WRITE QUEER!
2015-10-27 19:00 - 21:00, 2015-11-03 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Write Queer! is an ongoing open-ended weekly writing workshop for those who identify as both Queer and Writer. Come read a variety of work by queer artists, generate new writing, and workshop with your peers. All experience levels and writing backgrounds are welcome.
Classes meet every Tuesday from 7pm-9pm at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please note that the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays—we will open from 7 to 9 PM on Tuesdays for this event.
$20 per class to benefit the facilitators and the Bureau. Limited sliding scale and scholarship available. Contact Cecily at sumthn.else@gmail.com for details.

Celestial Body: BD/SM, Rituals and Protocols, Top-Secret Fetishes, Underground Sexuality . . . and God.
2015-10-28 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
“Is our often-censored urge towards sex and our great, undeniable urge towards a union with God . . . the same urge?” from The Substance of God, by Perry Brass.
What are the core feelings that link queer sexuality, BD/SM and spirituality? Is there a Dominant/ Submissive-Master/Slave feeling that links us directly with submission to the God-force? Does “kinky” sexuality lower male defenses enough to bring in a feeling of a supernatural union? Is gay tribal sexuality—at the heart of a leather and S/M lifestyle—important to our own survival now in the time of a mainstreaming and corporatization of gayness leaving too many gay men and lesbians feeling alone, isolated, and alienated from their community? Perry Brass, author of The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love, hosts a three-part series of discussions, readings, and even demonstrations on this intriguing, often controversial topic.
Each session will feature different guests sharing their feelings about this often controversial topic. Please note: this series addresses material of a sexually graphic nature and some sessions will include nude performers.

Special guests Andrew Harwin, John Ollom, and Darrell Perry will participate in the first session, Wednesday, October 28, 7 to 9:30 PM.
The second session will take place on Wednesday, November 18, 7 to 9:30 PM.
The third and final session will take place on Wednesday, December 16, 7 to 9:30 PM.

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

Perry Brass has published 19 books, including poetry, novels, short fiction, science fiction, plays, and bestselling advice books (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, The Manly Art of Seduction, The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love). Active in the movement toward lgbt rights (gay equality) since 1969, Brass’s work continuously deals with issues of sexual freedom, personal authenticity, and personal politics coming out of his involvement with the movement for gay liberation. He is especially interested in that connection between sexuality and spirituality; with the world of the body, the mind, and a deeper “soul” consciousness connecting the two. Aside from his books, poetry, plays, and essays, he also regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. For more information: www.perrybrass.com

Andrew Harwin is a Life Coach and Ordained Interfaith/Interspiritual Minister. A Native New Yorker and Bronx Science graduate whose earliest spiritual experiences were in Nature, he pursued Hinduism and Buddhism when a Reform Jewish education didn’t meet his spiritual needs. As a teenager Andrew had transcendent LSD experiences but realized he couldn’t continue and still remain in his body. Hesse’s “Siddhartha” revealed enlightenment was best attained by living consciously, recognizing the connectedness of everything.
Having his first sex with men at 14, Andrew came out at 17 and began exploring his erotic shadow and kinky desires. From 19 to 21, he was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. He also learned Transcendental Meditation and has been practicing ever since.
Diagnosed with HIV in ’88, Andrew lost many friends and lovers to AIDS and almost died in ‘95. Returning to life in ’96, he came out as a leatherman, marching with the Leather contingent in the ’97 NYC Pride March and joining the now-defunct Gay Male S/M Activists. He’s a former GMSMA President and Chairman, currently serving as an advisor to the Folsom Street East Board and a member of its Events Committee.
For 10 years, Andrew helped teach the GMSMA Novice Tops & bottoms course. He created a BDSM Spirituality Discussion Group and is the author of stories and essays on transcendent SM published in GMSMA’s “NewsLink.”
In 2003 Andrew was given the Barry Douglas Community Service Award for “selfless dedication and unwavering commitment to New York’s SM-Leather-Fetish community.”
A Chicago Hellfire Club Associate and Member of Delta International, he’s the 2011 recipient of CHC’s J. Paul Eaton Award for service behind the scenes at Inferno.
Andrew’s a graduate of The Body Electric School, including “Power-Surrender-Intimacy” and “Sacred Intimacy Training.” He’s also a member of the Easton Mountain Retreat Center community.

John Ollom received his MFA from Goddard College and BFA in Ballet from Texas Christian University where he trained under Fernando Bujones of American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet. He has been teaching in New York City and around the country since 2000. His methodology has been taught at the Eastern Michigan University, Kalani Retreat Center in Hawaii, Atmananda Yoga Sequence, Baruch College, CUNY Hostos, CUNY in the Heights, Easton Mountain Retreat Center and every summer at the Ollom Movement Art Summer Program at Smith College.
In 2010-2011, John Ollom was chosen as the Artist in Residence at the Eastern Michigan University Dance Department. Since 2002, John has served as the Artistic Director of Ollom Movement Art/Prismatic Productions, Inc. where he has choreographed such works as The Catalyst, Love and Longing, The Journey, John Ollom’s The Journey, Anatomy of Woman, Dido and Aeneas, The Other Species, Love Stories, Internal Landscapes, Man of War, M.U.D. (Men Under Dirt), Kuan Yin’s Compassion, Nemetona, The Portal, and Prisoner of My Projection. His choreography and direction can also be seen in the film “Karpos and Kalamos”.
His work has been the subject of three documentary films: “Late Bloomers” by Annette Cyr, Professor of Art at the National University in San Diego; “The Making of M.U.D.: An Exploration of the Work of John Ollom and Ollom Movement Art” by Robert Kazmayer, MA; and, “There’s Something About John” by Emma McCagg.

Darrell Perry (aka Darrellblackandblue) has been active in the New York Leather scene since 1990. He was a member of GMSMA (now defunct) and has been co-founder or founding member of some of the New York area’s most influential leatherclubs.
Darrell produces and sources still and video imagery for both print and web in the news, celebrity, advertising and promotion areas. He also hosts leather-themed play parties and is building a network of interconnected web-based businesses to serve the leather and gay communities in the e-commerce space.

Boys, Bears & Scares
2015-10-30 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Frightful foreplay on Halloween eve as four gay horror authors read from their latest chilling horror and suspense fiction.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Featuring:

Bronx-born wordsmith, Larry Benjamin considers himself less a writer than an artist whose chosen medium is the written word rather than clay or paint or bronze. He is the author of the allegorical Vampire novella Vampire Rising, the gay novels What Binds Us, and Unbroken―a 2014 Lambda Literary finalist, and a 2014 IPPY (Independent Publishers Book Award) Gold medalist―and Damaged Angels, a collection of short stories. He lives in Philadelphia with his husband and their two dogs.

Daniel W. Kelly is the author of the Comfort Cove gay horror series, plus the horror collections Horny Devils and Closet Monsters: Zombied Out and Tales of Gothrotica. He is also creator of Boys, Bears & Scares, a website dedicated to gay male horror.

David Swatling grew up in New York, studied theatre, and escaped to Amsterdam in 1985. He produced arts & culture programs for Radio Netherlands, winning numerous international prizes. His debut thriller Calvin’s Head was a 2015 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and Corpus Calvin will be out in May 2016.

J.L. Weinberg was born and raised in San Francisco. He moved to New York City to become a film critic, but was sidetracked by stints as a model and actor. He returned to movie journalism, writing for New York, Premiere, The Village Voice, Interview, American Cinematographer, The Advocate, and The New York Native. True Religion is his first novel.

Tran 9 From Outer Space- A Trans Poets Workshop Halloween Special
2015-10-31 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We have come from outer space to read you transsexual poetry and wear silly outfits. We expect this will raise an army of poetry enthusiasts and queers who will make us victorious over weak and pathetic humankind. Come drink beer with us, and hear work from our latest zine “Your Authentic Self Is Embarrassing”. Afterwards we will go out and destroy this puny undefended city. Featuring all your favourite grotesque bloodthirsty alien monsters.

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

Celebration Launch WSQ's "The 1970s" and EqualityArchive.com
2015-11-04 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Reception celebrating the publication of “The 1970s,” a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly, by The Feminist Press. And a toast to the launch of equalityarchive.com–a digital theater for the history of sex and gender equality in the United States.
At 7PM, we’ll host panel conversation, “Sex, Gender and Equality” to explore the promise and the problems for LGBT communities conceptualizing sex and gender equality in the 21st century.

To reserve a copy of The 1970s issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com

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

Mike Albo and Brontez Purnell: Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Was A Hornito?
2015-11-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Published 14 years apart Mike Albo’s Hornito (2001) and Brontez Purnell’s Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger (2015) are a literature pairing made in queer heaven. Both have as their driving force the yearnings, learnings and explorations of sweet, funny, unapologetically horny protagonists on the hunt for community, love, and dick. Each providing an insider view into the cultural context in which they were written: Hornito’s late 90s white gay-centric queer New York, and Johnny’s contemporary black Bay Area queer punk activist scene.

Worthy of enjoyment independent of each other, the book club will provide ample time for both to be discussed in their own right, while also setting aside time to reflect on what they offer when read together. The authors have indicated a love of each’s other’s work and in reading them in tandem it is exciting to consider the similarities and differences in the work and the worlds each book invites the reader to enter.

Albo and Purnell will read from their books, come together in conversation, and then take questions.

Purchase both books from the Bureau! Write us to have us hold copies for you: contact@bgsqd.com

Hosted by Theodore (Ted) Kerr and William Johnson

Mike Albo is a writer and a performer. He is the author of the novels “Hornito” (HarperCollins), “The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life” (Bloomsbury), “The Junket”, a Kindle Single and newly released, “Spermhood: Diary of a Donor”, a Kindle Single. His solo shows include “Please Everything Burst”, “My Price Point”, and “The Junket”, which appeared Off Broadway at the Lynn Redgrave Theater in 2014.

Brontez Purnell is a zinester, writer, dancer and musician, who lives in California. He is the author of “The Crusing Diaries”, “Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger”, and “Fag School”. He is a member of the punk band Younger Lovers and has appeared in the films “I Want Your Love”, and “Together People”.

William Johnson is the online editor of the Lambda Literary Review.

Canadian born Theodore Kerr is a Brooklyn based writer and organizer with a focus on HIV/AIDS.

NO HOUSE TO CALL MY HOME--A Reading and Discussion about LGBTQ Youth Homelessness
2015-11-06 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, & Other Transgressions, will talk about his work in New York City as a caseworker for LGBTQ teenagers in foster care, especially those who are about to age out of the child welfare system. Berg begins this account of LGBTQ teens in the NYC foster care system with statistics that are at once shocking and painfully familiar: Children placed in foster care are more likely than veterans of war to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. LGBTQ teens make up 40% of homeless youth and are especially vulnerable. 70% of LGBTQ youth in group homes reported violence based on LGBTQ status.
A panel discussion with Ryan Berg will follow. Participants include Kate Barnhart of New Alternatives, Joey Lopez of The Ali Forney Center, and Ziggy Keyes of The True Colors Fund.

To reserve a copy of No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, & Other Transgressions please email Greg at contact@bgsqd.com

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

Ryan Berg is a Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Writers Fellow and received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature. His work has appeared in Slate, The Advocate, Ploughshares, Local Knowledge and the Sun. Berg has been awarded artist residencies from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. NO HOUSE TO CALL MY HOME is his first book. He’s worked as a youth worker in New York and Minneapolis. He’s currently the program manager for the Minneapolis and Suburban Host Home Programs of Avenues for Homeless Youth.

Topside Press Autumn Invitational
2015-11-07 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Topside Press Autumnal Invitational Features:
Sara Woods (Sara, or the Existence of Fire)
Charles Theonia (Which One Is The Bridge)
Lisa Foad (The Night Is A Mouth)

Additional readings by:
Mia Mikowicz
Bader AlAwadhi
Constance Augusta A. Zaber
Tom Léger
Gabe Evans
Thel Seraphim
Michael Rex
Cat Fitzpatrick

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

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2015-11-11 20:00 - 22:00 | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We hold our meetings on the second Wednesday of every month from 8-10 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Publish It Forward
2015-11-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Learn how a book can succeed in today’s volatile marketplace. A publisher, agent, bookseller, publicist, and cultural critic discuss such questions as: What are editors and publishers looking for? What can an agent sell these days? How do book reviews choose which new titles get reviewed? The panelists will also share tips on the dynamics of publishing professionals working seamlessly together to push a book onto the bestseller list. A vital discussion for writers (both already published and aspiring) and for book publishing professionals. Q&A session after the panel offers their presentations and empirically tested advice. Panelists include Michele Karlsberg (moderator), Greg Newton, Lori Perkins, June Thomas, and Mitchell Waters.
Presented by The Publishing Triangle and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Michele Karlsberg

Greg Newton

Lori Perkins

June Thomas

Mitchell Waters

TELL 18: New York Stories
2015-11-13 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
New York Stories is the theme of the eighteenth installment of TELL. Featuring Dusty Childers, Frankie DeLessio, Cecilia Gentili, and Abed Haddad.

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

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

The only way Dusty Childers has found to keep things out of his mouth is to continue talking. Given a time frame, a mic and an audience has helped make his nonstop banter more productive, and (according to those he’s paid off) somewhat entertaining. Although not tax deductible, being an audience member of a show in which Dusty is performing surely is a charitable moment. Feel good about yourself, and clap if you can muster it.

Frankie DeLessio is an actor, writer and tenant’s rights advocate. He is the creator of a web series, Just My Luck.

Cecilia Gentili is a Trans-Latina originally from Argentina by way of Miami. She is currently the Trans* Health Program Coordinator at APICHA community health center. Cecilia has worked at the Gender Identity Project at the LGBT Center since 2011, as a volunteer, intern, and now consultant, facilitating groups, organizing, and working on prevention, harm reduction and self-empowerment, focusing mostly on undocumented Trans-Latinas, a reality she lived for many years. Ms Gentili is also a board member of “Transbodies” a nonprofit organization about to published a trans-resources guide book for trans-folks. She received her education at the National University of Rosario in Music studies and worked as a music teacher for special needs children.

Abed Haddad is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the City College of New York and lives in beautiful Harlem. Abed comes from Jackson, Mississippi where he graduated from Millsaps College. Before that, he lived in the suburbs of Louisiana, having immigrated there from Amman, Jordan at age 14. Abed loves the strong gin and tonics at Julius’, hopefully with a Barbra tune in the background. As a first-time story teller, Abed cut his teeth rambling post-coital musings to strangers and lovers, and gossiping about his large and extended families with aunts of certain age. Abed is excited to share whatever wacky spirit he feels with the fuzzy-warm folks at Tell.

Newfangled 8: Robert Siek hosts Peter LaBerge, Andriniki Mattis, and Angel Nafis
2015-11-14 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join us for the 8th installment of Newfangled, poetry readings by emerging poets hosted by Robert Siek. Newfangled 8 will feature Peter LaBerge, Andriniki Mattis, and Angel Nafis.

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

PETER LABERGE is the author of the chapbook Hook (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). His recent poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Columbia Poetry Review, Sixth Finch, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Best New Poets 2014, and Indiana Review, as a finalist for the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Bucknell University Stadler Center for Poetry, the co-editor of Poets on Growth (Math Paper Press, 2015), and the founder and editor-in-chief of The Adroit Journal. He lives in Philadelphia, where he is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Visit him online at https://www.peterlaberge.com.

Photograph by Julieta Salgado
ANDRINIKI MATTIS is a poet from and living in Brooklyn with a BA in Political and Poetic Resistance. Currently they are working on their first book, Meditations on the Black Body. Andriniki is a 2015 Emerging Poets Fellow at the Poets House. Their work has appeared in Cortland Review and Nepantla and is forthcoming in the Pariahs Anthology.

ANGEL NAFIS is a Cave Canem Fellow and Ruth Lilly Dorothy Sargent Finalist. Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, MUZZLE Magazine, The Rumpus, and Poetry. She has represented the LouderArts Poetry Project at both the National Poetry Slam and the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2011. She is an Urban Word NYC Mentor and the founder, curator, and host of the quarterly Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon reading series. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/New School Poetics, 2012). Facilitating writing workshops and reading poems across the United States and Canada, she lives in Brooklyn.

ROBERT SIEK is the author of the poetry collection Purpose and Devil Piss (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and the chapbook Clubbed Kid (New School University, 2002). He works at a large publishing house in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn.

True Religion: Novelist Christopher Bram in Conversation with J.L. Weinberg
2015-11-15 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
A reading and discussion of True Religion, J.L. Weinberg‘s debut novel about the supernatural and spirituality in the New Age, with a distinctly gay twist.
An unexpected encounter with an otherworldly spirit at a holiday party in the Orenda Valley sends Seth Davis, a gay journalist from Manhattan, on a profound religious journey. Along the way, Seth stumbles into a quarreling coven of witches in the charming tourist town of Hope Springs, Pennsylvania, formerly known as Hell’s Ferry, and one of the most haunted destinations in America. As Seth learns more of the town’s remarkable history, he also uncovers his own shocking past, and in order to seek peace for his troubled soul, he must determine the fate of the coven, the town, and the entire Orenda Valley. True Religion is a genre-bending fusion of paranormal horror, spiritual therapy, American history, and New Age enlightenment.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please let us know if you would like the Bureau to reserve a copy of True Religion: contact@bgsqd.com

J.L. Weinberg was born and raised in San Francisco. He moved to New York City to become a film critic, but was sidetracked by stints as a model and actor. He returned to movie journalism, writing for New York, Premiere, The Village Voice, Interview, American Cinematographer, The Advocate, and The New York Native. “True Religion” is his first novel.

Christopher Bram is the author of eleven books including the novel that became the movie “Gods and Monsters.” His most recent book is “Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America.”

Celestial Body 2: Entering the secret rooms: BDSM, Underground Sexuality . . . and God
2015-11-18 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Moderated by Perry Brass (The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love, Belhue Press), Celestial Body 2 is part two of a three-part series of discussions, readings, and even demonstrations on this intriguing, often controversial topic. Feel free to attend one, two, or all three Celestial Body meetings.
Joining the conversation at Celestial Body 2: the Rev. Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) on submission to God; Craig Cullinane, honoring the Sacred Intimate (“Cosmic Orgasm”); Christopher Trevor on Deep Fetishes; and Gymnos Alitheia on ecstatic nakedness.
Let’s separate spirituality from religion and discuss the question: IS GOD STILL A LOT KINKIER THAN YOU THINK, OR WHAT ARE THE SECRET ROOMS IN YOUR HOUSE?
The third and final session will take place on Wednesday, December 16, 7 to 9:30 PM.

Perry Brass’s books are available for purchase at the Bureau.
For more information: belhuepress@earthlink.net, or contact@bgsqd.com.

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

Perry Brass has published 19 books, including poetry, novels, short fiction, science fiction, plays, and bestselling advice books (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, The Manly Art of Seduction, The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love). Active in the movement toward lgbt rights (gay equality) since 1969, Brass’s work continuously deals with issues of sexual freedom, personal authenticity, and personal politics coming out of his involvement with the movement for gay liberation. He is especially interested in that connection between sexuality and spirituality; with the world of the body, the mind, and a deeper “soul” consciousness connecting the two. Aside from his books, poetry, plays, and essays, he also regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. For more information: www.perrybrass.com

Launch for THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE
2015-11-19 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
John Whittier Treat will speak on his debut novel about the early years of the AIDS epidemic in Seattle, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE (Big Table Publishing Company, 2015).
Reading at 7 PM
Email the Bureau to reserve a copy of The Yellow House: contact@bgsqd.com

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Click here to read the Kirkus Review of The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House
Click here to read Ted Kerr’s review of The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House on Lambda Literary Review
Check out this short essay by John Whittier Treat in Out Magazine, “Why We Still Need Novels That Tell the Story of AIDS.”
Author photograph by Steve Shelton
John Whittier Treat is Professor Emeritus at Yale University. He is now based in Seattle where he writes fiction about the Pacific Northwest. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE is his first novel. He is currently at work on FIRST CONSONANTS, the story of a stutterer who saves the world.

Opening Reception for The Uses of Anger
2015-11-20 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Download a PDF of the press release.
How do we use our rage? When confronted with injustice after injustice, what do we do with our anger? Audre Lorde, using an excerpt from one of her poems in her 1981 talk “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” argues

everything can be used
except what is wasteful
(you will need
to remember this when you are accused of destruction.)*

Lorde went on to say “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.”

The Uses of Anger is an exhibition of activist materials born of rage in response to a variety of injustices, including: physical and psychological violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, and others who do not conform to established gender conventions; police violence against people of color; efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortions; the failures of governmental and medical institutions to adequately address the AIDS/HIV crisis. These posters, flyers, tee shirts, and other materials give voice to the anger that these injustices inspire. The Uses of Anger includes materials from the following groups:

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)
Anonymous Queers
Black Lives Matter. NYC Shut It Down: The Grand Central Crew
Camp Out
Fierce Pussy
Gran Fury
Homocult
Lesbian Avengers
Occupy Wall Street
Queer Nation
Lee Schy – Extended Family series
WHAM! (Women’s Health Action and Mobilization)

The Uses of Anger is organized by Charlie Welch and Greg Newton with help from Elsa Waithe. On view at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from November 20, 2015 through January 17, 2016.
Opening reception on Friday, November 20, 6 to 9 PM.

*From “For Each of You,” first published in From a Land Where Other People Live (Broadside Press, Detroit, 1973), and collected in The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1997), 59.
“The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press, Berkeley, 1984), 124-133.

Thanks to the following people for providing materials for the exhibition:
Ed Ball
Andy Fair
Joe Ferrari
Avram Finkelstein
Lisa Guido
Elizabeth Meixell
Emily Nahmanson
Elsa Waithe

The Bureau will host the following events in conjunction with the exhibition:

Friday, November 27, 7 PM
Affirmative Laughter: African American Friday Edition
Affirmative Laughter is back and we’re reclaiming BLACK Friday. Each month host Elsa Waithe (aka Elsa Just Elsa Comedy) brings you a comedy show dedicated to hilarity and diversity. This month we are taking over the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and featuring NY’s best QTPOC comics, plus special guests.
Comics:
Calvin S. Cato
Wanjiko Eke
Alex English
Gloria Shantae Butler
Special Guest/Affirmative Hire:
Joel Palilla

Sunday, December 6, 6 PM
Screening of United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (2012, 93 minutes). Following the screening director Jim Hubbard and producer Sarah Schulman will engage the audience in discussion. This event is co-presented by The LGBT Community Center and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in room 301 of The Center.

Thursday, January 7, 7 PM
HIV/AIDS activist Kyle Bella reports on his recent visit to South Africa. Details forthcoming.

Friday, January 15, 7 PM
Screening of Tongues Untied (1989, 55 minutes). Directed by Marlon Riggs. Followed by a panel discussion led by Sean Apparicio. Details forthcoming.

TARNISHED GOLD HOLIDAY KICKOFF PARTY & BOOKSIGNING
2015-11-21 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
In celebration of TARNISHED GOLD, Book Two in Ann Aptaker‘s Cantor Gold Crime Series, an evening of food and entertainment, featuring a fabulous Tarnished Gold performance and an author signing!

Featuring:

Ann Aptaker, Author of Criminal Gold & Tarnished Gold.
Arnie Mazer, noted actor (Law & Order, Swift Justice, etc).
Producer Allan Neuwirth, Producer (What’s the Name of the Dame, Drawing Home, etc.)

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve a copy of Tarnished Gold please write to contact@bgsqd.com.

Rebel Friendships
2015-11-22 17:00 - 20:00 | NY
Author Ben Shepard writes:
Rebel Friendships: “Outsider” Networks and Social Movements is a book inspired by the world of organizing we have all created, along with the lovely and messy ways organizers go about creating change through our own invisible committees, affinity groups, and networks of comrades. Some of the chapters I’ve been drafting for years now. The work covers my experiences with the first person I know to die of AIDS, my godfather Fred, who worked at Keller’s bar on the West Side of Manhattan, my recollections of towel snapping and high school football, identify blurring AIDS activism in San Francisco, drag marches in New York, anarchist bikers, Occupiers, and universal stories of friends still taking care of each other and their friends coping with premature losses, overdose, and struggles over what we hope our world can be.
Rebel Friendships considers the interplay between individuals and their friendships with social movements. The intersections between individual and community, the ways we experiment with social change, explore, create, and reduce the harms of modern living are the work of social movements. Yet, the process is rarely simple. Through auto-ethnographic reflections of experiences with the Beats, ACT-UP, Occupy Wall Street, anti-consumer, queer rights, and non-polluting transportation movements Shepard explores the way friendship infuses social movements with the social capital necessary to move bodies of ideas forward. Such innovation is rarely seen in more institutionalized social arrangements. Rebel Friendships offers a new take on the ties between friends who are connected through affinity and efforts aimed at social change.
Two ACT UP/NY veterans, Jay Blotcher and Andrew Velez, will join Shepard to discuss our experience of the magic of activist friendships and esprit de corps.

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

Praise for Rebel Friendships:
“A daring and innovative approach to social movements – Shepard’s book is a treasure and tool. Taking on the importance of affect, friendship, care and trust in movements he at once teaches the reader and entertains simultaneously. This trailblazing book addresses an area of social movements studies woefully under researched and does a stupendous job of capturing theory, history and feeling – all the while using a narrative form that makes the reader not want to put down the book.”
Marina Sitrin, author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina and co-author of – They Can’t Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy.

“Rebel Friendships delves deep into a phenomenon that every activist, and student of activism, is aware of, but not enough of us acknowledge: at the core of every collective and at the center of every social movement are individual friendships – radical friendships. Kudos to Benjamin Heim Shepard for writing this perceptive and moving book!”
Stephen Duncombe, Professor of Media and Culture, NYU, and Co-Director, Center of Artistic Activism

“In Rebel Friendships Benjamin Shepard continues and extends the project that has engaged him during the eighteen years of our friendship. That project is an ongoing social activism and a growing body of writing, a politics and an esthetics. It believes deeply in people as the ultimate repository of worth, a community but also a collection of frail, flawed, uniquely amazing individuals. Both Ben and his writing are good.”
Jim Eigo

“Benjamin Shepard book Rebel Friendships is a masterpiece, weaving together the lived experiences of activists critical to important movements for social justice. In lucid prose, Shepard vividly details the dialectical interplay among key individuals engaged in activism through friendships – the magical elixir of sustainable movement making. This compelling analysis is a must read!”
Ron Hayduk, Professor of Political Science, Queens College/CUNY and rebel friend among activists from global justice to immigrant rights, Occupy to the Lower East Side Collective

“Friendship is a central social and psychological force in people’s lives. Yet it also has political dimensions, as Ben Shepard so vividly demonstrates. Through his own personal stories, and interviews and biographies of friends, Shepard gives meaning to the oft-quoted feminist phrase that ‘the personal is political.’ In Rebel Friendships, we experience the many profound ways friends create community activism, develop families of choice, mentor each other, and perform rituals. This is indeed the book that illustrates the transformative political and personal power of friendships.”
Peter M. Nardi, PhD, author of Gay Men’s Friendships: Invincible Communities

“Rebel Friendships is a necessary contribution to contemporary radical social movements and the literatures that discuss them. Part memoir, part scholarly analysis, and part political assessment, in this book Ben Shepard reminds us, earnestly, that productive struggles from below require the engines of trust, love, and mutual aid that define “friendship.” Throughout the case studies and reflections here, Shepard offers powerful examples of the ways that friendship has played a decisive role in radical social struggles throughout recent history, and how friendship will be the foundation of our efforts toward building a better future.”
Craig Hughes, Team Colors Collective

“Shepard’s big-hearted book is a galvanizing reminder that the search for and maintenance of human connections lie at the center of any valid fight for change. Through well-researched historical analysis and engaging personal anecdotes, Shepard reimagines community organizing by simply reminding us who we have been, who we are, and who we can become. This book makes me want to befriend everyone.”
Rev. Micah Bucey
Associate Minister, Judson Memorial Church

“A impressively researched and starkly confessional examination of interpersonal bonding at the so-called edges of society — and how the power of friendship can incrementally reframe notions of normality. Ben Shepard delivers exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary study more social science scholars should be engaged with in order to understand the essentially activist components of our evolving human nature.”
Rob Magnuson Smith, author or The Gravedigger and The Scorper, teaches English and Creative Writing at Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall.

By day, Benjamin Shepard, PhD, LMSW, works as an Associate Professor of Human Services at City Tech/CUNY. By night, battles to keep New York from becoming a giant shopping mall. To this end, he has done organizing work with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), SexPanic!, Reclaim the Streets, Times UP, the Clandestine Rebel Clown Army, Absurd Response, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Housing Works, More Gardens Coalition, Times UP!, Right of Way, and Occupy Wall Street.
He is also the author/editor of several books: White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic (1997), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (2002), Queer Political Performance and Protest (Routledge, 2009) The Beach beneath the Streets: Contesting New York’s Public Spaces (with Greg Smithsimon, SUNY Press) and Play, Creativity, and Social Movements: If I Can’t Dance, Its Not My Revolution (Routledge, 2011), and Community Projects as Social Activism: From Direct Action to Direct Services (Sage).
In 2010, he was named to the Playboy Honor Role as one of twenty professors “who are reinventing the classroom.”
A social worker, he has worked in AIDS services / activism for two decades, joining ACT UP Golden Gate in the early 1990’s, opening two congregate facilities for people living with HIV/AIDS, serving as deputy director for a syringe exchange program, all while remaining active in efforts to bridge the gap between direct action and direct services. Today, he remains involved in organizing efforts around transportation, HIV/AIDS, labor, public spaces and environmental policy.

Closed for Thanksgiving Day
2015-11-26 | NY

Affirmative laughter: African-American Friday Edition
2015-11-27 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Affirmative Laughter is back and we’re reclaiming BLACK Friday. Each month host Elsa Waithe brings you a comedy show dedicated to hilarity and diversity. This month we are taking over the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (in conjunction with the Bureau’s exhibition The Uses of Anger) and featuring NY’s best QTPOC comics, plus special guests.
Comics:
Calvin S. Cato
Wanjiko Eke
Alex English
Gloria Shantae Butler
Special Guest/Affirmative Hire:
Joel Palilla

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
We will also pass a hat to collect donations for the performers.
Please note: The Center and the Bureau will open at 5 PM on Friday, November 27th.

Nowhere Slow - a reading with Bertie Marshall
2015-11-28 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
A reading from Bertie Marshall’s NOWHERE SLOW- collected writings (1994-2014)… containing poems, plays, chapbooks, memoirs and a reprint of his 1997 debut novel Psychoboys.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Check out Bertie Marshall’s discussion of Nowhere Slow in OutThere.

Photograph by Joe Ray
Bertie Marshall is the author of Berlin Bromley (his critically acclaimed memoir about his life as part of The Bromley Contingent- and mid 70s pre punk London) his other books include Psychoboys, a novel and Nowhere Slow, collected writings. The British Library have recently acquired Marshall’s archive.

Union Square Slam presents DESIREE DALLAGIACOMO and Semi-Finals #1 (spotlight feature with Sam Sax)
2015-11-30 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam presents Desireé Dallagiacomo and Semi-Finals #1, a special spotlight feature with Sam Sax, and our very first Semi-Finals, hosted by Omar Holman!!!

Competitors tonight:
Kearah Armonie
Noel Quinones
Guangpyo Hong
Anthony McPherson
Nkosi Nkululelo
Cecily Schuler
Carol Brown
Itiola Jones
Chris Rodriguez
6pm: Free Writing Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7pm: Sign-ups start (open mic only)
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Slam (invite only tonight)

*** AT OUR NEW LOCATION ***
Monday weekly slams will be hosted by the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division
housed in the LGBT Center
208 W 13th St, Rm 210
All Ages // $5 // 18 and under Free Admission
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We will open at 6 PM on Mondays for the Union Square Slam.

About our Feature:
Ranking 3rd in at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam, 3rd at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, and 3rd at the 2014 National Poetry Slam, Desireé Dallagiacomo is an award-winning writer, performer, and educator. She is the program director and a lead teaching artist for Forward Arts Inc, a literary arts non-profit in Baton Rouge, LA, and a 2014 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Gate, EverydayFeminism.com, Upworthy, Tulane University’s production of The Vagina Monologues, the New Orleans Fringe Festival, and Tandem Review. Studying creative writing and women & gender studies, she is a student at the University of New Orleans– where she is a recipient of the Ryan Chigazola Poetry Scholarship. She has taught and performed at colleges, universities, and youth organizations across the country. Desireé enjoys working with student and community populations in middle school, high school, college, and beyond.
About our Slam:
Semi-Finals is an invite-only slam. The 8 highest ranking poets of the last 6 open slams are competing tonight — the top 2 winners secure spots in our Finals in May 2016. SemiFinals is run just like Open Slams: 3 rounds, first round has 8 poets in random order, 2nd round has 5 poets going from high to low ranking, and 3rd round has 3 poets, also from high to low. All rounds are cumulative. Each poet has 3 minutes to read a poem, plus a 10-second grace period. All other PSi Slam Rules apply.

Transgender Defender Zoe Dolan: Book Talk and Signing
2015-12-02 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Zoe Dolan will talk about her new book There Is Room for You: Tales from a Transgender Defender’s Heart, a memoir of recovery from sex addiction, gender transitioning, falling in love, and handling high-profile terrorism cases as a trial lawyer.
This event is co-presented by The LGBT Community Center and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Reading at 7:15 PM

Please purchase your copy of There Is Room for You from the Bureau. To reserve a copy write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Zoe Dolan is a writer and trial lawyer known for handling high-profile criminal cases, including the 2014 trial of Suleiman Abu Ghayth, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and the allegedly highest-ranked al-Qaeda suspect to be tried in a civilian court in the United States. Her writing includes the book There Is Room for You: Tales from a Transgender Defender’s Heart (this excerpt appeared in The Guardian in August), and a blog on The Huffington Post. Earlier this year, as part of her Being Transgender – Naked project, Upworthy presented this video about being transgender. Profiles of Zoe and her work have appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and The Advocate.

JONATHAN at 10
2015-12-04 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Jonathan, a journal of queer male fiction, is having its first-ever reading to celebrate its TEN issues! Come join its editor RAYMOND LUCZAK and listen to SEVEN writers read from their work:
GERARD CABRERA
DALE CORVINO
GREGORY GERARD
B. V. MARSHALL
ROBERT SMITH
PHILIP DEAN WALKER
BRAD WINDHAUSER

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
This event will be ASL interpreted.
All 10 issues of Jonathan are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy of issue 10, or any previous issues, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

HEY GIRL, HOMOCATS DO THE BUREAU!!
2015-12-05 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
J. Morrison’s HOMOCATS return to the Bureau for a special one-night extravaganza featuring zines, t-shirts, screenprints, and more!
Please join the artist and BGSQD in celebrating the new HOMOCATS editions including “Fuck the Internet”, “What’s the T?”, “Free Butt Sex”, the HOMOCATS Cross, and the Rainbow Cats!
Come enjoy special surprises, prices, and drinks!!

Photo: Rebecca Levi, J. Morrison at NY Art Book Fair 2015.

Bio:
J. Morrison is a multidisciplinary Brooklyn-based artist working in print, performance, and curatorial projects.
Morrison first created the HOMOCATS during a 2010 residency at the Anderson Ranch in Colorado. They have since been exhibited at the NY and LA Art Book Fairs, Transformer Gallery (Washington, DC), Lorem Ipsum (Boston), Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery (NY), and the BGSQD in 2013. They will be featured at Christopher Stout Gallery in Miami Art Basel and on Transparent’s upcoming Season 2!

Screening United in Anger: A History of ACT UP and Q&A with Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman
2015-12-06 18:00 - 20:30 | NY
In conjunction with the Bureau’s exhibition The Uses of Anger, the Bureau and The LGBT Community Center are proud to present a screening of United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. Following the screening director Jim Hubbard and producer Sarah Schulman will engage the audience in discussion.

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

UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP (2012, 93 minutes) is a unique feature-length documentary that combines startling archival footage that puts the audience on the ground with the activists and the remarkably insightful interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project to explore ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) from a grassroots perspective – how a small group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other’s lives. The film takes the viewer through the planning and execution of a dozen exhilarating major actions including Seize Control of the FDA, Stop the Church, and Day of Desperation, with a timeline of many of the other zaps and actions that forced the U.S. government and mainstream media to deal with the AIDS crisis. UNITED IN ANGER reveals the group’s complex culture – meetings, affinity groups, and approaches to civil disobedience mingle with profound grief, sexiness, and the incredible energy of ACT UP. Before there was Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring, there was ACT UP.

For more information visit unitedinanger.com

Jim Hubbard has been making films since 1974. Recently, he completed United in Anger: A History of ACT UP, a feature length documentary on ACT UP, the AIDS activist group. Sarah Schulman and he are continuing work on the ACT UP Oral History Project, as well. One hundred and two interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project were on view in a 14-monitor installation at the Carpenter Center for the Arts, Harvard University as part of the exhibition ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993, October 15 – December 23, 2009. A version with 114 interviews showed at the White Columns Gallery in New York, September 8 – October 23, 2010. He, along with James Wentzy, created a 9-part cable access television series based on the Project. Among his 19 other films are Elegy in the Streets (1989), Two Marches (1991), The Dance (1992) and Memento Mori (1995). His films have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Berlin Film Festival, the London Film Festival, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Torino and many other Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals. His film Memento Mori won the Ursula for Best Short Film at the Hamburg Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in 1995. He co-founded MIX – the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival. Under the auspices of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, he created the AIDS Activist Video Collection at the New York Public Library. He curated the series Fever in the Archive: AIDS Activist Videotapes from the Royal S. Marks Collection for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The 8-program series took place December 1-9, 2000. He also co-curated the series, Another Wave: Recent Global Queer Cinema at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, July and September 2006.

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and AIDS historian.
Her plays include:
CARSON McCULLERS – (Sundance/Playwrights Horizons -2002),
MANIC FLIGHT REACTION (NY Stage and Film/Playwrights Horizons-2005) ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY, adapted from IB Singer (Wilma Theater-2007).
And play workshops, commissions, readings at: South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, ART, New York Theater Workshop, The Roundabout.
Her nine novels : THE COSMOPOLITANS (The Feminist Press, 2016), THE MERE FUTURE (2009), THE CHILD (2007), SHIMMER (1998), RAT BOHEMIA (1995), EMPATHY (1992), PEOPLE IN TROUBLE (1990), AFTER DELORES (1988), GIRLS, VISIONS AND EVERYTHING (1986), THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY (1984) and five nonfiction books: CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and The Duty of Repair (2016) ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE QUEER INTERNATIONAL (2012). THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: Witness to a Lost Imagination (2012), TIES THAT BIND: FAMILIAL HOMOPHOBIA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (2010) STAGESTRUCK: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America (1998) MY AMERICAN HISTORY: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years (1995)
In film Sarah has collaborated as a screenwriter w/ film director Cheryl Dunye on THE OWLS, (2010 Berlin Film Festival,) MOMMY IS COMING, (Berlinale 2012,) w/ director Stephen Winter on JASON AND SHIRLEY, (Brooklyn Academy of Music BAMfest ’15,) w/ director Jim Hubbard on UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP, (Museum of Modern Art.) With Jim Hubbard, she is co-founder of the MIX: NY LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, now in its 30th year, and The ACT UP Oral History Project (www.actuporalhistory.org).
Awards include a Guggenheim (Playwrighting), Fulbright (Judaic Studies), Kessler Prize for Sustained Contribution to LGBT Studies, 3 NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowships (Playwrighting and Fiction) 2 American Library Association Book Awards (Fiction and Nonfiction) and a finalist for the Prix de Rome. Sarah is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at The City University of New York, College of Staten Island, a Fellow at The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU and on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Union Square Slam presents JADE SYLVAN and WOWPS #4
2015-12-07 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Come on out for the witty lyric honesty of Jade Sylvan and our final WOWPS qualifier!!
ALL AGES!!! $5 cover. No one is turned away due to lack of funds.
6:00pm: Free Writing Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: WOWPS qualifying slam
About our Feature:
Jade Sylvan, called a “risque queer icon” by the Boston Globe, is an award-winning author, poet, screenwriter, producer, and performing artist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Jade’s most recent book, Kissing Oscar Wilde (Write Bloody 2013), a novelized memoir about the author’s experience as a touring poet in Paris, received rave reviews, and was a finalist for the New England Book Award and the Bisexual Book Award. Jade has toured extensively, performing their work to audiences across the United States, Canada, and Europe. They are heavily rooted in the literary and performance community of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts.
Over the past decade, Jade has produced and performed in dozens of acclaimed stage-shows and workshops in collaboration with entities such as The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Harvard University, and Mass Poetry. In 2012, Jade co-wrote and starred in Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein’s first feature-film TEN (awarded “Runner-Up” for Best Screenplay and Best Genre Film at the Imaginarium Film Festival), and was also commissioned to write the official novelization of the film. Jade has had pieces published in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, The Toast, PANK, and many other places. The author has received the Bayou Poetry Prize, the Write Bloody Renaissance award, and a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Jade identifies as genderqueer and prefers the pronouns they/them/their [example: “That’s Jade, they’re the coolest person I know.“], unless otherwise specified.
About our Slam:
WOWPS is:
a) an acronym for Women of the World World Poetry Slam
b) one of three national poetry slam events put on annually by Poetry Slam, Inc.
c) held in Brooklyn, NY from March 9-12th, 2016
d) the second national event to which Union Square Slam is sending a rep
Union Square Slam WOWPS Qualifier rules:
Competition at WOWps is limited to poets who live their lives as women. Qualified poets include female assigned or identified individuals who are PSi members and are 18+ years of age, including gender non-conforming individuals.
8* poets, 3 rounds. Cumulative Scores.
4 min (all)
cumulative – cut to 5
1 min (5 poets)
cumulative all 3 rounds – cut to 3
2 min – cumulative score wins the slam
Top two are in Finals** (December 14th). Finals will be 4 ROUNDS — all cumulative!!!

John Hanning Book Launch - Unfortunate Male
2015-12-09 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Jackson Davidow, Camilo Godoy, Ted Kerr, Kris Nuzzi, Esther McGowan, Lucas Michael and Fredric Sinclair will join John Hanning in reading passages from Unfortunate Male – telling the strange tension between the incomprehensibility of medical records and the crispness of Hanning’s articulation of memory.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

John Hanning is a collage and digital artist born in Arkansas. His work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including Queer WAH, WAH Center, Brooklyn, The Queer Feeling of Tomorrow, Art Gallery Guelph, Canada; Powerful Babies: Keith Haring’s Impact on Artists Today, Spritmuseum, Sweden; Color Dot Connect, Mixed Greens, New York; and in alternative spaces throughout New York City. Hanning is also the creator of Cosmo, his stick-figure-alter-ego and virtual avatar and the author of Unfortunate Male, his first book. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Apogee Issue 6 Launch
2015-12-10 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us in celebrating the launch of Apogee Issue 06 with a reading featuring Derrick Austin, Chase Berggrun, Victoria Brown, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Soyini Ayanna Forde, Leila Ortiz, and Nina Puro.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Derrick Austin is the author of Trouble the Water, selected by Mary Szybist for the 2015 A. Poulin, Jr. Prize (BOA Editions, Spring 2016). A Cave Canem fellow, he earned his MFA from the University of Michigan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2015, Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion, New England Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, The Paris-American, Memorious, and other journals and anthologies. He is the Social Media Coordinator for The Offing.

Chase Berggrun is a genderqueer poet and the author of Discontent and Its Civilizations: Poems of Erasure, winner of the 2012 jubilat Chapbook Contest. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in inter|rupture, No Tokens, Cosmonauts Avenue, Cutbank, BOAAT, Beloit Poetry Journal, the anthology Time You Let Me In: 25 Under 25, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Washington Square Review, and an MFA candidate in Poetry at NYU.

Victoria Brown is the author of Minding Ben (Hyperion 2011), which was released in paperback as Grace in the City (2012). Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, New York Magazine,NBCnews.com, Sunday Salon, Moko Caribbean Arts and Letters, and in Perigee, Apogee Journal’s online blog. Her work is also forthcoming in Caribbean Quarterly.She teaches at the City University of New York and is currently at work on her second novel.

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is a Japanese-Chinese-British-American writer with an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop. Her work has been published in TriQuarterly, NPR’s Selected Shorts, The Tin House Open Bar, and The Indiana Review.

Soyini Ayanna Forde is an island grrl in Florida. She has poems and fiction included in MokoMagazine, SX Salon, The Caribbean Writer, Tongues of the Ocean, The Guidebook, St. Somewhere Journal and Black Renaissance Noire. Her poetry chapbook Taste of Hibiscus was published by Dancing Girl Press. She is very interested in West Indian identity and culture, diasporic connections, and what she can learn from the resilience of strong women.

Leila Ortiz is a poet and social worker in NYC public schools. Leila grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and now resides in Bay Ridge. Her poems can be found in No, Dear Magazine, Referential Magazine, Stone Canoe, and The Ledge. She received her MFA in Poetry from the Queens College Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation.

Nina Puro’s work can be found in Guernica, H_ngm_n, the PEN Poetry Series, and other places. A member of the Belladonna* Collaborative; the author of two forthcoming chapbooks (Argos Books and dancing girl press); and the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Syracuse University. Nina cries and works in Brooklyn.
