BGSQD

Queer Collage Workshop (in person only)
2024-04-27 14:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a queer collage workshop with Charlie Welch on Saturday, April 27, from 2 to 5 pm.
No experience necessary! All are welcome to join!
We will have some materials (magazines, printed matter, glue, cardboard) and tools (scissors) available, but we encourage you to bring materials and tools to share. Thank you!
The collages will be scanned to produce a 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch zine!
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.
Space is limited to the first 16 people who show up!
Free! But donations to support the Bureau’s work are much appreciated.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius--I. Augustus Durham + Brittnay L. Proctor in Conversation (in person & live-streaming)
2024-04-20 14:30 - 15:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join the Bureau for a conversation with authors I. Augustus Durham and Brittnay L. Proctor to discuss Durham’s new book, Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke University Press, 2023). Examining the works of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Marvin Gaye, Octavia E. Butler, and Kendrick Lamar, Stay Black and Die chronicles the relationship between black “mothers” and “sons” to argue for the black feminine/maternal, through the lens of abstraction, as the site of melancholy and genius.
To reserve a copy of Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke University Press, 2023, paperback, $28.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Stay Black and Die for April 20th” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

This event is taking place in conjunction with the The Twelfth Annual Rainbow Book Fair, held at The LGBT Community Center on Saturday, April 20th, from noon to 6 PM:
“The New York Rainbow Book Fair is America’s longest-running LGBT book fair and the largest LGBT book event in the country. It has grown every year since its beginning in 2009. It brings together thoughtful, interesting people of all ages, from early teens to those in their 70s and 80s, from a spectrum of countries, ethnicities, gender identities, and viewpoints. It attracts readers and writers, of course, but also publishers, editors, agents, and media attention—people who have never experienced queer culture, and others who have made it the focus of their lives. Rainbow Book Fair is open to the public, with book discounts and giveaways.”

I. Augustus Durham is an assistant professor of English at Lehman College, CUNY, whose research focuses on black study from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. His work has been published in Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International, and Journal of Religion and Health; and an essay on the film Moonlight for an edited collection on the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney. Prior to his appointment at Lehman, he was the President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in English at the University of Maryland, College Park. Durham is at work on two new projects: an examination of a singer, and a project on invention.

Brittnay L. Proctor is a researcher and writer of performance, popular culture, and sound/visual culture at the nexus of blackness, gender, and sexuality. She is Assistant Professor of Race and Media in the School of Media Studies at The New School (NY, NY) and author of Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden (Bloomsbury Press: 33 1/3 Series). She is currently working on two book projects; one of which soundtrack’s black Southern migration to California during the Second Great Migration and the other, which draws on LP records and Compact Disc’s (CD’s), to trace the sonic and visual discourses of gender and sexuality in funk music.

The Rainbow Book Fair Events at the Bureau (in person & live-streaming)
2024-04-20 12:00 - 18:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The New York Rainbow Book Fair is America’s longest-running LGBT book fair and the largest LGBT book event in the country. It has grown every year since its beginning in 2009. It brings together thoughtful, interesting people of all ages, from early teens to those in their 70s and 80s, from a spectrum of countries, ethnicities, gender identities, and viewpoints. It attracts readers and writers, of course, but also publishers, editors, agents, and media attention—people who have never experienced queer culture, and others who have made it the focus of their lives. Rainbow Book Fair is open to the public, with book discounts and giveaways.
Please join us for The Twelfth Annual Rainbow Book Fair, which will take place in New York City on Saturday, April 20th, from noon until 6 PM, at The LGBT Community Center. For more information on the biggest LGBT book event in the US, please click here.
The Bureau will host readings throughout the day in conjunction with the Rainbow Book Fair. Details below.

Noon
The Publishing Triangle Hosts Judy Grahn
in Conversation with Donna Minkowitz and JP Howard
***
2:30 PM
Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius
I. Augustus Durham + Brittnay L. Proctor in Conversation
Join the Bureau for a conversation with authors I. Augustus Durham and Brittnay L. Proctor to discuss Durham’s new book, Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke University Press, 2023). Examining the works of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Marvin Gaye, Octavia E. Butler, and Kendrick Lamar, Stay Black and Die chronicles the relationship between black “mothers” and “sons” to argue for the black feminine/maternal, through the lens of abstraction, as the site of melancholy and genius.
To reserve a copy of Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke University Press, 2023, paperback, $28.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Stay Black and Die for April 20th” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

***
4 PM
Samra Habib Reads
Samra Habib (they/them) is a writer, photographer, and activist. Their bestselling memoir We Have Always Been Here is an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes them to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within them all along. It’s a triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, and a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one’s truest self.
As a journalist they’ve covered topics ranging from fashion trends and Muslim dating apps to the rise of Islamophobia in the US. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Advocate, and their photo project, “Just Me and Allah,” has been featured in Nylon, i-D, Vanity Fair Italia, Vice, and The Washington Post. Samra works with LGBTQ organizations internationally, raising awareness of issues that impact queer Muslims around the world.

***
5 PM
Andrea Lawlor Reads
Andrea Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, is the recipient of a 2020 Whiting Award for Fiction, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Their publications include a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, a 2018 finalist for the Lambda Literary and CLMP Firecracker Awards. Paul, originally published by Rescue Press in 2017, is out now from Vintage/Knopf (US) and Picador (UK & Ireland).

TELL 91: FIRE (in person & live-streaming)
2024-04-19 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.
The theme of the 91st TELL is FIRE. Featuring storytellers Christen Clifford, Léoh Hailu-Ghermay, Klondyke, and Marg Suarez.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

DRAE CAMPBELL’s first performance was at age 5 in a nightclub opening for a punk band. Drae has a BFA in Theater from The University of Arts in Philadelphia. Some Theater credits include: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Ricochet Collective), Non-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (La MaMa), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Oph3lia(HERE). TV includes “New Amsterdam,” “Bull ” and “Dinette ” (web series, directed by Shaina Feinberg). Drae has been hosting and curating TELL for more than 9 years which is now a SILVER Signal Award-winning podcast of the same name. www.draecampbell.com

Christen Clifford is a mother, artist, and writer. She has been a Mainstage Storyteller at The Moth, a bartender, waiter, art model, salesperson at Victoria’s Secret, and is now a PT AssocIate Professor at The New School- which is a fancy way of saying adjunct. Her risograph art book BabyLove was acquired by the Thomas J Watson library at The Met. Her work has been written about in Artforum, Art in America, artnet, artnews, Hyperallergic, NYT, Chicago Tribune and on some right wing websites. She lives in Queens and online @cd_clifford

Léoh Hailu-Ghermay is a first generation Tigrayan-American, Black queer artist and advocate (and former Drae Campbell-backup-dog walker) living on occupied Munsee-Lenape and Canarsie Land. They begrudgingly work for nonprofits in order to do some small amount of good in this evil world and ecstatically spend their free time creating art and gathering community together. They’re a proud Aries (everyone say happy belated birthday) so there is literally no better theme for them. They’re excited as fuck.

Klondyke is an alien tragg*t superstar!!! Child of a black hole and a supernova, raised by a 4th dimensional rockstar. Experimental musical theatre composer, and first winner of Cakeboys Takes the Cake Competition they are here to terrorize norms out of existence through the great unifier: MUUUUSIIIIIC!

Marg Suarez is a tinkerer, troubleshooter, and lifetime learner. By day, Marg works as a veteran union elevator mechanic in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise; by night, Marg teaches apprentices to diagnose electronic elevator controls. On weekends you can find Marg carting kiddo to swim lessons and birthday parties on their electric cargo trike, organizing volunteers with a community-owned Wi-Fi network, or procrastinating about home improvement projects. Marg lives in Brooklyn with 1 beautiful spouse, 1 precocious 6-year-old, and 5 rescued cats.

Publishing Triangle Finalists Readings 2024: Second of Two Nights, Hybrid In-Person & Virtual
2024-04-16 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for the second of two night’s of hybrid in-person & virtual readings by finalists for Publishing Triangle Awards at the Bureau! Both readings will also stream on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd
Please note: the Bureau is usually closed on Tuesdays, but we will open at 6 pm for this event.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Readers on Tuesday, April 16th:

Emily Zhou, author of Girlfriend (LittlePuss Press), Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction and a Finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

Helen Elaine Lee, author of Pomegranate (Atria Books), Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction

Elina Alter, translator of Wound, by Oksana Vasyakina (Catapult Books), Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction

Chloe Chun Seim, author of Churn: A Novel in Stories (Texas Review Press: The University Press of Sam Houston State University), Finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction

Lamya H, author of Hijab Butch Blues (The Dial Press), Finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Zachary Zane, author of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto (Abrams Image, an imprint of Abrams Books), Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction

Greg Marshall, author of Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Books), Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction

Alicia Mountain, author of Four in Hand (BOA Editions), Finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry

Destiny Hemphill, author of motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life (Action Books), Finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry

Casey Plett, author of On Community (Biblioasis), Finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

Renee James, author of BeatNikki’s Cafe (Amble Press/Bywater Books), Finalist for the Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing

Robyn Gigl, author of Remain Silent (Kensington Publishing Corporation), Finalist for the Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing

Lawrence Lindell, author of Blackward (Drawn & Quarterly), Finalist for the Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children’s Literature

Books will be available for purchase! To reserve a copy of any title, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “Publishing Triangle Finalists Readings” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10
All are welcome to join, 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 on Venmo @BGSQD

The Publishing Triangle’s 36th Annual Awards Ceremony will take place on Wednesday, April 17th, at 7 PM, at The New School, 63 Fifth Avenue (between 13th and 14th Street). The ceremony, which will be hosted by poet and activist Emanuel Xavier, will also be livestreamed, and a reception will follow. The awards ceremony and reception are both free and open to the public.
To see the full list of finalists for each category visit The Publishing Triangle’s website.

The Publishing Triangle is a group of queer folks who work to further the publication of books and other materials written by LGBTQ authors or with LGBTQ themes.
We come from all types of backgrounds. We are on staff and we’re freelancers. We are editors, agents, and booksellers; we work in sub rights, publicity, sales, design, and production. Many of us are writers. We are also librarians, teachers, booksellers, and even avid readers who don’t work in a publishing-related field.
Our primary method of shining a much-needed light on queer books is through our awards program. We give out ten awards annually (at an awards ceremony, usually in April at the New School in Manhattan), each with a cash prize of between $500 and $3000. Seven of these awards honor the best books published in the previous calendar year in nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and trans/gender-variant literature. There is a lifetime achievement award and an emerging-writer award; and we also honor a book-industry figure each year (not a writer) with our leadership award.
Through our social media and our newsletter—as well as through readings, social networking events, and other programs in the New York City area—we strive to promote a sense of camaraderie in the queer literary community.
Membership dues start at $40 a year for individuals (there are additional levels of membership for families and businesses). For more details, see our membership page.
If you have additional questions about the Triangle and its programs, please email us at info@publishingtriangle.org or write us at the address listed below.
The Publishing Triangle
511 Avenue of the Americas, #D36
New York, NY 10011

Publishing Triangle Finalists Readings 2024: First of Two Nights, Hybrid In-Person & Virtual
2024-04-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for the first of two night’s of hybrid in-person & virtual readings by finalists for Publishing Triangle Awards at the Bureau! Both readings will also stream on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd
Please note: the Bureau is usually closed on Mondays, but we will open at 6 pm for this event.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Readers on Monday, April 15th:

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars (Penguin Random House) Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction

Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, author of And Then He Sang a Lullaby (Grove Atlantic), Finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction

Cookie Woolner, author of The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall (University of North Carolina Press), Finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Barbara Jane Brickman, author of Suffering Sappho!: Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture (Rutgers University), Finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

A.V. Marraccini, author of We the Parasites (Sublunary Editions), Finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Leslie Sainz, author of Have You Been Long Enough At Table (Tin House), Finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry

Marci Blackman, contributor to Sinister Wisdom 128: Trans/Feminisms (also features contributions by Talia Bettcher, Red Washburn, Claudia Sofia Garriga-Lopez, Cecilia Gentili, Kris Grey, Shereen Imayatulla, Nadine Rodriguez, Cassidy Scanlon, Catalina Schliebener Muñoz, Fitch Wilder, and Sarah Youngblood Gregory) (Sinister Wisdom), Finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

Oliver Radclyffe, author of Adult Human Male (Unbound Press), Finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature

Justine Pucella Winans, author of The Otherwoods (Bloomsbury Children’s Books), Finalist for the Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children’s Literature

Curtis Campbell, author of Dragging Mason County (Annick Press), Finalist for the Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children’s Literature

J.M. Redmann, author of Transitory (Bold Strokes Books), Finalist for the Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing

Books will be available for purchase! To reserve a copy of any title, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “Publishing Triangle Finalists Readings” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10
All are welcome to join, 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 on Venmo @BGSQD

The Publishing Triangle’s 36th Annual Awards Ceremony will take place on Wednesday, April 17th, at 7 PM, at The New School, 63 Fifth Avenue (between 13th and 14th Street). The ceremony, which will be hosted by poet and activist Emanuel Xavier, will also be livestreamed, and a reception will follow. The awards ceremony and reception are both free and open to the public.
To see the full list of finalists for each category visit The Publishing Triangle’s website.

The Publishing Triangle is a group of queer folks who work to further the publication of books and other materials written by LGBTQ authors or with LGBTQ themes.
We come from all types of backgrounds. We are on staff and we’re freelancers. We are editors, agents, and booksellers; we work in sub rights, publicity, sales, design, and production. Many of us are writers. We are also librarians, teachers, booksellers, and even avid readers who don’t work in a publishing-related field.
Our primary method of shining a much-needed light on queer books is through our awards program. We give out ten awards annually (at an awards ceremony, usually in April at the New School in Manhattan), each with a cash prize of between $500 and $3000. Seven of these awards honor the best books published in the previous calendar year in nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and trans/gender-variant literature. There is a lifetime achievement award and an emerging-writer award; and we also honor a book-industry figure each year (not a writer) with our leadership award.
Through our social media and our newsletter—as well as through readings, social networking events, and other programs in the New York City area—we strive to promote a sense of camaraderie in the queer literary community.
Membership dues start at $40 a year for individuals (there are additional levels of membership for families and businesses). For more details, see our membership page.
If you have additional questions about the Triangle and its programs, please email us at info@publishingtriangle.org or write us at the address listed below.
The Publishing Triangle
511 Avenue of the Americas, #D36
New York, NY 10011

The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen (in person & live-streaming)
2024-04-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Celebrating the release of The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen, edited by Brooke M. Haney.
A reading and presentation of excerpts from The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook, followed by a facilitated conversation with editor Brooke M. Haney and contributors Raja Benz, Kaja Dunn, Amy Northup, Chelsea Pace, Cha Ramos, and Olivia Troy.
The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen explores the role of the intimacy choreographer with an in‐depth look at specializations that exist within the profession. With contributions by over 30 industry professionals, this book aims to bring awareness to the wide range of needs a project may have and how intimacy professionals use their cultural competencies and specialties in practice to create the most compelling storytelling. Specialties covered include working with minors, prosthetics, intimacy and disability, staging queer intimacy, working with fat actors, Black American intimacy, dance, working on scenes of trauma, sexual violence and non‐consent, and BDSM.

To reserve a copy of The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen (Routledge, April 1, 2024, paperback, $42.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve copy of Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook” in the subject line.

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

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
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 on Venmo @bgsqd

Second Tuesday presents: Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City
2024-04-09 18:30 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Center is proud to present a lecture and conversation with Elyssa Goodman, the author of Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

To reserve a copy of Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City (Hanover Square Press, 2023, hardcover, $32.99) please write to contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Glitter and Concrete for April 9th event” in the subject line.

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

About Glitter and Concrete
From journalist and drag historian Elyssa Maxx Goodman, an intimate, evocative history of drag in New York City exploring its dynamic role, from the Jazz Age to Drag Race, in queer liberation and urban life
From the lush feather boas that adorned early female impersonators to the sequined lip syncs of barroom queens to the drag kings that have us laughing in stitches, drag has played a vital role in the creative life of New York City. But the evolution of drag in the city—as an art form, a community and a mode of liberation—has never before been fully chronicled.
Now, for the first time, Elyssa Goodman unearths the dramatic, provocative untold story of drag in New York City in all its glistening glory. Glitter and Concrete ducks beneath the velvet ropes of Harlem Renaissance balls, examines drag’s crucial role in the Stonewall Uprising, traces drag’s influence on disco and punk rock as well as its unifying power during the AIDS crisis and 9/11, and culminates with the modern-day drag queen in the era of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Including original interviews with high-profile performers, as well as glamorous color photos from exclusive sources and the author herself, Glitter and Concrete is a significant contribution to queer history and an essential read for anyone curious about the story that echoes beneath the heels.
​​
About Elyssa Maxx Goodman
Elyssa Goodman is a New York-based writer and photographer specializing in non-fiction writing and documentary photography. Her first book, Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City, is out now from Hanover Square Press. She is represented by Melissa Danaczko at Stuart Krichevsky Agency. Her writing and photography have been published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New Yorker, them., InsideHook, Artforum, Elle, VICE, New York, i-D, and many others. She is also the host and curator of the Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series.

Cynthia Carr and Mx. Justin Vivian Bond present CANDY DARLING: DREAMER, ICON, SUPERSTAR (in person & live-streaming)
2024-04-07 15:00 - 16:30 | The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, Room 101, New York, 10011, United States
Join the acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr and cabaret legend Mx. Justin Vivian Bond for a discussion of Candy Darling, the first full portrait of the queer icon and Warhol superstar.
Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. Candy Darling found her turn in New York’s early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max’s Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play.
Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: “I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me.” Candy died at twenty-nine in 1974, as conversations about gender and identity were really just starting. She never knew it, but she changed the world.
Packed with tales of luminaries and gossip and meticulous research, immersive and laced with Candy’s words and her friends’ recollections, Cynthia Carr’s Candy Darling is Candy’s long-overdue return to the spotlight.

To reserve a copy of Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 19, 2024, hardcover, $30), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Candy Darling for April 7” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person in room 301 of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011. Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Cynthia Carr is the author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz, winner of a Lambda Literary Award and finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. Her previous books are Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America and On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century

Mx Justin Vivian Bond has appeared on stage (Broadway and Off-Broadway, London’s West End), screen (Shortbus, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Sunset Stories, television (High Maintenance, Difficult People, The Get Down), nightclub stages (most notably a decades long residency at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in NYC), and in concert halls worldwide (Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House).
Their visual art and installations have been seen in museums and galleries in the US (Participant, Inc, The New Museum) and abroad (Vitrine, London).
Their memoir Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press) won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.
They are the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, and a Tony nomination, an Ethyl Eichelberger Award, The Peter Reed Foundation Grant, The Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant for Artists, and The Art Matters Grant.
They have self-released several full length recordings: most notably Dendrophile, and Silver Wells. As one half of the legendary punk cabaret duo Kiki & Herb they toured the world and released two cds: Do You Hear What We Hear? and Kiki and Herb Will Die For You at Carnegie Hall.
Mx Bond has been at the forefront of Trans visibility and activism since the early 1990s.
They have a Masters Degree in Live Art from Central Saint Martins College in London and have taught performance composition and Live Art Installation at NYU and Bard College.
Currently Viv divides their time between residences in New York City’s East Village and the Hudson Valley.
In December of 2019 they made their debut at The Vienna Staatsoper in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando as Orlando’s child.
Mx Bond is the narrator of the forthcoming Candy Darling audiobook.

Anamot Press x the Bureau present: the right amount of light to appear whole (in person only)
2024-04-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The right amount of light to appear whole is an evening of poetry readings curated by Anamot Press and hosted at the Bureau.
In celebration of andriniki mattis’ debut poetry collection Quiet Fires and inspired by / in solidarity with fellow authors, Megan Pinto, Emily Lee Luan, India Lena González.
The right amount of light to appear whole is a line from andriniki mattis, it encapsulates how these poets stretch the elasticity of the English language through visual poems, empty spaces, shapes and line breaks. Their poems attempt to return from a time that felt separated from oneself and move toward a wholeness, despite daily acts of violences, homesickness, heartbreak, and a fear of shame and sadness returning.

To reserve a copy of Quiet Fires (Anamot Press, 2023, paperback, $18), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve copy of Quiet Fires” in the subject line.

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

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
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 on Venmo @BGSQD

Readers:

Emily Lee Luan is a poet and educator. Emily’s debut poetry collection Return was published by Nighboat in April 2023, it explores Taiwanese diasporic experience through the porosnous of language. Tatevik’s favourite poem is ‘Reversible Poem in Dishwasher’, here is what Cathy Park Hong says about Emily’s book: “Luan’s poems, which alloy Chinese and English into feats of formal ingenuity and beauty, translate the unspeakable. Read it once, then read it again slowly to perceive the spectrum of emotions Luan unseams with dexterity.”

Megan Pinto is a Brooklyn based poet. Megan’s debut collection of poetry, Saints of Little Faith, is forthcoming with Four Way Books in Fall 2024. Tatevik’s favourite poem is Harvest.

India Lena González is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. India’s debut poetry collection fox woman get out! was published by BOA Editions in 2023. Tatevik’s favourite poem is “una parda, which is me,”. Here is what Terence Hayes says about India’s book: “India Lena González’s debut is made of exhilarating body language. Her serpentine stanzas, upper- and lowercase characters, and bold exclamations move like Alvin Ailey dancing to lines of June Jordan.”

andriniki mattis is a Brooklyn based poet. His debut poetry collection Quiet Fires was published by Anamot Press in 2023. Tatevik’s favourite poem is how to live between the lines. Here is what Ocean Vuong says about andriniki’s book: “With an ear finely tuned to the shape and sorrows of living, to the celebration of transformation and survival, mattis has brought forth a work of lyrical prowess that fashions from the self a site of linguistic power and searing dexterity.”

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Three/Drei (in person only)
2024-04-03 18:30 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be in person at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Three / Drei (2010), directed by Tom Tykwer, starring Devid Striesow, Sebastian Schipper, and Sophie Rois.

Wednesday, April 3 – 6:30 pm to 9:30 pmBureau of General Services—Queer Division
208 W 13th St, Rm 210
New York, NY 10011

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

Synopsis: Hanna and Simon, a heterosexual couple approaching their twentieth year together, separately meet and fall in love with the same man.

Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In German with English subtitles.

RADIANT: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-30 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Perhaps more than any other, the singular street art of Keith Haring became emblematic of a particular cultural time and place: an at-once vibrant and decaying downtown New York of the 1980s, marked by both rebellion and excess, and soon to be ravaged by AIDS. Today, Haring’s instantly recognizable images grace everything from kid’s sneakers to Coach backpacks. The short, meteoric career and stunning achievements of this iconic American artist are richly documented in RADIANT: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper, March 5, 2024) by National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and New York Times bestselling biographer Brad Gooch. Granted access to Haring’s extensive archive, Gooch interviewed or was helped by more than two hundred people in assembling this definitive account of the magic and mystery of a barrier-breaking visionary.
Brad Gooch will be joined in conversation by Ricardo Montez, author of Keith Haring’s Line: Race and the Performance of Desire (Duke University Press, 2020).
Copies of Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring (Harper, 2024, hardcover, $40) will be available for purchase and signing, as will copies of Keith Haring’s Line: Race and the Performance of Desire (Duke University Press, 2020, paperback, $24.95). To reserve copies of either/both books, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve book(s) for March 30th” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

About Radiant:
Keith Haring arrived in downtown Manhattan from Kutztown, Pennsylvania in 1978, age 20. He discovered a city filled with urgent messages, taped to blank walls or spraypainted on the sides of buses. He was soon leaving his distinctive, unsigned chalk drawings on the black matte sheets pasted over outdated ads in the subway, drawings that featured images that would become his basic alphabet: flying saucers, pyramids, ziggurat stairways, barking dogs, crawling babies suffused in rays. Before long, Haring was a global artist, part of an influential cultural crowd that included Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Basquiat. He played a significant role in breaking down the wall erected between high art and popular culture, creating accessible work for all that provoked and inspired radical social change. Haring died of AIDS in 1990; his work, once radical, is now timeless.
“I saw my first Keith Haring circa 1980, though I can’t say exactly when, only that from the first crawling babies spotted in SoHo, his artworks were a marker, a sort of placeholder in my memories of the decade,” writes Gooch, whose memoir Smash Cut chronicled his own exuberant youth in the New York arts scene in the 70s and 80s. “With his early belief that art could change the world for the better, and wishing to make accessible and affordable for everyone, Haring, against all odds, succeeded at his democratizing mission. In our own era of engagement by so many artists with any available surface; with personal icons and licensing; with activism, collaborating, communication; and with the fostering of community, Keith Haring seems more than ever one of us.”

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

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Brad Gooch is a poet, novelist, and biographer whose previous ten books include Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and New York Times bestseller; City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara; Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America; and the memoir Smash Cut. He is the recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships and lives in New York City.

Ricardo Montez is Associate Professor of Performance Studies in English and Art History at Rutgers University. He is the author of Keith Haring’s Line: Race and the Performance of Desire (Duke University Press, 2020).

Game Over Books Queer Poetry Showcase ft. Myles Taylor, Dena Igusti, Liv Mammone, Mya Matteo Alexice (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us on March 28th at the Bureau for a reading from four emerging authors in partnership with Game Over Books. Myles Taylor, Dena Igusti, Mya Matteo Alexice, and Liv Mammone will be reading from their forthcoming or currently available titles. There will be time allotted to purchase and sign books after the reading.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Participants’ biographies:
Mya Matteo Alexice is a non-binary, Black and white graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA. Their poems can be found in or are forthcoming in publications such as Pleiades, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Bennington Review, Barrelhouse, The Pinch, Cherry Tree, underblong, and elsewhere. They were the runner-up in the 2023 Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest judged by Gary Soto. Their debut poetry collection, A Shape We’ve Yet to Name (March ’24), is forthcoming from Game Over Books. They enjoy video games where you can make the characters kiss.

Liv Mammone (she/her) is an editor and poet from Long Island. Her poetry has appeared with Button Poetry, The Poetry Foundation, The Medical Journal of Australia, and in many other places. In 2017, she competed for Union Square Slam as the first disabled woman to be on a New York national poetry slam team. She was also a finalist in the Capturing Fire National Poetry Slam in 2017. She has edited multiple books across genres, including the poetry collection They Called Her Goddess We Named her Girl by Uma Dwivedi, which was nominated for a Write Bloody Book Award. A Brooklyn Poets Fellow and Zoeglossia fellow, she is currently an editor at Game Over Books. In 2022, hers was one of the top ten most read poems at Split This Rock’s poetry database, The Quarry. Her first collection is forthcoming in 2025. Follow her on Instagram @mammoneliv.

Dena Igusti is an Indonesian Muslim writer born and raised in Queens, New York. They are the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, 2020), which has been listed as a 2022 Perennial Award Winner, 2020 Harvard Bookstore Staff Pick, and Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021, and I NEED THIS TO NOT SWALLOW ME ALIVE (Gingerbug Press, 2021). They are the co-playwright of the wish: a manual for a last-ditch effort to save abortion in the united states through theater (2023 A is For… Winner). They are the Inaugural 2023 NYFA Ryan Hudak Playwright Award Winner. Their work has been featured in BOAAT Press, Peregrine Journal, Colorbloq, and several other publications. Their work has been produced and performed at LA Times, The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, Women Deliver, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, Players Theatre (SHARUM, 2019), Prelude Festival (Cut Woman, 2020), Center At West Park (CON DOUGH, 2021), The Tank (First Sight 2021 at LimeFest), The Public (BLISS at Breaking The Binary Theatre Festival, 2023) and several other venues internationally.

Myles Taylor (they/he) is a transmasculine writer, organizer, educator, food service worker, Capricorn-Aquarius cusp, and glitter enthusiast. They are the current Producer of the historic Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge and former President and alum of the Emerson Poetry Project. They have represented Boston and Emerson College at the National Poetry Slam, FEMS Tournament, CUPSI, and others, and have been performing internationally for over 8 years. Their various publications and performance videos can be found at myles-taylor.com, and their neuroses can be found on social media @mylesdoespoems. They live amongst the rats of Allston, MA. Masculinity Parable (Game Over Books, 2023) is their first full-length collection.

BOOK LAUNCH: UNTENABLE MYSTIC CHARM by travis l. tate (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join UNTENABLE MYSTIC CHARM author travis l. tate and friends— Dom Martello, Jack Sullivan, Kyle Turner, & Omari K. Chancellor— for a night of readings from UNTENABLE MYSTIC CHARM, followed by a short Q&A.
UNTENABLE MYSTIC CHARM is a collection of eight short stories by travis I. tate ranging from the sensual to the humorous, and the vaguely historical to undeniably erotic told with poetic tenderness, a flair for the dramatic, and a love of the absurd.
To reserve a copy of Untenable Mystic Charm (Stanchion, February 27, 2024, paperback, $13), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Untenable Mystic Charm for March 27th” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Dom Martello is a writer, performer, and visual artist based in NYC. Their work is rooted in queer magical realism and has been developed by The Elif Collective, Syracuse University, The Strides Collective, and The Workshop Theater.

Jack Sullivan is a queer writer and visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY. His plays, performance texts, and video design have premiered at Dixon Place (NYC), The Tank (NYC), Belconnen Arts Centre (Canberra, Australia), and New Zealand Fringe Festival. His prose and poetry can be found / are forthcoming in BODEGA, JAKE, WHISKEY TIT, and GHOST CITY REVIEW. He is very in love with Travis.

Kyle Turner is a queer writer based in Brooklyn, NY. His writing on film, queerness, and culture has been featured in W Magazine, The Village Voice, Slate, GQ and the New York Times, and he is the author of The Queer Film Guide: 100 Films That Tell LGBTQIA+ Stories from Smith Street Books and Rizzoli. He is relieved to know that he is not a golem.

Omari K. Chancellor is a Brooklyn based actor and writer. They can be seen in Peter Farrelly’s film, The Greatest Beer Run Ever on Apple+ after a world premiere at TIFF. Omari was seen in the world premieres of Soft by Donja R. Love and I Am a Walrus by MJ Kaufman at the Williamstown Theatre Festival as well as appearing in amani at Rattlestick. Omari’s writing can be found in American Chordata, SoftPunk magazine, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn among others.

travis l. tate is a poet, playwright and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. Their plays have been seen at Breaking The Binary Theatre Festival, Theatre East, Victory Gardens, Dorset Theatre Festival and Luna Stage. Their poetry collection MAIDEN is out on V.A. Press. Their writing has appeared in Vassar Review, Joyland, 3views among others. Find more information at travisltate.com

Origami Vending Machine (in person only)
2024-03-24 13:00 - 15:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Origami artist and teacher Sok Song introduces an innovative Origami Vending Machine, appearing at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (the Bureau), Sunday, March 24th, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. This interactive, site-specific sculpture/installation offers a unique time and performance-based experience, allowing participants to select their preferred paper and choose from various traditional origami models to receive a free folded object from the ingenious Origami Vending Machine.

● Website: http://origamivendingmachine.com or http://ovmnyc.com
About the Origami Vending Machine: The Origami Vending Machine (OVM) is a site-specific, interactive sculpture measuring 3 feet deep by 3 feet wide by 4 feet tall. Participants choose a sheet of patterned paper and feed it into the machine. Then they select the origami model they would like by pressing a button. Afterwards, an animation of the model being folded is displayed on a digital screen. In less than a minute, the finished origami creation is dispensed!
Current Locations:

Kinokuniya (Sun., Feb. 18, noon-4pm)
Manhattan Graphics Center (Sat., Mar. 2, noon-4pm)
92nd Street Y (Sat., Mar. 16, noon-4pm)
BGSQD (Sat., Mar. 24, 1-3pm)
CUNY Hunter College (TBA)
NYC Subway (TBA)

Suggestions for future locations can be sent to these OVM websites: http://origamivendingmachine.com and http://ovmnyc.com

About Sok Song:
Sok Song is a versatile interdisciplinary artist who incorporates traditional paper-folding along with his Korean heritage into various fine art forms such as sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and painting. An award-winning multimedia creator, he’s the founder of Creased, Inc., and the Origami Meetup Group (OMGNYC), and the author of multiple publications, including Origami Chic and Crease + Fold. Sok currently teaches origami and printmaking at the 92nd Street Y and has taught at other esteemed institutions like the American Museum of Natural History, MoMA, CUNY Hunter, and the Manhattan Graphics Center, as well as at international conferences and various public and private schools. His inventive design work has been featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, L’Uomo, Marie Claire, Pop, Icon, Self, and GQ. Sok has become the first individual ever to receive a degree in Origami, thanks to the CUNY Baccalaureate program. Sok’s artistic journey also encompasses many honors such as a residency at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, an Awesome Foundation Award for his Origami Vending Machine, and an NEA grant via the Vermont Studio Center. Sok is a 2024 artist-in-residence at Makerspace NYC, where he’s employing origami to address immigration, border conflicts, and militarized zones, for a public sculpture in MakerPark.
The Origami Vending Machine is made possible in part by the NYC chapter of the Awesome Foundation a.k.a. AwesomeNYC: https://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/chapters/nyc
For media inquiries, please contact Sok Song at soksong@gmail.com.
For more information, visit http://origamivendingmachine.com.

Girl Work: Book Launch and Celebration (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for celebrating Zefyr Lisowski’s debut poetry collection, GIRL WORK, out from Noemi Books, with a short reading and conversation with poet and novelist John Manuel Arias.
GIRL WORK, a book-length meditation on sexual violence and feminized labor, centers hybrid-form and prose poems exploring haunting, labor, sexual trauma, and the assertion of a gender- nonconforming self in our current political moment. Written in injunctions to the self, to past assailants, and to friends, GIRL WORK challenges canonical representations of pain as punitive, redemptive, or separable from the environmental conditions it springs from. Throughout GIRL WORK, a self is restored from the detritus of memory—flashes of sexual violence, pop cultural touchstones like the movie The Ring, the music of Ke$ha, the sudden death of a father, the paintings of Henry Darger, and more. Winner of the 2022 Book Award from Noemi Press.

To reserve a copy of Girl Work (Noemi Press, March 15, 2024, paperback, $18), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Girl Work for March 23rd” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

John Manuel Arias is a queer, Costa Rican-American poet and writer. He is the author of the debut novel, Where There Was Fire (Flatiron, 2023). He is a Canto Mundo fellow and alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. His prose and poetry have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, F(r)iction, Joyland Magazine, and Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington D.C., Brooklyn New York, and in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts.

Zefyr Lisowski is a poet and essayist from the Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina. A poetry co-editor of the Whiting Award winning Apogee Journal, she’s the author of two poetry collections, Blood Box (Black Lawrence Press, 2019) and Girl Work, winner of the 2022 Noemi Book Prize. A 2023 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in Nonfiction and 2023 Queer|Art Fellow, Zefyr has received further support from Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, Blue Mountain Center, the Center for the Humanities, and Sundress Academy for the Arts. She’s seen grave robbers twice. Her essay collection about horror movies, exes, and love is forthcoming from Harper Perennial in Fall 2025.

BOOK LAUNCH Love the World or Get Killed Trying by Alvina Chamberland, with Penny Arcade (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Having been included in THEM’s, Ms. Magazine’s, Nylon’s, and SF Chronicle’s Most Anticipated books-lists for 2024 and receiving advanced praise from Torrey Peters, Kathleen Hanna, Jarett Kobek, Lydia Lunch, Susan Stryker, Rob Doyle, Eliot Duncan, and Publishers Weekly – it is time for the lyrical, literary, trans feminine LOVE THE WORLD OR GET KILLED TRYING by Alvina Chamberland to finally be released into the world and the wild.
Join us on Wednesday, March 20th, at 7 PM, for a special evening with Alvina Chamberland reading from the novel, and the performance icon Penny Arcade reading from her forthcoming memoir, followed by a discussion on art, literature, literary favorites, and creating political content that is also artistically deep and complex. LOVE THE WORLD OR GET KILLED TRYING will be for sale at the store, and the author will be available to sign your copy.
MORE ON LOVE THE WORLD OR GET KILLED TRYING:
WINNER OF THE 2022 NOEMI PRESS BOOK AWARD IN PROSE
“Perhaps some hearts are so big they must constantly burst and break.”
Through playful poetic prose, sharp social commentary and self-deprecating gallows humor Love the World or Get Killed Trying dives into the mind of Alvina, a trans woman on the eve of turning 30. The reader is invited to follow her journey through the breathtaking wilderness of Iceland and busy city boulevards of Berlin and Paris as she probes questions of eternity, sexuality, longing, death, love, and how hard it is to remain soft when you’re a ceaseless target of straight men’s secret lust and open disgust. This novel tackles universal issues through a trans woman’s specific lens – insisting on these experiences speaking to far more than just issues of sexuality and gender.
Reaching its climax through an urgent wildfire scream-of-consciousness, cry-of-love-manifesto, Love the World or Get Killed Trying is a raw and vulnerable work of magical brutalist autofiction; abstract in the sense of poetically digging beneath the surface, and experimental in the sense of trying to find out new things and express them in new ways, while concretely asserting that if trans women one day collectively outed every man who seeks them out, a full-blown revolution would ensue by nightfall.

To reserve a copy of Love the World or Get Killed Trying (Noemi Press, March 15, 2024, paperback, $18), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve copy of Love the World” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
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 on Venmo @bgsqd

A Thousand Paper Cranes for Palestine-An Open Mic For Disabled Palestinian and Yemeni Community (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-16 13:00 - 15:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Connecting Gaza: An afternoon of art, community, and accessibility supporting Palestinians with disabilities.
Saturday, March 16, 1 to 3 PM
Join us for an art event fundraising for e-sims for Palestinians, as well as several other orgs providing aid to Palestinian and Yemeni civilians. Disability is intersectional. This event aims to reflect that by facilitating connection on a literal and interpersonal level. The event will feature various performance art from Palestinian and SWANA artists including; monologues, poems, and more, as well as a communal origami crane-making station. Here is our working list of mutual aid/orgs we’ll have posters and qr codes for to amplify and support:
https://gazaesims.com/

https://lauricekhouryfoundation.org/
Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/gaza-emergency-aid/

https://www.gazasunbirds.org/
https://disabilityundersiege.org/
https://www.pcrf.net/
https://www.islamicreliefcanada.org/emergencies/yemen-appeal
https://palestinementalhealth.org/
https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN

Please wear a mask!
We will have plenty of masks on hand for everyone.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Building accessibility:
Take the street entrance ramp (to the right of The Center’s main entrance) and you will find an elevator behind the Information and Referral desk (to the left of the staircase). Take the elevator to the second floor and make a left when you exit, The Bureau is the last door on your left. A ramp leads into room 210, where the Bureau resides. Bureau volunteers are happy to assist visitors who need help reaching books and other merchandise. ADA accessible all-gender bathrooms are down the hall from the Bureau.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Sign up for the open mic:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1q3Edu8HgOvejRmkV6wnRKj6LjYIQjSPl7djCY0BoTUE/viewform

Book launch: Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography, Jessica Max Stein talking with Theodore Kerr (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Funny Boy author Jessica Max Stein and writer/organizer Ted Kerr for a conversation about the life of Muppet performer Richard Hunt, who brought to life beloved characters on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock before dying at 40 of HIV-related causes. Stein and Kerr will discuss the hidden queer history behind this iconic pop culture and the often surprising experience of writing LGBTQ biography. Publishers Weekly described Funny Boy as “nuanced and perceptive”.

To reserve a copy of Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography (Rutgers University Press, 2024, hardcover, $34.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Funny Boy” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Jessica Max Stein has been a New York-based queer writer since the early 90s. Her writing has received awards from Poets and Writers Magazine, the Independent Press Association, and the Biographers International Organization, as well as being published widely. She teaches writing and literature at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Theodore (ted) Kerr is a Brooklyn based writer and organizer. He co wrote We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production, with Alexandra Juhasz (Duke University Press, 2022). He is a founding member of What Would an HIV Doula Do?

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle’s Reading Series, March Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Mary Burns, Wo Chan, Stephen Greco, Cheryl Head, Bill Konigsberg, Tim Stobierski, Kathleen Warnock, and Jerry L. Wheeler.
Join us as in-person or watch the live-stream (see below) to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
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 on Venmo @bgsqd

Second Tuesday: Mark S. King, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor
2024-03-12 19:00 - 20:30 | The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, Room 101, New York, 10011, United States
The Center is proud to present a special reading of a selection of essays from activist and writer Mark S. King, author of My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor.
Room 101 of The LGBT Community Center
Door at 6:30 PM
Event at 7 PM
The Bureau will be on hand to sell copies of My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor (2023, paperback, $19.99). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of My Fabulous Disease” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
ABOUT MY FABULOUS DISEASE
​​My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor is an anthology spanning four decades – in turns emotional, biting and hilarious – from activist and writer Mark S. King.
The sum of these chronicles is a manifesto of survival. But they also are a portrait of a man giggling through a graveyard. There is a sense of joyful gratitude that permeates even the darkest chapters, a throughline of cheeky optimism that makes the tragedy bearable and the humor uproarious.
My Fabulous Disease divulges King’s intimate triumphs and misfires along with glimpses of his Southern family coming to terms with a gay son, his harrowing drug addiction and eventual recovery, and a lifetime spent skating on the cracked ice of HIV.

ABOUT MARK S. KING
MARK S. KING is an award-winning blogger, author, speaker, and HIV/AIDS activist who has been involved in HIV causes since testing positive in 1985. King was named the 2020 LGBTQ Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association (NLGJA), which also awarded King their “Excellence in Blogging” honor in 2014, 2016 and 2020. My Fabulous Disease won the 2020 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Blog after five consecutive nominations, and was named one of 2020’s “OUT100” by OUT Magazine. King’s new collection of essays, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor is available now to pre-order from online sites or your favorite bookstore. For full bio please visit marksking.com.

Book launch: WATCHNIGHT by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-10 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a reading/conversation with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Joselia Hughes, Zefyr Lisowski, and Danilo Machado to celebrate the release of WATCHNIGHT (Nightboat Books).
In exhilarating lyric poems and chiseled prose blocks, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson charts the history of his family alongside the history of Watchnight—a churchy holiday of messianic tarrying—and steps through portals to render the human faces of American internal migration and mass displacement—from countryside to city and back again. Spanning from 1803 to a near-future rife with class tension and racial anxiety, WATCHNIGHT is a study of Black bonds, Black grief, and Black flight.

Copies of WATCHNIGHT (Nightboat Books, 2024, paperback, $17.95) will be available for purchase and signing. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Watchnight” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Male Bodies Unmade: Author Jongwoo Jeremy Kim in conversation with Sharmistha Ray (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Male Bodies Unmade author Jongwoo Jeremy Kim and his colleague Sharmistha Ray for a conversation about representations of GWM (gay white male) beefcakes in art—and their significance for polyglot, POC queers. Critics are calling Male Bodies Unmade “witty and wise,” celebrating the book as “a gleaming example of queer critique.” Horny self-extinction and decolonial disidentification will be explored in relation to artists such as David Hockney and Robert Gober.
To reserve a copy of Male Bodies Unmade: Picturing Queer Selfhood (University of California Press, 2023, hardcover, $50), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Male Bodies Unmade for March 9th” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Jongwoo Jeremy Kim, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Critical Studies in Art History and Theory at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Painted Men in Britain, 1868-1918: Royal Academicians and Masculinities, as well as Male Bodies Unmade: Picturing Queer Selfhood. Kim’s approach is informed by his own status as an immigrant—a polyglot queen drawn to extravagant fantasies of misbehaving bodies that are in truth foreign territories, colonies of misbeliefs.

Sharmistha Ray (they/them) is a visual artist, art critic, curator, and professor at Carnegie Mellon School of Art. Their artistic practice delves into the complex inheritance of multiple cultures through their queer identity and modes of abstraction. Reviews of their work have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, Hyperallergic, and many others.

It Was Her New York: True Stories and Snapshots (in person & live-streaming)
2024-03-03 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
CELEBRATING THE RELEASE OF IT WAS HER NEW YORK (ROOTSTOCK PUBLISHING): true stories and accidental snapshots about undying love, old lesbians, all our fellow New Yorkers, and home.
3PM – Reading, Presentation and Conversation
COPIES OF IT WAS HER NEW YORK AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE & SIGNING AFTER ARTIST TALK
A reading and presentation of excerpts from IT WAS HER NEW YORK, followed by a conversation with author C.O. Moed and Lesbian Herstory Archivette Paula Grant.
Through a mosaic of intimate photo-illustrated vignettes, IT WAS HER NEW YORK (Rootstock Publishing) celebrates the fierce moxie of New Yorkers, immigrants seeking the American Dream, a sixty-year-old hidden love story of two women, defiance against infuriating aging, the definition of home as it slowly disappears into gentrification and what it means to be family. This rare fusion brings visibility not only to underrepresented communities, but also highlight the men and women who keep America’s cities running.
Copies of IT WAS HER NEW YORK (2024, paperback, $36) will be available for purchase and signing. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of It Was Her New York” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

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

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

C.O. Moed grew up on New York’s Lower East Side when it was still a tough neighborhood. A recipient of the Elizabeth George Grant for Fiction and an alum of the infamous and groundbreaking WOW Cafe, her work has appeared in various presses and anthologies. Her 10-year blog (2006-2016) My Private Coney, about New York City, love, death and the meaning of home has been featured in Jeremiah Moss’s Vanishing New York and excerpted in various online magazines and websites. She lives with fellow writer and fellow Mets fan, Ted Krever.

Paula Grant is a Lesbian Herstory Archivette and Elder. A social worker, activist and a great dancer, as well as a contributor to C.O. Moed’s blog My Private Coney, she is one of the coordinators at LHA and has been a volunteer since 1979. She was born in 1945 in Manhattan, grew up in the Bronx and is a longtime activist for human and civil rights. She trained as a social worker and in 2010 retired from a public agency in suburban New York State after forty years. She was a Dodger’s fan until they deserted New York.

LI CHENG’S JOSÉ (2018) (in person only)
2024-02-29 18:30 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a screening of Li Cheng’s José (2018) on Thursday, February 29, at 6:30 PM. José centers the experiences of a young gay Guatemalan man who lives with his mother. The coming-of-age film grapples with the realities of being an LGBTQ+ person searching for love in a highly religious and homophobic country.
Event hosted by filmmaker Fernando Vieira
About the Film:
19-year-old José lives with his mother in Guatemala. It’s a tough life in one of the most violent and religious countries. When he meets Luis, he’s thrust into new-found passion and pain.
Running time: 1 hour and 25 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

About the Director:
Li CHENG, writer, director, producer. Originally from China and moved to the USA in 1999 and now world-nomad since 2015. Key themes: society, struggle, crisis, hope. Cheng left biotechnology research in 2007 to focus on film, and his first feature, Joshua Tree (2014) is on the crisis of the American Dream – a critique of US American culture. His second feature, José (2018) premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival on 6 September 2018 and was awarded Queer Lion the following day – for the project he conducted research in 12 Latin American countries and lived in Guatemala for two years: a struggling place yet filled with youthful hope. Cheng holds a PhD from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA.
About the Screening Curator:
Fernando VIEIRA is a New York-based filmmaker and performer. Works include the documentary Unlabeled (2021) and experimental film Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness (2023). Vieira graduated from CUNY Graduate Center with a Masters in Liberal Studies, Film and Media Cultures concentration (2024).

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Virtual Craft Class & Reading with Mariam Bazeed (online only)
2024-02-24 11:00 - 13:30 | online class
Join us for a virtual Craft Class and Reading with Mariam Bazeed on Saturday, February 24th, 2024! This Craft Class is virtual and will run from 11:00 AM-1:00 PM and the reading from 1:00 PM.
Once you RSVP, you will receive a Zoom Link the day before the workshop. You will also have a chance to donate directly to the “tip jar.” All tips go directly to the instructor.
RSVP here

Once Upon a Pandemic: I attended a Zoom reading featuring Natalie Diaz, wherein she described some of her work as a native poet as a kind of writing through English, and the phrase stuck! In this generative workshop, we will consider poets whose work, though cloaked in English, challenges its archives, uncovers its erasures, and rewrites its invented histories through formal and semantic inter- and contraventions. I’ll prepare a packet including works by Jordan Abel, Jessica Abughattas, Fatimah Asghar, Franny Choi, Natalie Diaz, Marwa Helal, Noor Hindi, Cathy Park Hong, Noor Ibn Najam, and Layli Long Soldier, and we’ll discuss a subset to write from their prompt. For my reading, I’ll share some of my recent erasure and bilingual work, tracing the Arab as the Arab is effaced and erased in the landscape of American legacy media.
Mariam Bazeed is a multi–award winning Egyptian immigrant, poet, playwright, performance artist, actor, editor, translator, curator, and cook, living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres has been published in print and online, and their plays performed in festivals on both sides of the Atlantic. Their first play, peace camp org, an autobiographical queer anti-Zionist musical(ish) comedy about summer camp, is published by Oberon Books, UK, and won them the Dramatists Guild’s Lanford Wilson Award for creative promise in 2021. They are currently at work on their first novel, The Boy Made of Air, and on a new theatrical commission for Noor Theatre, NYC. To procrastinate from facing the blank page, Mariam curates and runs an occasional world-music salon and open mic in Brooklyn, and is a slow student of Arabic music.

Opening Reception for LGBTIQ+ in the Jungle: A Solo Exhibition by Arturo Lizcano - DiAVolo
2024-02-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join us for the Opening Reception of:
LGBTIQ+ in the Jungle
A solo exhibition by Arturo Lizcano – DiAVolo
On view at the Bureau from February 23 – May 5, 2024

Artist’s statement:
“I’m interested in portraying members of the LGBTIQ+ community from another perspective. I wanted to portray people from the community who inspire me for the way they live. They are not famous, but they are powerful, brave, they accept themselves, and confront the world and its prejudices.
“For this particular series, I put them in the jungle. I selected birds, fish, and felines from the Amazon jungle and the entire Colombian Andean region. The plants in my maternal grandmother’s garden were the main source of inspiration – the greens and flowers found in Huila.”

Biography:
Arturo Lizcano – DiAVolo is a Colombian artist based in NYC. He graduated as an accountant, and for about 20 years worked in finance. 6 years ago he rediscovered the art in his life and now is living his dream as an artist doing illustration and murals, with nature as a main inspiration.
@forero.arturo

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle’s Reading Series, February Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2024-02-21 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Lisa Gitlin, Felice Picano, Carol Rosenfeld, Kate Rounds, Daniel Meltz, Jerome Ellison Murphy, and Kathi Wolfe. Join us as in-person or remotely to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
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 on Venmo @bgsqd

Second Tuesday Presents: Raquel Willis
2024-02-20 18:30 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
This event has been postponed! The new date is Tuesday, February 20th, at 6:30 pm!
The Center is proud to bring in the new year with a new Second Tuesday Lecture Series featuring the trail-blazing activist and author Raquel Willis. Willis will sit in conversation with Jordyn Jay to discuss her groundbreaking memoir The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division will host this event: room 210 of The LGBT Community Center.
Please note that the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays. We will open at 6:30 PM for this event.
Doors open at 6:30 PM. Event at 7 PM.
$10 Suggested Donation to The Center (register here)
Registration is encouraged, but not required.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

The Bureau will offer copies of The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation (St. Martin’s Press, 2023, hardcover, $29) for purchase. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of The Risk It Takes to Bloom” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

ABOUT RAQUEL WILLIS
Raquel Willis is an award-winning activist, journalist, and media strategist dedicated to collective liberation, especially for Black trans folks. She is an executive producer with iHeartMedia’s first-ever LGBTQ+ podcast network, Outspoken, and the host of Afterlives, a podcast centering the lives and legacies of trans folks lost too soon to violence. She is also the author of The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation.
Raquel has held groundbreaking posts, including director of communications for Ms. Foundation for Women, executive editor of Out magazine, and national organizer for Transgender Law Center. She co-founded Transgender Week of Visibility and Action with civil rights attorney Chase Strangio. She is the president of the Solutions Not Punishments Collaborative’s executive board and serves on the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art board.
She published the GLAAD Media Award-winning “Trans Obituaries Project,” in 2022, she executive-produced and hosted “The Trans Youth Town Hall” with Logo. The work was nominated for the GLAAD Awards and won Gold distinction in the Shorty Awards. She was also honored as a 2023 ADCOLOR Advocate. For a full bio please visit: raquelwillis.com
ABOUT THE RISK IT TAKES TO BLOOM
Born in Augusta, Georgia, to Black Catholic parents, Raquel spent years feeling isolated, even within a loving, close-knit family. There was little access to understanding what it meant to be queer and transgender. It wasn’t until she went to the University of Georgia that she found the LGBTQ+ community, fell in love, and explored her gender for the first time. But the unexpected death of her father forced her to examine her relationship with herself and those she loved. These years of grief, misunderstanding, and hard-won epiphanies seeped into the soil of her life, serving as fertilizer for growth and allowing her to bloom within.
Upon graduation, Raquel entered a career in journalism against the backdrop of the burgeoning Movement for Black Lives, intersectional feminism going mainstream, and unprecedented visibility of the trans community. After hiding her identity as a newspaper reporter, her increasing awareness of the epidemic of violence plaguing trans women of color and the heightened suicide of trans teens inspired her to come out publicly. Within just a few short years of community organizing in Atlanta, Oakland, and New York, Raquel emerged as one of the most formidable Black trans activists in history.
In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation. For more info visit: raquelwillis.com

Jordyn Jay (she/her/hers) is a visionary working to impact arts and culture by centering the voices and contributions of Black trans femmes. A brilliant and multi-talented change-maker, she is a director, writer, producer, public speaker and community leader.
Jordyn is the founder and executive director of the BTFA (Black Trans Femmes in the Arts) Collective and the executive producer of BTFA Productions– a worldwide movement that seeks to produce and preserve the artistic innovations and creations of Black trans femmes and address systemic inequality through advocacy and action. During global uprisings and calls for racial justice in June 2020, BTFA alongside the Black Trans Travel Fund, For the Gworls, and the Okra Project raised $1 million in one week to support Black trans protesters and organizations on the ground with support from influential voices including Laverne Cox, Indya Moore, Janet Mock, Charli XCX, Neil Patrick Harris, Troye Sivan, and Hunter Schaffer.
Jordyn is currently based in Brooklyn, New York where she received her master’s degree in Art Politics from New York University’s (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts and her B.A. in Imagining Abolition – a major she created at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study that focuses on how art can be used as a tool for building a world without police and prisons and prioritizes healing over punishment and disposability. But it was what she learned outside the classroom that counts. The lack of representation and meaningful inclusivity within her program pushed her to study and navigate the world off campus and begin the work of seeking out and protecting Black trans femme lives and contributions.
Jordyn’s Southern roots have allowed her to blossom into the leader she is today. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, she learned the value of collective care and community at an early age from her large and loving family. A proud graduate of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, which opened in 1922 as a primary school for Black students during The Segregation Era in America, Jordyn credits her experiences there as the gateway to helping her find her voice through theater while navigating and discovering her identity.
An advocate for real and meaningful social impact, Jordyn is an adamant believer in inspiring systemic and sociopolitical change. She maintains an active role in issues impacting Black trans communities from the criminal legal system to arts and culture.
Jordyn’s contributions to make an impact on the world have not gone unnoticed. She has been awarded the Octavia St. Laurent Vision of Excellence Award and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute Legacy Award. In 2023, she was selected as an LGBTQ+ Power Player by PoliticsNY, and was elected to the Brooklyn Arts Leadership Council. She has also served on the Innovation, Art, and Technology subcommittee for NYU BeTogether and hosted NYC PrideFest.
Jordyn has been featured in ESSENCE, Bloomberg Business Insider, Forbes, on The Grio TV, SiriusXM Radio, New York Public Radio, and more. She has led workshops and been a keynote speaker at New York University, Dartmouth University, the Tate Modern, The Ford Foundation, and SXSW.
She was also featured in the docuseries “Artistic Legacies” by Trans Lash and “Flowers” – a media project by Sage Dolan-Sandrino that celebrates Black trans women in New York City.
Jordyn not only dreams of Black trans liberation; she is bending the arc of justice to make it real.
Jordyn enjoys spending time with her family and listening to her favorite artists.

TELL 90: Take Heart (in person & live-streaming)
2024-02-17 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 the 10th anniversary of TELL!
The theme of the 90th TELL is Take Heart. Featuring storytellers Gagarin, Jilberto Soto, Ky Dates, and Manatsu Tanaka.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
We ask all attendees to please wear a mask at this event. We will provide masks for those who need them. Thank you!

Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

DRAE CAMPBELL’s first performance was at age 5 in a nightclub opening for a punk band. Drae has a BFA in Theater from The University of Arts in Philadelphia. Some Theater credits include: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Ricochet Collective), Non-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (La MaMa), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Oph3lia(HERE). TV includes “New Amsterdam,” “Bull ” and “Dinette ” (web series, directed by Shaina Feinberg). Drae has been hosting and curating TELL for more than 9 years which is now a SILVER Signal Award-winning podcast of the same name. www.draecampbell.com

Jilberto Soto is a first gen. Mexican American stand up comedian. He began comedy in London and moved to NYC during the pandemic. He co-produces two shows: Purple Park Comedy- showcasing upcoming POC/female comics and Mariposas Comedy – a curated all queer line up. Alongside co-producing, he also hosts his own podcast: I hope this ages well, which centers around the interesting lives of senior members around NYC. In 2022, Jilberto was featured on three showcases for the New York Comedy Festival.

Ky Dates (they/them/he/him) is an interdisciplinary writer, director, comedian, actor, and experimental contemporary performance maker. They are a recent graduate from Muhlenberg College, receiving a B.A. in both Theatre and English. Recent performances include The Moth StorySLAM and Storytellers (curated by Caroline Dunn and Hope Woodard). Lastly, Ky is a pisces sun, libra moon, and Leo rising.

Manatsu Tanaka (they/them) is a bicultural multi-disciplinary artist, most fluent in dance, who grew up and has been performing in Japan and the US. They believe that it is our bodies that humanity should be able to seek shelter in, therefore, they pursue their creative practices for illustrating humanness through their physical canvas. At the core of their heart, Manatsu is committed to using their creativity and artistry to join the frontline of trans and gender non-conforming artists in the dance and theater world. Art is for the people, not for the “audiences”. “I dance to the heartbeat of our collective humanity.” @manatsu.tanaka

Gagarin is an actor, artist, and the Russian twink son of Tony Soprano and Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny. With a passion for the classics and making queer art for queer people they largely live in the world of devised and wacky physical theatre. Gagarin is currently a curator with Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre and runs a low-cost community centered Movement Collective, keep up with their shenanigans on insta @hotcephalopodsinurarea
