slam. If you have a poem you would like to have professionally taped and edited, come read on our open mic this Tuesday. For a $20 donation to Union Square Slam, Justin will record your poem, edit it pretty and send it your way!! (Open Mic will be limited to 10 people!! Come early to sign up and secure your spot!!)
We also welcome the return of our free writing workshops, led by IS Jones. Head over at 6pm to workshop your work and/or kickstart your writing!!
About our Show:
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign up and Socialize
8pm: Open Mic
9pm: Feature
All Ages // $5
About our Feature:
Veda Leone and Brenda Snyder are two kindred poets who found their way to each other and the greater poetry community through the back room of “the Deuce” in Northampton, Massachusetts.
These two writers, trauma survivors, spoken word poets, and organizers mirror each other’s work across state lines. Veda is the co-founder and host of Collinsville’s Spoken Word on the Square at Downright Music in Collinsville, CT and Brenda is the founder and slam master of Witch City Poetry Slam in Salem, MA.
The two of them found inspiration, community, and each other as regular contributors on the mic at Northampton Poetry in Northampton, MA. Brenda’s work has been published on voicemailpoems.org and you can find her ramblings, poems, and inspiration at fix-me-in.tumblr.com; and, Veda’s first chapbook, Cellar Door, was released this January and can be found through her website www.vedaleone.wordpress.com.

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: 3rd session
2016-07-27 18:00 - 20:00 | NY

Emanuel Xavier Radiance & Sam Sax All The Rage Official Book Readings & Signings
2016-07-28 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for the launch of Emanuel Xavier‘s Radiance & Sam Sax‘s All The Rage.

“Emanuel Xavier’s newest book radiates in diverse directions, back into a past of New York club kid glamour and violence, into a family history of lost connections, and into loves forfeited and found-all of which the poet illumines with steady-eyed honesty. Finally, as he confronts a health challenge to the very brain that is the root-place of these sharp and poignant poems, radiation becomes radiance, a hard-won inner light that lets us all see how ‘splendid is our survival.'” –David Groff, author of Clay

In All the Rage, Sam Sax turns the poetry of observation into weapon of prayer and resurrection. Here is the eroticism and anger of bearing witness. Here the dead walk again, sometimes right over us, sometimes right through us. Here are open wounds wet with the spit of old lovers and old versions of ourselves, raw, hungry, and unwilling to let us forget what we’ve seen.

Apogee Issue 07 Launch
2016-07-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The celebration will feature readings by JP Howard, Naomi Extra, Soraya Shalforoosh, Robert Balun, Maura Pelletteiri, Dennis Norris II, radhiyah ayobami, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Marwa Helal, Claire Schwartz, Aaron Coleman, Hadeel Salameh, and Shira Erlichman.

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

Union Square Slam presents Jasmin Nicole
2016-08-02 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are so excited to host Jasmin Nicole‘s first ever feature!
About the Artist:
Jasmin is a Black, queer, curly-haired poet from West Philly with an afro that can only be satisfied by copious amounts of Shea Moisture products. She loves Family Guy and mint chocolate chip ice cream. She is the original creator of the idea for the reverse microwave and has yet to turn it into a profitable invention. She is the Grand Slam Champion for 2016 at the Fuze Philly Poetry Slam and will be the only poet representing a Philadelphia venue nationally at IWPS this year.
Come through for an incredible night of poetry!

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: 4th session
2016-08-03 18:00 - 20:00 | NY

Reading by Victoria Noe from her new book Friend Grief and Men: Defying Stereotypes
2016-08-04 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Author Victoria Noe returns to the Bureau to read from her new book Friend Grief and Men: Defying Stereotypes.
How do grief and friendships affect what it means to “be a man”? The final book in her series about people grieving the death of a friend examines the belief that men grieve differently than women – in fact, that their friendships are less meaningful than women’s.
Her interviews with gay and straight men will challenge that stereotype. The men profiled range in age from their 20’s to late 80’s. They include a sports reporter, writers, actor-turned-rabbi, sound editor and professional hockey player. All struggled to make sense of their grief, none more so than those in the book’s most talked-about chapter: comparing military veterans and long-term survivors in the AIDS community.
Joining Victoria is fellow ACT UP/NY member Jim Eigo, one of the men profiled in the book. You can count on a lively discussion about the challenges facing men who grieve the death of a best friend or dozens of friends, and how you can help them.

Victoria Noe lives in Chicago but is frequently in New York for research, theatre and addiction to the chai scones at Bosie Tea Parlor. The six books in her Friend Grief series (including Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends) have won awards and fans in the US, UK and Canada. Library Journal named her their first SELF-e Ambassador, helping libraries and independent authors collaborate.

Her essay, “Long-Term Survivor” won A&U Magazine’s 2015 Christopher Hewitt Award for Creative Nonfiction, and her work has appeared on a variety of blogs as well as Positively Aware, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post and Windy City Times. A fundraiser in the AIDS community in Chicago in the early days of the epidemic, she’s now a member of ACT UP/NY. Her next book is Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community (2017).

Union Square Slam presents an evening with Brooklyn Poets
2016-08-09 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
We have been committed to exposing all the poetry this city has to offer. We want communities to merge and form into bigger communities. For this show we are happy to have the great literary organization Brooklyn Poets.

Brooklyn Poets is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization celebrating and cultivating the poets, poetry and literary heritage of Brooklyn, the birthplace of American poetry. Since our inception in 2012, our core program of small, intensive poetry workshops taught by award-winning poets in their own homes has served over 300 students and employed over 30 teachers, and we’ve grown to host 22 events per year attracting over 1000 attendees annually, fostering a more close-knit, homegrown, diverse community of poets and readers than what we see traditionally offered by graduate writing programs and the American literary community at large. Our community extends through The Bridge, a unique online network connecting poets and mentors throughout the world.

Click here for more about Brooklyn Poets

6;00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Brooklyn Poets
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5

About our Features:

Candace Williams is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sixth Finch, Bennington Review, Lambda Literary Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She earned her MA in Elementary Education at Stanford University and has taken workshops at Cave Canem and Brooklyn Poets. She lives with a pit bull named Madonna and tweets a little too often (@TeacherC).

Jonathan Clarence is a performance poet and actor living in Brooklyn. The Wisconsin native has appeared in Lime Hawk Journal. He recently completed his undergraduate in advertising at St. John’s University in NYC and is currently a freelance writer for thisismelo.com. With a desire to write poetry and fiction about overcoming oppression, emotional trauma and discrimination of all types from all backgrounds, he’s found his poetic voice and is developing a manuscript.

Jason Koo, named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture” by Brooklyn Magazine, Jason Koo is the author of two collections of poetry, America’s Favorite Poem and Man on Extremely Small Island. He is also the editor of Poems for Kobe, a private limited edition of poems presented as a retirement gift to Kobe Bryant by the Brooklyn Nets and Brooklyn Poets, and coeditor of the forthcoming Bettering American Poetry anthology and Brooklyn Poets Anthology. An assistant teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac University, Koo is the founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets and creator of the Bridge. He lives in Brooklyn.

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: final session
2016-08-10 18:00 - 20:00 | NY

Bi Book Club discusses The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
2016-08-11 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On August 11, the Bi Book Club will discuss The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North.
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 The Life and Death of Sophie Stark 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)

TELL 26: Food
2016-08-12 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.
Food is the theme of the twenty-sixth installment of TELL. Featuring Jax Jackson, Mikéah Ernest Jennings, Lissy Navantu, and Randi Reinhold.

$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.

Jax Jackson is an agender transsexual actor and healing artist in NYC. Jax has very little experience storytelling and has no idea what to put in a bio for this event, because usually bios for actors are long boring lists of credits with no context or interesting points of fact along the way. So Jax is just kinda rambling. If you need an actor, a yoga teacher, a reiki practitioner, a tarot reader, an astrologer, or a crystal consultant, you could check out Jax’s work at jaxjackson.com or embodiedhealing.nyc. Or like, just talk to Jax or something.

Mikéah Ernest Jennings is a performer and acting educator from the Mojave Desert living and working in New York City. Mikéah has been acting and creating contemporary performance for over 15yrs and is also an adjunct faculty member in the theater departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The New School for Social Research. He is also a drinker of gin…very cheap gin.

Lissy Navantu is a Thai, femme activist. She is a social worker by day, failed romantic at night. Through collaboration with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, this past spring she toured the city with 10 LGBTQ youth, exposing the realities of homelessness in NYC (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIroT2qZ3Wo). As a true to heart masochist, Lissy finds joy in sharing her awkward social interactions with a keen audience. Lissy holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from NYU and has two self-published zines: “How to Double Your Number in Six Months” and “Mai Thai: Reflections on Consuming Thailand”.

Randi Reinhold is a Queer, Trans* masculine-of-center identified person who loves to make people laugh and feel good. His day job as a kindergarten teacher supplies him with a huge amount of storytelling fodder. As a volunteer for the Trevor Project, Randi also spends time supporting LGBTQI teens in crisis across the country. He’s dabbled in open-mic stand up and enjoys learning 80s cover songs on his acoustic guitar. His hobbies include running, bird watching, singing karaoke, geometric drawing, drinking red wine, coffee, and red wine.

Union Square Presents Our FIRST EVER NERD SLAM!
2016-08-16 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Presents Our FIRST EVER NERD SLAM!
About our Show:
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Open MIC
8:00pm: Nerd Slam
All Ages // $5
A nerd slam is when two poets are randomly selected to go head to head in a trivia battle, answering questions that are specifically chosen from a panel of nerds about the topic of the poets’ choice. Whoever wins gets to read their nerdy poem and the other poet goes back into the selection pool for the next battle. Come show off your nerd related knowledge and just have fun!
The Nerd Slam will be hosted by Justin Woo and the panel will include him as well as Khadijah Johnson, Rachel Simons, and Jaime Martin. Cosplay and nerd apparel is very much encouraged.

Butterfly Metaphor: Trans women writers write back
2016-08-17 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Trans women writers from around the world, here in NYC for the Topside Press summer workshop read their fiction and non-fiction.

Against Elizabeth! Bond Funds For Trans Girls
2016-08-18 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Great news! Alithú’s bond has been PAID and she has been released! She is back in her community and working with her lawyer on getting her asylum proceedings on-track as soon as possible. Queer Detainee Empowerment Project is proud to have been able to provide for Alithú financially during her time of need and wishes her the best in her legal battle ahead! Un abrazo!
With regards to the event, it has been re-named AGAINST ELIZABETH: Bond Funds for Trans Girls. Elizabeth Detention Center was the all-male facility in New Jersey Alithú was being held at and its our ultimate goal to have it shut down!
Money raised at the event will go towards QDEP’s ongoing bond fund specifically designated for incarcerated trans women across the country. This is an ongoing project and we want to take this opportunity to further develop the grassroots social safety nets so needed by our transgender sisters of color. Furthermore, we have changed the event date to AUGUST 18th, 2016.
As before, this event will be led and performed in by exclusively trans-feminine people of color. QDEP’s commitment to a transfeminist liberation includes making time and space for other trans women to express themselves as fully and authentically as possible.
As before, t-shirts and drinks will be available for purchase, with all proceeds going to the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project’s ongoing trans prisoner bond fund. Entrance is still a $5 – $20 suggested donation, though nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.
Any questions, requests, or volunteering interests should be directed to QDEP’s Office Manager Adelaida Shelley at adelaida@qdep.org.
