Office Hours Fall 2021 Showcase Reading (online event)
2021-12-17 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | NY
The Office Hours Poetry Workshop Fall 2021 fellows will give a brief reading in celebration of another strong semester of poetry making, community building, and thriving in difficult creative times. Fellows will read the innovative poetry they’ve developed over the course of four workshop sessions, write ins, and a virtual book club.
About us: Office Hours is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. We provide continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are femme-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia. http://sarahmsala.com/office-hours

Registration on Eventbrite is required in order to gain access to the event on Zoom.
Suggested donation of $5 to $10 to benefit Office Hours
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite.
Click here to register

Readers:
Laura Cresté is the author of You Should Feel Bad, winner of a 2019 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She holds an MFA from New York University, and is currently a 2021-2022 writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Yale Review’s Poem of the Week series, Bennington Review, Poetry Northwest, and No Tokens.

J. Freeborn is a teacher and the anthology books managing editor at The Poetry Society of New York. They have recent work in Dream Pop, Occulum, Impossible Task, and elsewhere

James Fujinami Moore‘s debut collection is Indecent Hours (Four Way Books, 2022). His work has appeared in Barrow Street’s 4×2, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received support from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives in Los Angeles.

Linda Harris Dolan is a Brooklyn-based poet, editor, and educator. As a teaching artist at NYU Langone’s Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, she leads one-on-one writing sessions with pediatric patients. She holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU, where she was a Starworks Creative Writing Fellow, and an MA in English & American Literature from NYU. She is the recipient of fellowships for Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Ruth Stone House Next Galaxy Retreat. Her work is featured in Bellevue Literary Review, Pigeon Pages, Barrow Street, Brooklyn Review, Cordella, and No, Dear, among others. She can be found online at lindaharrisdolan.com

Carrie Hohmann Campbell lives in Northwestern Pennsylvania where she teaches writing at Edinboro University, writes poetry, raises chickens, bakes incessantly, and enjoys life with her husband, son, and pets. She earned her BA in English and Creative Writing from Allegheny College and her MFA in poetry from New York University. Her second chapbook Drawn to Extinction was published by Finishing Line Press in May 2018.

Megan Pinto is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Lit Hub, Plume, RHINO, and elsewhere. In 2019, Megan attended Bread Loaf as a Work-Study Scholar and the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference as the Bill Ransom Founders Scholar. She received a 2019 Amy Award from Poets & Writers, a 2020 Emerging Woman Poet Honor from Small Orange, and a 2021 Voices of Color Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Megan’s chapbook length manuscript “These Contusions” was chosen by Joshua Bennett as a finalist for the 2021 PSA Chapbook Fellowship. Megan holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson.

Sarah M. Sala is a queer poet of Polish-Lebanese descent. Her debut collection, Devil’s Lake (Tolsun 2020) was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, a Publishing Triangle Award, and an Eric Hoffer Provocateur Award. She is the founder of the free poetry workshop, Office Hours, and Poetry Editor at the Bellevue Literary Review. She is a clinical associate professor in the expository writing program at New York University. Her work appears in BOMB, the Southampton Review, and the Los Angeles Review. www.sarahmsala.com

Noel Sikorski‘s poems and Artwork are featured in Painted Bride Quarterly, Georgetown Review, Action Spectacle, The American Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, and The Bellevue Literary Review. She teaches writing at NYU.

Avia Tadmor is an Israeli-born writer and educator. She has been a member of the Office Hours Poetry Workshop since Spring 2021. Avia’s poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Republic, The New England Review, The Adroit Journal, Apogee, and elsewhere. Her poetry received support from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation/Bread Loaf Writers’ Summer Workshop. Currently, Avia is a Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University’s Expository Writing Program.

Holiday Book Signing with Linda Simpson at the Bureau
2021-12-18 14:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The legendary Linda Simpson will hold court at the Bureau on Saturday, December 18, 2021, from 2 to 5 PM! She’ll be signing copies of her book, The Drag Explosion (Domain Books, 2020, hardcover, $50). We’ll have copies of The Drag Explosion and Drag Explosion t-shirts available for purchase.

New York’s momentous drag scene of the 1980s and ‘90s reigns again in this volume of photos by Linda Simpson, who spent the era in the middle of the action taking just-for-fun snapshots. The vivid images capture wild nightlife, queer activism, pop-culture moments, and colorful characters galore as they joyfully pushed the boundaries of gender expression, including Lady Bunny, RuPaul, Lypsinka and Leigh Bowery. Ultimately, her collection is a tribute to a golden age, when drag transformed from an underground art form into a mainstream sensation, and paved the path for today’s drag renaissance.
Safety protocol: The Center requires all visitors to wear masks at all times.
It’s a miracle! After more than 30 years as a drag queen, Linda Simpson continues to dazzle her fans with her witty demeanor, fine-tuned camp sensibility and unique blend of sass and class. And let’s not forget her stunning appearance!
Since emerging from the East Village drag scene in the late 1980s, the multi-faced queen has racked up a mile-long list of creative endeavors, including nightlife work galore as a hostess and party promoter; publishing the “revolutionary gay magazine” My Comrade; writing and starring in four different plays; and extensive work as a journalist, often in cahoots with her male alter ego, Les Simpson.
Another of Linda’s roles is drag her-storian. Her acclaimed slideshow presentation, THE DRAG EXPLOSION, features her vivid photos of NYC’s drag subculture in the 1980s and ‘90s.
And can you say BINGO? Throngs of people have attended her weekly club gigs and special events featuring fabulous prizes!
Linda’s staying power has also helped make her a drag pundit of sorts, and she has been featured in oodles of articles, videos and documentaries.
The New York Times has called her “A worldly wit… A kind of mother superior of the New York drag scene,” while Paper considers her “The thinking woman’s drag queen.”
Yesterday, today and tomorrow, Linda enthusiastically embraces the role she was born to play— a reigning queen!

TELL 76: Spreading Queer! Holigay Stories! (ONLINE EVENT)
2021-12-18 19:00 - 21:00 | online event
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.
Spreading Queer! Holigay Stories! is the theme of the 76th TELL, on Saturday, December 18, 2021, 7 to 9 PM (EST) on Zoom! Featuring: olaiya olayemi, Shomi Noise, Chewy May, and Calvin Cato.

Registration on Eventbrite required in order to gain access to the Zoom link.
Click here to register
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the storytellers.
You can make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page. Thank you for supporting the Bureau and TELL!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom–or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page for the event and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.
Photograph by Grace Chu
Drae Campbell is an actor and performer who has appeared on stages all over NYC and on the internet, movies and tv. She’s been spotted on the tv shows New Amsterdam and Bull and on the web series Dinette directed by Shaina Feinberg. She can also be found online on Refinery29, IFC.Com and BRICTV to name a few. Some fave stage acting credits: Only You Can Prevent Wildfires, Ricochet Collective, Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts, La Mama, My Old Man, Dixon Place, Oph3lia at HERE, The Nosebleed at The Public Theatre. Drae also appeared as a radical lesbian in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History Of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Drae’s been hosting and curating TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for 7 plus years. If you like queer stories, TELL is also a Podcast! www.draecampbell.com

olaiya olayemi is a blk/trans/femme/womxxxn/anti-disciplinary artist/educator/and organizer. she has performed at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, JACK, AAA3A, metaDEN, The Wild Project, The Langston Hughes House, Starr Bar, Mayday Space, and Dixon Place. she holds a b.a. in english/creative writing from depaul university and a m.f.a. in creative writing from emerson college where she was a recipient of the Dean’s Fellowship. she is a 2019-2020 Performance Fellow in Queer Art’s mentorship program, a Fall 2020 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grantee, and a 2020-2021 American Woman Fellow in Dramatic Question Theatre’s American Woman Lab. she currently lives in philadelphia.

Shomi Noise is a musician, DJ, writer and storyteller with an established reputation in the Brooklyn queer underground scene. She uses music to share empowering messages with the world through creative sets that mix various genres & sounds ranging from Latin, punk, hip-hop, reggae, and pop. She is also the lead singer of the Selena Quintanilla punk tribute band Amor Prohibido.

Chewy May is a comic born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has over 20 years of social awkwardness under her belt which fuels her comedy mind and her perspective on life.
Has been featured on:
Brooklyn Pride Comedy Show (Brooklyn, NY) – 2016
Crosstown Comedy Festival (New York, NY) – 2016
Nasty Women Unite Fest (Queens, NY) – 2017
Stand Up NY Comedy Festival (New York, NY) 2017
ThunderFest (Allston, MA) 2017
Harlem Comedy Festival (New York, NY) 2017
She-Devil Comedy Festival (New York, NY) 2017
Hell Yes Fest (New Orleans, LA) 2018

Calvin S. Cato has performed all across the United States and has even crossed the border into Canada. His television appearances include the Game Show Network, Oxygen’s My Crazy Love, National Geographic’s Brain Games, and an unaired pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. His work has been featured in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, Brooklyn Pride, Gotham Storytelling Festival and the Women in Comedy Festival. In addition, you may have heard him on Sirius XM or on the popular podcasts RISK!, Guys We F*cked, Las Culturistas, and Keith and the Girl. In 2017, Calvin was named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics of Color to Watch Out For. In 2021, Calvin contributed to Kweendom, an anthology of essays written by queer comedians.

Bureau Closed through January 4th
2021-12-20 - 2022-01-04 | NY
The Bureau will be closed from December 20th through January 4th due to The Center’s restricted hours during this period.
We will resume regular hours, Wednesdays-Sundays, 1 to 7 PM, on Wednesday, January 5, 2022.
Here is the updated from The Center:
“Due to the rising COVID rates, we are seeking to reduce the density and people traffic at The Center. One way we are achieving this is by having all non-essential staff working remotely from now until January 2nd. This means we will be offering mostly virtual programs/services. We will also be expanding our Holiday schedule. We will be observing Holiday Hours from Thursday, Dec. 23rd through Sunday, January 2nd, 2022; on these days we will only be open from 5pm-9pm.”

Bureau resumes regular hours
2022-01-05 13:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
On Wednesday, January 5, 2022, the Bureau resumes regular hours: Wednesdays-Sundays, 1 to 7 PM.

TELL 77: Lost (ONLINE EVENT)
2022-01-15 18:30 - 20:30 | online event
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 is the theme of the 77th TELL, on Saturday, January 15, 2022, 6:30 to 8:30 PM (EST) on Zoom! Featuring: Nonye Brown-West, Shane O’Neill, and Rachel Garbus.

Registration on Eventbrite required in order to gain access to the Zoom link.

Click here to register

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the storytellers.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau and TELL!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.

Photograph by Grace Chu
Drae Campbell is an actor and performer who has appeared on stages all over NYC and on the internet, movies and tv. She’s been spotted on the tv shows New Amsterdam and Bull and on the web series Dinette directed by Shaina Feinberg. She can also be found online on Refinery29, IFC.Com and BRICTV to name a few. Some fave stage acting credits: Only You Can Prevent Wildfires, Ricochet Collective, Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts, La Mama, My Old Man, Dixon Place, Oph3lia at HERE, The Nosebleed at The Public Theatre. Drae also appeared as a radical lesbian in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History Of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Drae’s been hosting and curating TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for 7 plus years. If you like queer stories, TELL is also a Podcast! www.draecampbell.com

Nonye Brown-West is a Nigerian-American comedian and writer. She has been featured in the Boston Globe’s Rise column as a Comic to Watch, NPR, PBS, ABC, Sway In The Morning, and the New York Comedy Festival. Nonye has two animated web series, Fairytales with Nonye and Gayby Jesus.

Rachel Garbus (She/Her) is a writer and performer based in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s the co-producer of the Atlanta LGBTQ+ History Project, which employs photography, archival material and oral history to share the incredible stories of Atlanta’s queer communities. Her fiancée is a primatologist and her dog is professionally anxious.

Shane O’Neill is a reporter and video maker for The New York Times. He is also the creator and performer of The Jane Johnson Convention with Jill Pangallo.

Book Launch for John Keene's Punks: New & Selected Poems (online event)
2022-01-28 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
Please join us online to celebrate the book launch of John Keene’s Punks: New & Selected Poems, featuring poetry readings by John Keene and Reggie Harris.
Registration on Eventbrite required in order to gain access to the Zoom link.
Click here to register
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite. Thank you for supporting the Bureau!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.

Purchase John Keene’s Punks: New & Selected Poems (Song Cave, paperback, $20) from the Bureau’s online store!
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
(Book cover includes a detail of a photograph by Alvin Baltrop: The Navy (three men), n.d. (1969-72)

John Keene author photo by Nina Subin copy
John Keene is a writer, translator, professor, and artist who was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2018. In 1989, Keene joined the Dark Room Writers Collective, and is a Graduate Fellow of the Cave Canem Writers Workshops. He is the author of Annotations, and Counternarratives, both published by New Directions, as well as several other works, including the poetry collection Seismosis, with artist Christopher Stackhouse, and a translation of Brazilian author Hilda Hilst’s novel Letters from a Seducer. Keene is the recipient of many awards and fellowships—including the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Whiting Foundation Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and the American Book Award. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark.

Reginald Harris won the 2012 Cave Canem/Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, recipient of Individual Artist Awards for poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for 10 Tongues: Poems (2002), his work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and online. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner where he pretends to work on another manuscript.

Bespoke for Lunar New Year for All (online event)
2022-02-02 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
This inaugural (virtual) BESPOKE NEXT GEN will feature readings by four fabulous writers, including poet/playwright Darrel Alejandro Holnes, novelist Nawaaz Ahmed, fiction/comic writer and playwright Emma Horwitz, and poet Beth Hightower, plus a small Q&A to follow.
As per past Bespoke events, our 02/02/2022 reading will serve as a fundraiser for “NYC Lunar New Year for All,” a community organization devoted to the safety and wellness of the queer AAPI population in celebration of the upcoming lunar new year.
Please make a donation when you register on Eventbrite. 80% of donations will go to “NYC Lunar New Year for All” and 20% will go to support our host, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
For utmost safety, the event will be hosted via Zoom and live-streamed via the Bureau’s YouTube channel!
Registration on Eventbrite is required in order to gain access to the event on Zoom. All who register for the event can join by clicking on “access the event” on the event page on Eventbrite.
Click here to register

Purchase Nawaaz Ahmed’s Radiant Fugitives (Counterpoint, 2021, hardcover, $27) from the Bureau.

Purchase Darrel Alejandro Holnes’s Stepmotherland (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022, paperback, $15) from the Bureau.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

NAWAAZ AHMED is a transplant from Tamil Nadu, India. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is a former Kundiman and Lambda Literary Fellow. “Radiant Fugitives,” his first novel, was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize (2021) and the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize. @nawaazonthenet

While at the University of California-Berkeley, BETH HIGHTOWER (Chinese/White) won the Joan Lee Yang Memorial Poetry Contest and received an honorable mention for the Academy of American Poets’ University and College Poetry Prize. They have read at UC-Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series, Spoonbill Studio’s Poetry 99, and the Home School. @bethtinshow

DARREL ALEJANDRO HOLNES is an Afro-Panamanian American writer and the author of Migrant Psalms (Northwestern University Press, 2021) and Stepmotherland (Notre Dame Press, 2022). He is the recipient of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize, and an NEA Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing (Poetry). He is an assistant professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) and a faculty member at New York University. @blackboytraveljoy

EMMA HORWITZ is a writer and educator from New York City. Her plays have been produced and/or supported by The Playwrights Realm (2021-2022 Writing Fellow), Williamstown Theater Festival (2020 Playwright-in-Residence), Page 73 (Semifinalist 2021 Playwriting Fellowship), Clubbed Thumb, New Georges etc. Her work in fiction and comics have been published in print and online at Spiral Bound, Moon Missives, Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s Sunday Stories, Joyland Magazine, Two Serious Ladies, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, etc. BA: Bard College, Written Arts. MFA: Brown University, Playwriting. @e_horwitz

Lance Ringel Reads from His Latest Novel, Floridian Nights, with Chuck Muckle (Online Event)
2022-02-03 19:00 - 20:15 | NY
Lance Ringel’s latest novel, Floridian Nights, unfolds against a background that at times, surprisingly, can feel as distant as the World War I France of his award-winning debut novel, Flower of Iowa.
August, 1988 – the hottest summer in more than a century in New York, a city shadowed by the AIDS epidemic. Gary Gaines is 35 years old and three years past losing, in the most sudden, unexpected, terrible way, the love of his life, Becker Barnes. And then again, he is not past it at all. One night, to forget their mutual pain, Gary and his best friend Julia Stern, an even more recent widow, venture out to a funky East Village restaurant. There Gary meets, in the most unlikely circumstances, Rick Fennell, a 22-year-old waiter freshly moved from the Midwest. Despite the generation gap between them, a relationship slowly begins to develop. But Gary cannot bring himself to take Rick seriously, and his tight circle of family and friends, all of whom adored Becker, share his skepticism. Abruptly, circumstances cause Gary to decamp from New York to his parents’ home in Florida. As the days and nights pass, he is forced to face the consequences of his paralyzing grief, and make decisions about the future.
Floridian Nights captures a unique moment in time – a pre-digital age, when easy public affection and equality in marriage remain faraway dreams, but an organized community has finally emerged into the sunlight, and a gay man can find complete acceptance within his own family. The terror and tragedy of a killer epidemic stalking the land will be all too familiar to contemporary readers, even as they enjoy a culture-clash romance that ricochets between the unexpectedly comic and the deeply poignant.
Reading followed by a Q&A

Registration on Eventbrite required in order to gain access to the Zoom link.
Click here to register
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on this page. Thank you for supporting the Bureau!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.

Purchase Lance Ringel’s Floridian Nights (Distant Mirror Press, 2021, paperback, $16.95) from the Bureau’s online store!
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Lance Ringel’s debut novel Flower of Iowa, an epic love story between two soldiers in the First World War, won book awards spanning multiple categories. His recently published second novel, Floridian Nights, is a generation-gap gay romance set against the backdrop of the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Ringel’s works for the theater include the plays In Love with the Arrow Collar Man, based on the true story of famed illustrator J.C. Leyendecker and his lover Charles Beach, and the current production Flash/Frozen, also based on true historical events.
www.lanceringel.com

Chuck Muckle (director/playwright/actor/composer) directed IN LOVE WITH THE ARROW COLLAR MAN and MOURNING BECOMES RIDICULOUS at the New York New Works Festival. MBR was previously chosen as one of four finalists in the Manhattan Theatre Mission’s second annual musical showcase, where it won awards for best book, lyrics, actor and actress. He appeared in the National Tours of SOUTH PACIFIC and CAMELOT with Robert Goulet, the Eastern Tour of A CHRISTMAS CAROL with John Astin, and was in the feature film THE NIGHT BEFORE with Seth Rogen.

Craft Class & Reading with Kai Coggin (online event)
2022-02-05 11:00 - 13:30 | NY
Join us for a Virtual Craft Class & Reading with Kai Coggin

Craft Class will run from 11 AM-1PM EST. Followed by a reading from 1:05 PM-1:20 PM.
Registration on this page required in order to gain access to the Zoom link.
Once you have registered on this page you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to this page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.
$10 suggested donation for the instructor (not required)

The Open Letter: What is an open letter?
An open letter is a letter, often critical, addressed to a particular person or group of people, but intended to be widely distributed to a wider audience. The letter does not usually get a reply, but it is written to shed light on a subject, an individual, or a group as a form of protest or grievance. It can also be used for praising and honoring something or someone.
In this workshop, Office Hours writers will read a selection of poetry with examples of the Open Letter. We will discuss various aspects of form, craft, and attention to figurative language used by the different poets in the packet, and finish with time to write an open letter poem from a selection of prompts provided by Kai. There will be time for sharing at the end.

Purchase Kai Coggin’s Mining for Stardust (Flowersong Press, 2021, paperback, $18) from the Bureau.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

KAI COGGIN (she/her) is the author of MINING FOR STARDUST (FlowerSong Press 2021), INCANDESCENT (Sibling Rivalry Press 2019), WINGSPAN (Golden Dragonfly Press 2016), and PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants Publications 2014), as well as a spoken word album SILHOUETTE (2017). She is a queer woman of color who thinks Black Lives Matter, a teaching artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas Learning Through the Arts, and the host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Recently awarded the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award and named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times, her fierce and powerful poetry has been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016 and 2018. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Cultural Weekly, SOLSTICE, Bellevue Literary Review, TAB, Entropy, SWWIM, Split This Rock, Sinister Wisdom, Lavender Review, Luna Luna, Blue Heron Review, Tupelo Press, West Trestle Review, and elsewhere. Coggin is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review. She lives with her wife and their two adorable dogs in the valley of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. The workshop fellowship culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are womxn-identified. Our Craft Classes are free and open to the public with RSVP.

Underground Rebel: The Secret Lives of Lorraine Hansberry (in-person event)
2022-02-11 18:30 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Afro-American scholar James Wright will be presenting recent revelations concerning Lorraine Hansberry, famed author of A Raisin in the Sun. The focus of the talk will be Hansberry’s political activism as a member of the Communist Party and her authorship, using a pseudonym, of short stories depicting lesbian characters.

Books by and about Lorraine Hansberry on the Bureau’s online store and in the Bureau’s physical store:

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

Anatomies of Want: Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills (in-person event)
2022-02-12 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Poets Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills guide us through the terrain of wanting—from carnal to familial, satiation to longing—reading from their oeuvres including works from their most recently published books Anatomy of Want (Lee), Objects In This Rearview Vol 03: Home/Again (Montez), and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (Mills).
This is an in-person event taking place at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, in room 210 of The LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, NYC.
If you are unable to join us at the Bureau, you can live-stream the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel.

Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or you can donate in advance on this page.
Thanks for your support!

Copies of Anatomy of Want (Lee), Objects In This Rearview Vol 03: Home/Again (Montez), and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (Mills) will all be available for purchase at the event, and both Lee’s and Mills’s books are available for purchase on our online store.

Purchase Daniel W.K. Lee’s Anatomy of Want (Queer Mojo, 2019, paperback, $12.95) from the Bureau’s online store.

Purchase Stephen S. Mills’s Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018, paperback, $18) from the Bureau’s online store.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Readers’ biographies:
Born in Kuching, Malaysia, Daniel W.K. Lee is a third-generation refugee going back to China via Vietnam and Malaysia. Raised in Chicagoland, Daniel moved to New York City in 1996 where he earned a BA at NYU and an MFA in Creative Writing – Poetry at The New School. Daniel relocated to Seattle in 2014 and after a little over five years in the Pacific Northwest, he and his whippet Camden moved to New Orleans in December 2019 soon after the publication of his debut collection of poetry Anatomy of Want by Queer Mojo/Rebel Satori Press. Find out more about him at danielwklee.com

Travis Montez is a writer, poet, professor and juvenile rights attorney, representing children in the Family Court system of New York City. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Montez came to NYC in the late 90s to attend NYU where he pursued degrees in Journalism and Africana Studies. It was there that he was first introduced to spoken word poetry. Since then, Travis Montez has performed in venues all over the world, released seven collections of poetry and a spoken word album. His latest release, Objects In This Rearview Vol 03: Home/Again is now out and will be available for purchase at the reading.

Stephen S. Mills (he/him/his) is the author of the Lambda Award-winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices (2012) as well as A History of the Unmarried (2014) and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (2018) all from Sibling Rivalry Press. He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, 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. Two of his books were placed on the Over the Rainbow List compiled yearly by the American Library Association. An excerpt from his play Men Like Us was featured as part of Pride Plays in June of 2020. He is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at Goddard College. He lives in New York City with his partner and two schnauzers. Website: stephensmills.com

Bushwick Book Club presents WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER by Hugh Ryan (in-person event)
2022-02-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Come hear new songs, dance new dances and eat new snacks inspired by Hugh Ryan‘s WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER –– a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond.
Author Hugh Ryan will give a reading, and 14 songwriters, performance artists and choreographers will perform new work celebrating this book and Brooklyn’s queer history.

Purchase Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2020, paperback) from the Bureau’s online store.
Promo code for 15% off: 091GYWU69FUK
Regularly $17.99 / $15.29 with promo code!
Click on “redeem your code” underneath the total at checkout.
Enter the code and hit “Apply”
When Brooklyn Was Queer is also available at the Bureau’s physical store — just mention the event to the volunteer when checking out for the 15% account.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

PERFORMERS:
JIM ANDRALIS
PENNY ARCADE
RAY BROWN
RALPH DENZER
PETER DIZOZZA
SEA GRIFFIN
SUSAN HWANG
JULIE LAMENDOLA
STEPHANIE LARIERRE
ST. LENOX
JOE MCGINTY
RISA MICKENBERG
CHARLES NIELAND
TROY OGILVIE

Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Please arrive by 7 PM to make sure you get in–the performances begin at 7:30 PM.
We are limiting the number of audience members to 40.
First come first served!

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the performers (80%) and the Bureau (20%).
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or you can donate in advance on this page.

Hugh Ryan is a writer and curator. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, won a 2020 New York City Book Award, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice in 2019, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. He was honored with the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association. In 2019-2021, he worked on the Hidden Voices: LGBTQ+ Stories in U.S. History curricular materials for the NYC Department of Education.

The Bushwick Book Club is a literature-inspired performance series and podcast that invites local songwriters and artists to plumb the depths of a chosen literary gem to create that rare and beautiful thing – a new song (or visual art, dance, film or snack). All songs are then performed at a live show. The Bushwick Book Club now has several branches all over the world, including Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, New Orleans, Greenville, NC, London and Malmö, Sweden. The Bushwick Book Club podcast is available on iTunes and SoundCloud.

TELL 78: Overcome (in-person event)
2022-02-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, 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, making this TELL the eight-year anniversary edition!
Overcome is the theme of the 78th TELL, taking place in-person at the Bureau on Saturday, February 19, 2022, at 7 PM!
Guest-hosted by Calvin Cato and featuring storytellers Glo Butler, Anthony Oakes, Lois Thompson, and Elsa Eli Waithe.
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or you can donate in advance on Eventbrite.

Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.

Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Glo Butler has performed all over the country, and was most recently featured in the New York Comedy Fest and Black Women In Comedy Festival. She was listed in 2019 Time Out Mag: “LGBTQ POC Comedians You Should Know” and Gold comedy “comedians to watch in 2022. She currently hosts and produce a bi-weekly POC/queer comedy show called Glo In The City live at Daily Press in Brooklyn. She also hosts Black Grits: a POC/queer comedy, burlesque and drag show once a month in Brooklyn.

Calvin S. Cato has performed all across the United States and has even crossed the border into Canada. His television appearances include the Game Show Network, Oxygen’s My Crazy Love, National Geographic’s Brain Games, and an unaired pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. His work has been featured in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, Brooklyn Pride, Gotham Storytelling Festival and the Women in Comedy Festival. In addition, you may have heard him on Sirius XM or on the popular podcasts RISK!, Guys We F*cked, Las Culturistas, and Keith and the Girl. In 2017, Calvin was named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics of Color to Watch Out For. In 2021, Calvin contributed to Kweendom, an anthology of essays written by queer comedians.

Hailing from North Carolina, Anthony D. Oakes is a District of Columbia resident who is taking the comedy scene by storm. He is the winner of the 2021 DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in Performance. Anthony was a participant in the 2021 DC Comedy Festival and 2021 Sixth City Comedy Festivals, and 2021 Memphis Urban Laughs Festival.

For the past eight years, Lois Thompson has produced and hosted Blacklight Comedy Show at The Brooklyn Moon. Always an all-female line-up, Blacklight has become a must-do stage for NYC and visiting comedians alike. Since 2016, she has also produced the comedy portion of the Brooklyn Pride Celebration. When she not busy finding funny people, Lois helps people find their place in the world of real estate where she is a top-producing veteran of 18 years.

Elsa Eli Waithe is a Comedian, Actor, and Motivational Speaker from Norfolk, Virginia. She’s won the Virginia Beach Funnybone’s Clash of the Comics three times, has been featured on This American Life, and is a recurring guest on TELL.

Inhaling life: poppers and bodies, queer history and art (online event)
2022-02-24 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
Join artist Paul Moreno and writer Adam Zmith in a discussion about poppers and queer culture in their respective work. The vapors that escape an open bottle of poppers recall the dark rooms where queerness both hid and thrived. The image of the bottle alludes to the dreamy eyes and relaxing bodies of men at play. That half empty bottle at the back of your nightstand connects you to a history of queers, leaving the dark room and marching in the streets. Paul and Adam will explore this connection between pleasure and political resistance, as well as their influences and ambitions as makers who are intent on inhaling life.

Event image features a detail of Paul Moreno’s Mano poderosa. 2020. 20″ x 29”. Mixed media on wood

Registration on Eventbrite required in order to gain access to the Zoom link:
Click here to register

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau!

All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the event page on Eventbrite and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.

Purchase Adam Zmith‘s Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures (Repeater, 2021, paperback, $14.95) from the Bureau’s online store!
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Paul Moreno‘s solo exhibition Problem Areas is on view at the Bureau through February 27, 2022.
Adam Zmith is a writer. He was the recipient of the London Writers Award 2019-20, and is the author of several shortlisted and published short stories. He is also one of the producers of The Log Books podcast, winner of Gold in the Best New Podcast category at the British Podcast Awards 2020.
Paul Moreno is a self-taught artist who grew up in Sparks, Nevada. Paul studied Literature and Critical Thought at University of San Francisco and NYU. About the title, Problem Areas, Paul states “I took the title from the old adage that art-making is largely a process of problem solving. However, the title is also meaningful in that when I choose subjects for my work, I try to look at something that I have complex or unresolved feelings about. By spending time with the subject, against the background of parsing it into formal elements that serve the picture, I find spiritual resolution can also present itself. In this way, the problem, as it were, is not a negative, but an opportunity to expose the beauty in the subject to myself and hopefully the viewer.”

Opening Reception: Wallpaper Saints: Photographs by Frank Mullaney (in-person event)
2022-03-03 17:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Wallpaper Saints: Photographs by Frank Mullaney.
“Wallpaper Saints was inspired by the holy prayer cards I collected during my Irish Catholic youth,” Mullaney writes. “As an altar boy, I used them to pray against the dawning awareness of my homosexuality. Yet the homoeroticism of the religious images only exacerbated my confusion, causing me to careen from shame to lust and back again. With this project, I’m photographing gay and trans men and women, as each is seemingly lost in a moment of transcendence. I’m working to reject the self-shaming associations I had with these religious images while simultaneously acknowledging their erotic charge. While each subject has a uniquely different background, chosen specifically for each person, the repetitive use of nudity puts everyone on equal footing, alone, vulnerable, and unprotected.”

Frank Mullaney grew up outside Boston and moved to New York the same week that Elvis died, and the Son of Sam was apprehended. His aesthetic he learned from watching Hammer Studios horror films as a child. Everything else he learned at the International Center of Photography. His work has been exhibited in New York City, Los Angeles, Provincetown, Ft Collins, CO, the Catskills, and Mexico City. He divides his time between Manhattan and Livingston Manor, NY.
Wallpaper Saints: Photographs by Frank Mullaney will be on view from March 3 – May 29, 2022.
Opening reception on Thursday, March 3, 2022, 5-8 PM.
Download press release

Stephen Vider in conversation with Sarah Schulman on The Queerness of Home (in-person event)
2022-03-04 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join historian Stephen Vider and novelist, playwright, and nonfiction writer Sarah Schulman for a conversation about Vider’s new book, The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity after World War II. Histories of LGBTQ activism and culture have centered almost exclusively on acts of public protest and demands for visibility. In The Queerness of Home, Vider turns the focus inward, showing that the intimacy of domestic space has been equally crucial to the history of LGBTQ life and politics. From gay and lesbian marriages in the 1950s, to queer communes and lesbian architecture in the 1970s, to caregiving for people living with HIV/AIDS, Vider shows how LGBTQ people have continuously worked to reinvent the home, reshaping the meanings of family and remapping the boundaries of their own communities.

Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

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

Purchase Stephen Vider’s The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity after World War II (University of Chicago Press, 2022, paperback, $29) from the Bureau’s online store (click on the title).
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Stephen Vider is assistant professor of history and director of the Public History Initiative at Cornell University, and author of The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity after World War II, published in December 2021 by University of Chicago Press. His writing has appeared in American Quarterly, Gender & History, Transition, and The Public Historian, as well as the New York Times, Slate, and Avidly, among other places. In 2017, he curated the exhibition AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism, at the Museum of the City of New York, exploring how activists and artists have mobilized domestic space and redefined family in response to HIV/AIDS, from the 1980s to the present. He was also co-curator of Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York, featured at the Museum of the City of New York from 2016 to 2017, and co-author of the accompanying book.

Sarah Schulman is the author of more than twenty works of fiction (including The Cosmopolitans, Rat Bohemia, and Maggie Terry), nonfiction (including Stagestruck, Conflict is Not Abuse, The Gentrification of the Mind, Let the Record Show), and theater (Carson McCullers, Manic Flight Reaction, and more), and the producer and screenwriter of several feature films (The Owls, Mommy Is Coming, and United in Anger, among others). Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate, and many other outlets. She is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at College of Staten Island, a Fellow at the New York Institute of Humanities, the recipient of multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was presented in 2018 with Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award. She is also the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, and the co-director of the groundbreaking ACT UP Oral History Project. A lifelong New Yorker, she is a longtime activist for queer rights and female empowerment, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace. (Author photo by Drew Stevens)

Launch for Jeremy Sorese's The Short While/conversation With Lale Westvind (in-person event)
2022-03-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Jeremy Sorese will be reading from his new book The Short While, a Queer Science Fiction graphic novel which will be followed by a conversation with cartoonist Lale Westvind—about Science Fiction and Queerness and Comics. An author signing will follow with copies of the book available to purchase–you can also purchase the book on the Bureau’s online store.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
If you can’t join us in person, watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA
Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

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

After graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2010, Jeremy Sorese (b. 1988) was accepted to La Maison des Auteurs, a residency program in Angoulême, France, where he worked from 2012 through 2013. His first book Curveball, published with Nobrow in 2015, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. A sequel, The Short While, was published with Archaia in November 2021. He’s been teaching art for eleven years; Elementary School children in Chicago, Middle Schoolers in Brooklyn, college students at the Maryland Institute College of Art and most recently at The New School, School of Visual Arts and The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.

Lale Westvind (b.1987) is a cartoonist and animator. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies such as Kramers Ergot (USA), Best American Comics (USA), Bomb Magazine (USA), The Lifted Brow (AUS), Strapazin (SWZ), and Lagon Revue (FR). Her animation work has shown internationally at festivals, galleries, and the New Museum in New York City. Her music video for Lightning Bolt’s “Metal East” won an award at Leeds International Film Festival in 2015. Lale was lucky enough to be a guest artist and lecturer at comics residencies in France, Germany and Russia in 2019. Lale Westvind has a passion for motorcycles, movement and working with her hands. She currently teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Jerome Ellison Murphy, Lonely Christopher, & Dazié Grego-Sykes @ the Bureau (in-person)
2022-03-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Local queer writers and longtime friends of the Bureau Jerome Ellison Murphy and Lonely Christopher join poet-performer Dazié Grego-Sykes, who is visiting from the Bay Area to participate in a show at the Park Armory. Live and in person!

Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Purchase a copy of Dazié Grego-Sykes‘s Black Faggotry (Nomadic Press, 2020, paperback, $12) from the Bureau’s online store.
Copies of Dazié Grego-Sykes‘s Black Faggotry will also be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Jerome Ellison Murphy is a poet and critic based in New York City. He earned his MFA from the Creative Writing Program at New York University, where he currently serves as Undergraduate Programs Manager. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in LitHub, Narrative Magazine, Bellevue Literary Quarterly, The Cortland Review,Spunk Arts Journal, and elsewhere, and was recorded for NPR as part of the Poetry Well performance series. His critical writing has appeared in The Yale Review, LA Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. He warmly salutes the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division on a decade of service to the community.

Lonely Christopher is the author of five books, most recently the poetry collections Death & Disaster Series and In a January Would. He is the founding creative director of Inter Poets Theater, managing director of the Segue Foundation, and an editor for Roof Books. His plays have been presented in Canada, China, and the United States. His film credits include several international shorts and the feature MOM, which he wrote and directed. He works for homeless queer youth and lives in Brooklyn.

Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes is an Oakland, California based performance artist and poet. He holds a B.A. from The Experimental Performance Institute and an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dazié is most notably known for writing, performing and touring his award-winning solo plays Nigga-Roo and Am I A Man. Currently he is working as an Associate Artistic Director for Skywatchers a community-based performance art ensemble in San Francisco. Look for his original collection of poetry titled Black Faggotry and his debut spoken-word album titled Make Me Black. www.DazieGrego.com

Larry Mass & Bill Goldstein in Conversation: On the Future of Wagnerism (in-person event and live-streaming)
2022-03-10 18:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Larry Mass and Bill Goldstein in conversation on the occasion of the release of Larry Mass’s book, On the Future of Wagnerism: Art, Intoxication, Addiction, Codependence and Recovery, the sequel to his memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite: Being Gay and Jewish in America. Select readings will be followed by an an open discussion on a range of subjects–from art, addiction and AIDS to Larry Kramer, Richard Wagner and the future. The authors will additionally reflect on the recent loss of Mass’s life partner, gay activist and writer Arnie Kantrowitz.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
If you can’t join us in person, watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA

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

Purchase Lawrence D. Mass’s On the Future of Wagnerism: Art, Intoxication, Addiction, Codependence and Recovery (Sentinel Voices, 2021, paperback, $29.95) from the Bureau’s online store (click on title).

Purchase Bill Goldstein’s The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year That Changed Literature (Picador USA, 2017, paperback, $17) from the Bureau’s online store (click on title).
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Lawrence D. Mass, M.D., is a co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and was the first to write about AIDS in the press. He is the author of Homosexuality and Sexuality: Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution, Volume 1, and Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity: Dialogues of The Sexual Revolution, Volume 2. He is the author/editor of an anthology, We Must Love One Another Or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer, and the author a memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite: Being Gay and Jewish in America. The sequel to that memoir is the current collection, On the Future of Wagnerism: Art, Intoxication, Addiction, Codependence and Recovery. Mass has written widely on medicine, health and culture for mainstream and specialist publications. A recently retired physician specializing in addiction medicine, Mass resides in New York City.

Bill Goldstein reviews books and interviews authors for NBC’s Weekend Today in New York, and was the founding editor of The New York Times books website. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Goldstein received a PhD in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is writing a biography of Larry Kramer, to be published by Crown, and worked on the book as a 2019-2020 fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library. His book, The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year that Changed Literature, was published in 2017.

Jack Parlett in conversation with Hugh Ryan on The Poetics of Cruising (in-person)
2022-03-17 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join poet and scholar Jack Parlett and historian Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, for a conversation about cruising, poetry and Parlett’s new book The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture From Whitman to Grindr. From Walt Whitman’s addresses to passing strangers in the late nineteenth century and Langston Hughes’s portraits of subway intimacies, to more recent works by contemporary writers exploring hook-up app culture, there is a long and rich tradition of queer poets writing about cruising. What is it that happens in these transient moments of encounter, where looks between strangers are intensified and eroticized? Parlett’s book traces the history of writers cruising for sex in New York City – a history that also includes Frank O’Hara, David Wojnarowicz and Eileen Myles – and illuminates its subject as a site where questions of desire, power and visuality meet.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

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

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

Purchase Jack Parlett’s The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture From Whitman to Grindr (University of Minnesota Press, 2022, paperback, $27) from the Bureau’s online store (click on the title).
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Copies are also available at the Bureau’s physical store.

Jack Parlett is a writer, poet and scholar. His research focuses on 20th and 21st century American literature and culture, with an emphasis on queer writing. He completed a PhD in English at Cambridge University, which was recently published as a monograph by the University of Minnesota Press, entitled The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr. His next book, Fire Island: Love, Loss and Liberation in an American Paradise, will be published by Hanover Square Press in June 2022. He currently holds a Junior Research Fellowship at University College, Oxford, where he also teaches modern American literature and literary theory. His debut poetry chapbook, Same Blue, Different You, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2020, and his essays have appeared in Poetry London, Lit Hub and elsewhere. He lives in Oxford. Author photo by Alex Krook.

Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian and curator in New York City. Hugh’s current project, entitled The Women’s House of Detention, is a queer history of the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village. It is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired. Hugh’s first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, was called a “boisterous, motley new history” and “an entertaining and insightful chronicle” by the New York Times, who made it an Editor’s Pick in 2019. In 2019, Hugh was honored by the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association, and the Brooklyn Borough President. Hugh has received the 2016 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, several New York Foundation for the Arts grants in Nonfiction Literature, the 2019-2020 Allan Berube Prize for outstanding work in public LGBT History from the Committee on LGBT History at the American Historical Association, and the 2019 New York City Book Award. Hugh regularly teaches Creative Nonfiction in the MFA Program at SUNY Stonybrook, and is currently on the Board of Advisers for the Archives at the LGBT Center in Manhattan and The Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Ft. Lauderdale. Author photo by Jia Oak Baker.

TELL 79: Chaos (IN PERSON!)
2022-03-19 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
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.
Chaos is the theme of the 79th TELL, on Saturday, March 19, 2022, 7 PM IN PERSON at the Bureau! Featuring: Veronica Garza, Rexylafemme, and Zo Tipp.
Safety protocol:
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the storytellers.
We will pass a bag at the start of the event. Thank you for supporting the Bureau and TELL!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
Photograph by Grace Chu
Drae Campbell is an actor and performer who has appeared on stages all over NYC and on the internet, movies and tv. She’s been spotted on the tv shows New Amsterdam and Bull and on the web series Dinette directed by Shaina Feinberg. She can also be found online on Refinery29, IFC.Com and BRICTV to name a few. Some fave stage acting credits: Only You Can Prevent Wildfires, Ricochet Collective, Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts, La Mama, My Old Man, Dixon Place, Oph3lia at HERE, The Nosebleed at The Public Theatre. Drae also appeared as a radical lesbian in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History Of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Drae’s been hosting and curating TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for 7 plus years. If you like queer stories, TELL is also a Podcast! www.draecampbell.com

Veronica Garza is a Brookyn-based stand up comedian who is originally from Dallas, Texas. She performs all over New York City and has been featured on MTV’s “Decoded”, NPR, Sirius XM, and Daily Mail.

REXYLAFEMME (rex renée leonowicz) is a visual + performing artist, writer, and songwriter born and raised in NYC. As a working class trans femme, rex’s work is grounded in a politics of radical resistance, healing, and witness. rex blends genders and genres, often utilizing drag and burlesque, to critically respond to the relationships people “on the margins” have with our surroundings and each other. rex’s book of poems and illustrations, when there is no one and there is everyone, is available from Magic Helicopter Press. S/he was a 2017 EmergeNYC Performance Fellow with the Hemispheric Institute at NYU and has an MFA in Poetry from Mills College.

Zo Tipp (they/he) is a jewish-japanese-american non-binary actor. TV: Dickinson. NewFest 2020: Top and Bottom; Sideways Smile; Dissonance. Apocalyptic Artist’s Ensemble’s feature film Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck). NY theater: INTAR: Bundle of Sticks; Red Bull: Gallathea; CSC/OSF: Play On! (Laertes, Mercutio/Prince/Paris…); Rattlestick: Pride Plays; Pan Asian Rep: Incident at Hidden Temple. Concert: Queering the Stage (Ring of Keys, Birdland); Songs for Our City (Times Square). www.zotipp.com IG @zotipp

Wayne Hoffman talks about his true crime memoir, with Q&A by Larry Flick (in-person AND live-streaming)
2022-03-20 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Award-winning gay novelist Wayne Hoffman (Hard, An Older Man, Sweet Like Sugar) makes his nonfiction debut with The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder.
Wayne’s great-grandmother, a Russian Jewish immigrant, was brutally murdered in 1913 in Winnipeg’s so-called Hebrew Colony. The crime made headlines across Canada, in English and Yiddish newspapers, and her funeral was the largest Winnipeg had ever seen. But the killer was never found. A century later, Wayne—a veteran journalist—set out to solve this mystery when his mother (named in her slain grandmother’s memory) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The result is a family memoir about a gay man caring for his mother as her mental health deteriorates, interspersed with a historical investigation into the events of a century ago, as he races to find the answers before his mother loses the ability to understand her own family history.
Reading followed by a Q&A with veteran Billboard editor and Sirius XM radio host Larry Flick, joining us virtually from Wales.
Join Wayne Hoffman in-person at the Bureau OR watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA
.
Safety protocol (for those joining in person):
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
Please bring proof of vaccination with you.
You will need to show proof of vaccination and a photo id in order to attend the event.
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Purchase Wayne Hoffman’s The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder (Heliotrope Books, 2022, paperback, $18) from the Bureau’s online store.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Copies of The End of Her are also available at the Bureau’s physical store.

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

Wayne Hoffman is the author of three novels—Hard, An Older Man, and Sweet Like Sugar—and his essays have appeared in such anthologies as Mama’s Boy: Gay Men Write About Their Mothers and Best Gay Stories 2010. His cultural reporting has appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, Billboard, Out, The Advocate, Poz, and elsewhere; he is currently executive editor of the Jewish online magazine Tablet.

Larry Flick is a 35-plus year veteran of music and media. He first made his mark at Billboard magazine as a senior editor for 14 years. He then took to the airwaves of SiriusXM as a host and producer for 18 years. He is currently a music curator for VERO Music, and a writer for publications that include the Telegraph UK and Rival magazine.

Queer Rain Pop Up at the Bureau (IN-PERSON)
2022-03-26 14:00 - 16:00 | NY
Pick up the inaugural issue of the Queer Rain magazine from the editors Alma Leppla and Tricia Rainwater, visiting from San Francisco!
The mission of Queer Rain is to celebrate and uplift queer BIPOC femmes and gender-expansive artists. As two queer femmes of color we have individually and collectively felt barriers in the art world. We formed as a collective in February 2021, hosting workshops and holding space for artists at the intersection of queerness and BIPOC identities. We’re proud to share the launch of our inaugural publication in January 2022, an anthology showcasing work from 20 queer BIPOC femme and gender-expansive artists.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with poets Lisa Dordal & Emanuel Xavier (in-person AND live-streaming)
2022-04-02 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Kick off National Poetry Month at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division as two award-winning queer poets, Lisa Dordal & Emanuel Xavier, share their poems of wisdom, struggle, and transformation.

If you can’t join us in person, watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA

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

Emanuel Xavier’s Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier (Queer Mojo, 2021, paperback, $12.95)

Also available in Spanish: Poemas Seleccionados de Emanuel Xavier ($12.95)

Lisa Dordal’s Water Lessons (Black Lawrence Press, 2022, paperback, $16.95)
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Copies of these titles are also available at the Bureau’s physical store and can be purchased at the reading.

Lisa Dordal holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Fine Arts, both from Vanderbilt University, and teaches in the English Department at Vanderbilt. She is the author of Mosaic of the Dark, which was a finalist for the 2019 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry, and Water Lessons (April 2022). She is a Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets University Prize, the Robert Watson Poetry Prize, and the Betty Gabehart Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Narrative, Image, RHINO, The Sun, The New Ohio Review, Best New Poets, Greensboro Review, Ninth Letter, and CALYX. Her website is www.lisadordal.com

Poet and activist, Emanuel Xavier was born in Brooklyn, New York, and became involved in the ball scene as a homeless gay teen. Xavier has received recognition as a spoken word artist from national colleges and universities and was named an LGBTQ Icon by The Equality Forum. He has been presented a New York City Council Citation Award, received International Latino Book Award and Lambda Literary Award nominations and American Library Association Over the Rainbow Books selections for his collections which include: Pier Queen, Americano, If Jesus Were Gay, Nefarious, and Radiance. He is the recipient of a Gay City Impact Award and The Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award. Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier was a Kirkus Review Best Indie Book of 2021. His website is www.emanuelxavier.org

Book Launch for Madness by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué (ONLINE EVENT)
2022-04-07 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
Please join us online for the launch of Madness by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué, now out from Nightboat Books! Accompanying Ojeda-Sagué are the great poets Alli Warren and Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, who will read from recent work. Madness takes the form of a selected poems of a fictional poet, Luis Montes-Torres, a gay Cuban exile who makes a name for himself in the world of poetry before the contours of his ordinary life become overwhelming, stilted, and impossible. The poems and biographical commentary reveal the unpredictable wavering between anxiety and attachment, between the political and the personal, that accompanies any American life marked by difference. Madness is a study in how pleasure, crisis, wonder, disappointment, love, and fantasy are written into our forms for living.

Register on Eventbrite to join this event on Zoom

OR

watch the live-stream on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Once you have registered on Eventbrite you will receive an email with the link you need to join the event on Zoom – or you can simply return to the Eventbrite page and click on “Access the event.” But you will only be able to access this AFTER you have registered.

Purchase Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué‘s Madness (Nightboat Books, 2022, paperback, $17.95) from the Bureau’s online store by clicking on the title.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué is a poet and writer living in Chicago. He is most recently the author of _Losing Miami_ (The Accomplices, 2019) and co-editor of _An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989_, both of which were finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. His fourth poetry book, _Madness_, is out from Nightboat Books. He is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Chicago where he works in the study of sexuality.

Alli Warren‘s most recent book is _Sundial_ (Nion Editions, 2021). Previous books include _Little Hill_ (City Lights, 2020), _I Love It Though_ (Nightboat Books, 2017), and _Here Come the Warm Jets_ (City Lights, 2013). Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Harpers, Poetry, The Brooklyn Rail, and BOMB. She has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 2005.

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He is the co-editor of Puerto Rico en mi corazón (Anomalous Press) and the translator of Dinapiera Di Donato’s Collateral / Colaterales (Akashic Press / National Poetry Series). His first collection of poems is The Life Assignment (Four Way Books), a finalist for the Norma Faber First Book Prize and one of Remezcla’s 2020’s Best Books by Latine or Latin American Authors. A recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Queer|Arts|Mentorship and CantoMundo, he serves as the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center’s Managing Director.

Karen Jaime in conversation with Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Regie Cabico, and Andres Chulisi Rodriguez discussing the queer history and legacy of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe through performance (in-person & live-streaming)
2022-04-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join poet and scholar Karen Jaime and scholar Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, author of Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails, for a conversation about queerness, poetry and performance, and Jaime’s new book The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida. From its founding in the early 1970s to the present, there is a long tradition of queerness—both in terms of sexualities and performance practices—at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Jaime’s book traces this history and recognizes the work of many of these queer artists, including Regie Cabico and Andres Chulisi Rodriguez who will perform and discuss their work.

Join this event in-person at the Bureau
OR watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA

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

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

Purchase Karen Jaime’s The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida (NYU, 2021, paperback, $28) from the Bureau’s online store by clicking on the title.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Copies of The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida are also available at the Bureau’s physical store.

Karen Jaime is Assistant Professor of Performing and Media Arts and Latina/o Studies at Cornell University. Karen is a former Institute for Citizens & Scholars Career Enhancement Junior Faculty Fellow (*formerly the Woodrow Wilson), Visiting Scholar at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, a former Rockefeller Foundation Research Fellow and Chancellor’s Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karen’s monograph, The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida (NYU Press, 2021) argues for a reexamination of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe as a historically queer space, both in terms of sexualities and performance practices. Her critical writing has been published, or is forthcoming, in Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, e-Misférica, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, ASAP/J, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and in Performance Matters. Karen is also an accomplished spoken word/performance artist who served as the host/curator of the Friday Night Poetry Slam at the world-renowned Nuyorican Poets Cafe (2003-2005). As a published poet, her writing is included in The Best of Panic! En Vivo From the East Village, Flicker and Spark: A Queer Anthology of Spoken Word and Poetry, in a special issue of Sinister Wisdom: A Multicultural Lesbian Literary and Art Journal, “Out Latina Lesbians,” and in the anthology Latinas: Struggles and Protest in 21st Century USA.

Arnaldo M. Cruz-Malavé is professor of Spanish and comparative literature and associate director of Fordham’s Latin American and Latinx Studies Institute. He is the author of Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails (Palgrave, 2007), a book about the relationship between art and Latinx popular culture in the gentrifying New York of the 1980s; El primitivo implorante (Rodopi, 1994), a study of the intersections of nationalism and queer sexuality in the prose fiction of the Cuban author José Lezama Lima; editor of the anthology of short stories by the Puerto Rican queer diasporic author, Manuel Ramos Otero: Cuentos (casi) completos (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2019) and coeditor, with Martin Manalansan, of Queer Globalization: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism (NYU, 2002). He has been the recipient of the NEH and the Ford Foundation fellowships, a visiting professor at Harvard, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies of CUNY’s Graduate Center and Fordham University Press.

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. Mr. Cabico received his BFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a 2006 NYU Asian Pacific American Studies Artist In Residence. Television credits include 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, NPR’s Snap Judgement & a TEDx Talk. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Mr. Cabico received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital. As a theater artist, he received three New York Innovative Theater Award Nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind with a win for Best Performance Art Production. Mr. Cabico will be a featured poet at the 2022 Whitney Biennial and resides in Washington, DC where he produces Capturing Fire Press and Capturing Fire Slam.

Andres Chulisi Rodriguez is a poet, author, writer and actor. Brooklyn born Harlem living. Working on 2nd book and 4th One Man Show- Prototype Of An Unmothered Maricon.

Poetry of Gender Transformation: Jendi Reiter & Steven Riel (in-person & live-streaming)
2022-04-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join poets Jendi Reiter and Steven Riel for a reading from their new books and a conversation about inhabiting different gender personae through art. Reiter’s third poetry collection, Made Man (Little Red Tree), explores female-to-male transition and gay masculine identity through the voices of unusual objects and fictional characters with some aspect that is constructed, technological, or hybrid. From a surrealist’s eggbeater discovering feminist consciousness, or a pastry box enforcing omertà, to the Nicene Creed as interpreted by Frankenstein, these startling life studies open up onto a broader consideration of humanity’s relationship with technology and the shadow side of male dominance of nature. Shapeshifting abounds in Edgemere, Riel’s second collection, as this pro-feminist gay poet marshals a parade of female personas that includes Senator Elizabeth Dole, Joan of Arc, and The Supremes. Riel’s poems zigzag across liminal spaces not just between male/female and human/inhuman, but between those fallen from AIDS and survivors who grieve them.
Copies of Jendi Reiter’s Made Man and Steven Riel’s Edgemere will be available for purchase at the event.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
If you can’t join us in person, watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel.
Safety protocol
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.
Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or you can donate in advance on Eventbrite.

Jendi Reiter is the author of the novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016), the short story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press, 2018), and four poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree, 2015). Their awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship for Poetry, the New Letters Prize for Fiction, the Wag’s Revue Poetry Prize, the Bayou Magazine Editor’s Prize in Fiction, and two awards from the Poetry Society of America. Two Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction and was a finalist for the Book Excellence Awards and the Lascaux Prize for Fiction. They are the editor of WinningWriters.com, an online resource site with contests and markets for creative writers.

Steven Riel is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: Fellow Odd Fellow (Trio House Press, 2014) and Edgemere (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021). His most recent chapbook Postcard from P-town was published as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared in several anthologies and numerous periodicals, including The Minnesota Review and International Poetry Review. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the Franco-American literary e-journal Résonance. Author photo: Jamison Wexler

OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (in-person and live-streaming)
2022-04-10 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join editors of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture, Julie R. Enszer and Elena Gross, contributors Mariana Romo-Carmona and Linda Villarosa, with interlocutor Reginald Harris to discuss the OutWrite conferences and their enduring legacies.

Join this event in-person at the Bureau
OR watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA

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

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

Purchase OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2022, paperback, $26.95) from the Bureau’s online store by clicking on the title.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Copies of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture are also available at the Bureau’s physical store.

Julie R. Enszer, PhD, is a scholar and a poet. Her book manuscript A Fine Bind is a history of lesbian-feminist presses from 1969 until 2009. Her scholarly work has appeared or is forthcoming in Southern Cultures, Journal of Lesbian Studies, American Periodicals, WSQ, and Frontiers. She is the author of four poetry collections, Avowed (2016), Lilith’s Demons (2015), Sisterhood (2013), and Hand- made Love (2010). She is editor of The Complete Works of Pat Parker (2016), which won the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry; Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974– 1989 (2018); and Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry (2011), which was a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. She has her MFA and PhD from the University of Maryland. Enszer edits and publishes Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, and is a regular book reviewer for the The Rumpus and Calyx. Read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.

Elena Gross (she/they) is the Director of Exhibitions & Curatorial Affairs at the Museum of the African Diaspora and an independent writer and culture critic living in Oakland, California. She received an MA in visual and critical studies from the California College of the Arts in 2016 and her BA in art history and women, gender, and sexuality studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2012. She specializes in representations of identity in fine art, photography, and popular media. Elena was formerly the creator and cohost of the arts and visual culture podcast what are you looking at?, published by Art Practical. Her research has been centered on conceptual and material abstractions of the body in the work of Black modern and contemporary artists. She has presented her writing and research at institutions and conferences across the United States, including Nook Gallery, Southern Exposure, KADIST, Harvard College, YBCA, California College of the Arts, and the GLBT History Museum. In 2018, she collaborated with the artist Leila Weefur on the publication Between Beauty and Horror. Her most recent writing can be found in the publication This Is Not a Gun.

Reginald Harris won the 2012 Cave Canem /Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, recipient of Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year for 10 Tongues: Poems (2002), his work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and other publications. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, he lives in Brooklyn where he is at work on another manuscript.

Mariana Romo-Carmona lost custody of her son when she came out as a lesbian in 1975. She is a novelist and teaches at City College.

Linda Villarosa is a journalist, author, editor, novelist, and educator. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, covering race, inequality, and health. She has won awards from the American Medical Writers’ Association, the Arthur Ashe Institute, Lincoln University, the New York Association of Black Journalists, the National Women’s Political Caucus, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists’ Association, and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. She is the author of, most recently, Under the Skin: Race, Inequality, and the Health of a Nation. Her other books include Body and Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being and the novel Passing for Black, released in 2008 and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. She teaches journalism and Black studies at the City College of New York.

NYC Launch Party for Ryan Tracy’s Tender Bottoms (in-person and live-streaming)
2022-04-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Come out for the NYC launch of Ryan Tracy’s Tender Bottoms, a collection of poems inspired by literary modernism’s doyen of queer domestic life, Gertrude Stein. Ryan will be joined by poets Kyle Carrero Lopez and Nathaniel Rosenthalis, with special guest Chris Campanioni, for an evening of tender verses and bottom natures.

Join this event in-person at the Bureau
OR watch the live-stream of the event on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzrAvfZMDF_ilmUH0CBn5iA

Copies of Tender Bottoms ($19.99) will be available for purchase at the event.

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

Ryan Tracy‘s poetry and fiction have appeared in Pank (2019 Pushcart Prize nomination for fiction), The Hyacinth Review, Chronogram, The New Engagement, K.G.B., and The Gay and Lesbian Review, among others. Essays and criticism have appeared in The American Reader, The New York Press, and The Brooklyn Rail. Ryan teaches World Literature at Baruch College and is a PhD Candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in northern New Jersey. He co-founded LEGACY, a production collective by and for Black queer artists, and is the author of MUSCLE MEMORY, the chapbook winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books contest. His recent and upcoming publications include The Offing, Prolit, Best New Poets 2021, and Poem-a-Day.

Nathaniel Rosenthalis is a poet whose work appears in The Harvard Advocate, New American Writing, Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is the author of several chapbooks, including 24 HOUR AIR (PANK Books, April 2022). He is also a singer and actor, and recently made his Off-Broadway debut.
