BGSQD

Russell Perkins & Nancy Brooks Brody: A Different Light
2019-11-05 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
A conversation with Current Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellow Russell Perkins and his Mentor Nancy Brooks Brody (Fierce Pussy), along with Jeanne Vaccaro and Caitlin McCarthy, The Center’s Archivist about the legacy of art embedded in the working life of the LGBT Community Center, and a proposal for a new work by Nancy Brooks Brody and Russell Perkins, titled A Different Light, celebrating Leslie Feinberg and hir trailblazing labor to articulate marginalized queer histories and identities.
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This event is part of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual, curated by current Fellow Jeanne Vaccaro and titled “How do we know what we need you to know: Intimate access and collective care.” The exhibition will present across multiple formats and locations (including The LGBT Community Center, Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, Movement Research, and La MaMa E.T.C.) new work by the graduating Fellows of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship program: J. Bouey, Candystore, Daniel Chew, Xandra Clark, Sarah Creagen, Cristóbal Guerra, Russell Perkins, Ripley Soprano, and Natalie Tsui. Learn more at www.queer-art.org/qam-annual

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About A Different Light
A Different Light is an artwork about margins and in-between spaces. As a permanent, site-specific installation at The Center, Nancy Brooks Brody and Russell Perkins propose to engrave a small constellation of marks on the exposed undersides of the stone stairs of Stairwell C. These marks are drawn from handwritten notes found in writer, activist, and trans historian Leslie Feinberg’s personal library; culled from texts on political science, history, and poetry, they testify to moments of questioning, critical engagement, and discovery in Feinberg’s reading and writing practice.
The work is inspired by the legacy of art embedded in the working life of The Center. Joining the installations by Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt and Susan Strande that already share the liminal space of the stairway, it is meant to be viewed by passing through. The old stone steps resonate with the collective movements of the many bodies that have used them. Similarly, the heavily marked-up book pages—which we found as a result of our research in The Center archives—resonate with Feinberg’s trailblazing labor to articulate marginalized queer histories and identities.
In both cases, one senses an indexical contact with the past that cannot be translated into any single statement or message, but which speaks to physical processes of community in formation. By proposing an analogy between the transitional space of the stairway and the intertextual space of the margin, the work suggests that the viewer is participating in a story that is still being written.
As part of A Different Light, Nancy Brooks Brody and Russell Perkins propose to paint the lights in The Center’s outdoor courtyard pink. The lights’ coloring will be visible in both the day and night; once the sun has set and the lights are turned on, the space will be bathed in a warm, pink glow. The piece contrasts the weight and interiority of the proposed stairway engraving; both works, however require the viewer to look up in order to notice them. Because the windows on each floor landing of Stairwell C look out into the courtyard, the two works are also visible to one another.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: We 3/Os 3
2019-11-06 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
On November 6th please join us for a viewing of We 3/Os 3 (2011), directed by Nando Olival, starring Gabriel Godoy,
Victor Mendes, and Juliana Schalch.
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: College housemates Cazé, Rafael, and Camila agree not to date each other while they live together, but when they are offered the chance to participate in their own reality show to market products for a large company, things get complicated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes, in Portuguese with English subtitles.

Cristóbal Guerra, Ripley Soprano, and Candystore: How We Need
2019-11-07 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A reading and performance on November 7 by Queer|Art|Mentorship artists Cristóbal Guerra, Ripley Soprano, and Candystore will activate works on display in the Bureau. Guerra presents a three-dimensional iteration of their book La Señal, about the historical narratives that have shaped colonial resistance in the islands currently known as “Puerto Rico.” Soprano performs poems and sound collages as part of their installation harmreduxxcommunism. Candystore screens a video collaboration with Jake Brush about the anus as a portal for self-discovery, universality, and connection via poetic and performative sensibilities.
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This event is part of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual, curated by current Fellow Jeanne Vaccaro and titled “How do we know what we need you to know: Intimate access and collective care.” The exhibition will present across multiple formats and locations (including The LGBT Community Center, Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, Movement Research, and La MaMa E.T.C.) new work by the graduating Fellows of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship program: J. Bouey, Candystore, Daniel Chew, Xandra Clark, Sarah Creagen, Cristóbal Guerra, Russell Perkins, Ripley Soprano, and Natalie Tsui. Learn more at www.queer-art.org/qam-annual
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About Cristóbal Guerra
Cristóbal Guerra is an interdisciplinary artist from Puerto Rico. Their work combines experimental video, documentary film, visual art, and text to explore ideas of “home”, el caribe, queerness and belonging. Through an interdisciplinary practice Cristóbal aims to explore the lived experience of being raised queer in the colony of PR in conversation with an evolving identity shaped by diasporic experience. Through research, experimental video, and text they look for the political in the personal. Intimate archival footage and documentary work seek to articulate present processes through a type of closure with the past, while poetry, prose, and other texts sets its sights on imaginaries that take into account the “canon”—and what was excluded from it—during the artist’s process of learning their own history as a colonial subject. Cristóbal work commonly deals with memory, language, new media and its relations to the Boricua diaspora. And more recently, the idea of non-corporeality and post-nationalistic thought informs the wrting of “La Señal”, a book the artist has developed during their time at Queer|Art|Mentorship.
About Ripley Soprano
Ripley Soprano is an organizer and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. They have been organizing for over a decade around racial and economic justice issues. They co-founded New York 2 New Orleans Coalition (NY2NO), New York Students Rising, Youngist: young people-powered media, and the fundraising collective “Shadowbanned” that materially supports sex workers facing criminalization. They are an editor and co-owner of Mask Magazine, and are currently co-authoring a book on the social history of incest for TigerBee Press alongside Sophia Giovannitti. Ripley has been published in Mask, AlterNet, The Nation Magazine, the New York Times, and Salon.
About Candystore
Imagine you are staring at a naked butt. On the left cheek is the letter “J” and on the right cheek are the letters “O” and “Y”. The ethos of Candystore’s artistic practice is to spread JOY. She-he thinks labels are short-sighted / obnoxious and art is more powerful when it is made accessible and in collaboration. Like many before shimher, Candystore has been cursed to consider the world poetically (ugh) and is at least trying to have a little fun with that. She-he was a 2018-2019 artist-in-residence with Shandaken: Governor’s Island. In 2019, she was one of four recipients of the Shannon Michael Cane Award from Printed Matter, which allowed shimher the opportunity to self-publish her debut book of poetry, Hi Angels. Candystore’s writing and art have been published in PAPER Magazine, Phile Magazine, Riot of Perfume, Precog Mag, RFD, and others. She-he has performed around New York City, most notably at MoMA PS1, though it was only in the book store. Candystore also performs every time she-he uses a public restroom. She-he loves dick and lives in Brooklyn, NY in a pink room.

Blood Box: A Book Launch and Reading
2019-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join host Jesse Rice-Evans and readers Joey De Jesus, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Spencer Williams, Chase Berggrun, and Zefyr Lisowski to launch Zefyr Lisowski’s debut murder grief lesbian short collection of poetry, Blood Box (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). From the publisher:
Blood Box, the deliciously haunting debut short collection from poet Zefyr Lisowski, takes us inside the infamous 1892 axe murders of Abby and Andrew Borden through twenty-six wide-ranging, stylistically experimental persona poems. Lisowski re-introduces us to mythologized spinster Lizzie Borden as we’ve never seen her before: a girl wielding an axe, yes, but also a girl trapped—in the boxes of age, of hunger, of loneliness, of blame. Lizzie, who was acquitted of the double murder of her father and stepmother, yet continues to haunt our cultural psyche over a hundred years later. Even now, “Violence dances with us like ghosts.”
In these pages, the notorious crime and its cast of characters serve as a jumping-off point for a textured exploration of inherited violence, queer intimacy, and the way family can be “another geometry, another violence too.” Blood Box is Lizzie’s story, but it’s also the story of grief, of selfhood, of trans and queer becoming. Lisowski’s Lizzie Borden is as sweet, sad, spooky, and haunted as a girl with an axe ever can be.
This event will run from 7 – 9 PM, with readings starting by 7:30. Come and be spooky!

A NOTE ON ACCESS: The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, with a working elevator; the building and Bureau are both wheelchair accessible, and chairs with backs will be provided. Wine, beer, & soft drinks will be provided by donation. Please refrain from wearing scented products.

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

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ON THE READERS:
Zefyr Lisowski is a trans & queer Southerner, the author of Blood Box (Black Lawrence Press, 2019) and a Pisces. She’s a poetry co-editor at Apogee Journal and has received support from Tin House Writers Workshop, Sundress Academy for the Arts, The CUNY Graduate Center, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Muzzle, DIAGRAM, Literary Hub, Nat. Brut., and the Texas Review, among other places. She’s currently working on Wolf Inventory, a collaborative film about ghost stories, ritual, and feminized sexual violence in the South, with filmmaker and artist Candace Thompson. Find her and more of her work online at zeflisowski.com.

A fat femme from NC, Jesse Rice-Evans is a former waitress and current doctoral student. She teaches workshops on digital writing and access-centered pedagogy. Read her poetry and essays in WUSSY, Nat. Brut, honey & lime, and others.

Joey De Jesus is the author of HOAX (Operating System, 2020), NOCT- The Threshold of Madness (The Atlas Review, 2019), and co-author, alongside Sade LaNay, of Writing Voice into the Archive vol. 1, organized and edited by Jennifer Tamayo with support from UC Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender. Joey formerly co-edited poetry at Apogee Journal, is an Advisory Board Member at No, Dear Magazine. Joey received the 2019-20 BRIC ArtFP Project Room Commission and 2017 NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Poetry. Poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poet’s Poem-A-Day, Bettering American Poetry, BOAAT, The Brooklyn Rail, The Literary Review, and several other venues and installed at Artists Space, The New Museum, Franklin Street Works and elsewhere. Joey is running for New York State Assembly of District 38 in 2020 and needs your support.

Chase Berggrun is a trans woman poet. She is the author of R E D (Birds, LLC, 2018). Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, jubilat, Poetry, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from NYU.

Cyree Jarelle Johnson is a librarian and writer from Piscataway, New Jersey. They hold a MS in Library and Information Science from Drexel University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. He is the author of two books, SLINGSHOT (2019) and How Greek Immigrants Made America Home (2018). Cyree’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Boston Review, Rewire News, The Root, and MOTHERBOARD/Vice. They have given speeches and lectures at The White House, TEDxColumbia University, Brown University, The University of Pennsylvania, community organizations, churches, festivals, and conferences throughout the United States. His work has been supported by Davis Putter Scholarship Fund, Astraea Foundation, Leeway Foundation, Disabled Writers, Culture/Strike, and the donations of countless community members who believe in what he does.

Spencer Williams is from Chula Vista, California. She is the author of the chapbook Alien Pink (2017, The Atlas Review Chapbook Series) and has work featured in Apogee, [PANK], Bat City Review, Pacifica, and IndieWire. In her spare time, she forgets to utilize the avocados she’s bought until it’s too late and they’ve all gone soft. She has at least seven Neopets accounts she forgot the passwords to, and received a BA in English and Cinematic Arts from University of Iowa. She’s currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Rutgers-Newark.

New York Voices of Humor & Danger
2019-11-09 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Humorist Fay Jacobs and crime fiction author Ann Aptaker bring the distinctive New York language, sound, humor and danger to their award winning Lesbian literature. Join them for an evening of laughs and dark streets.

Copies of both authors’ most recent books will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Native New Yorker Fay Jacobs, and an Advocate Magazine 2019 Champion of Pride, has had a career in journalism, public relations and theater. Her one-woman comedy show, “Aging Gracelessly:50 Shades of Fay,” has played to sell-out crowds across the country, including New York’s Duplex Cabaret and aboard an Olivia cruise. She is the author of five books of humor: “As I Lay Frying,” “Fried & True,” “For Frying Out Loud,” “Time Fries-Aging Gracelessly in Rehoboth Beach,” and her latest, “Fried & Convicted-Rehoboth Beach Uncorked.” Her books and humorous essays have won numerous awards, including the 2008 National Federation of Press Women Book of the Year for humor. As a journalist, Fay has written for The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, The Advocate, The Philadelphia Gay News, The Washington Blade, curve magazine, Delaware Beach Life and more.

Lammy and Goldie winner, native New Yorker Ann Aptaker’s first book, “Criminal Gold,” was a Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Award finalist. Her next book, “Tarnished Gold” (Book Two in the Cantor Gold Crime Series), was honored with a Lambda Literary Award and a Goldie Award, the only mystery novel to win both awards for the same book. The third book in the series, “Genuine Gold,” won the 2018 Goldie Award. Book four, “Flesh and Gold,” is the newest book in the ongoing series. Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions of the crime anthology Fedora, Switchblade Magazine’s Stiletto Heeled issue, and will be featured in the Mickey Finn crime anthology, releasing in 2020. She is one of six writers invited to provide a novella for Down & Out Books’ 2020 crime series. Her flash fiction, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet, and another flash fiction is featured in the Goldie winning anthology “Happy Hours: Our Lives in Gay Bars.” Ann is an art writer for various New York clients, and is an adjunct professor of art and art history at the New York Institute of Technology.

Four Way Books & Friends Poetry Reading
2019-11-10 16:00 - 17:30 | NY
Join us for a fabulous fall afternoon/evening of poetry featuring readings by Four Way Books authors Julia Guez (In an Invisible Glass Case Which Is Also a Frame), Sam Ross (Company) and friends Jerome Murphy, Eva Saavedra, and Jimin Seo.

Copies of Julia Guez‘s In an Invisible Glass Case Which Is Also a Frame and Sam Ross‘s Company will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Julia Guez is the author of In an Invisible Glass Case Which Is Also a Frame (Four Way Books). Her poetry, essays, interviews and translations have appeared in Poetry, the Guardian, PEN Poetry Series, the Kenyon Review, BOMB and the Brooklyn Rail. She has been awarded the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship and the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize in Translation. Guez holds degrees from Rice and Columbia. For the last decade, she has worked with Teach For America; she’s currently a senior managing director of program implementation there. She also teaches creative writing at Rutgers and writes poetry reviews for Publishers Weekly. Guez lives in Brooklyn and online at www.juliaguez.net.

Sam Ross is the author of Company (Four Way Books) selected by Carl Philips for the Levis Prize in Poetry. He has received fellowships and support from Columbia University, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Watermill Center, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His work has appeared in the Denver Quarterly, New Republic, Tin House, and elsewhere. He grew up in Indiana and lives in New York City.

Jerome Ellison Murphy earned his MFA from the Creative Writing Program at New York University, where he currently serves as Undergraduate Programs Manager. His critical writing has appeared in LA Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, The Adroit Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, Lambda Literary, American Poets and is forthcoming in The Yale Review. His poetry appears at LitHub, Narrative Magazine, The Awl, Bellevue Literary Review, Spunk Arts Journal, Pleiades, and was recorded for NPR as part of the Emotive Fruition performance series. His work most frequently appears on the ceiling as you lie awake at 4 a.m. He is also a board member of Emotive Fruition, and has served on the board of Lambda Literary Foundation, the world’s foremost non-profit supporting LGBT literature.

Eva Maria Saavedra was born and raised in New Jersey and now resides in Brooklyn, NY. She received a BA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in writing and translation from Columbia’s School of the Arts. Her chapbook, Thirst, was selected by Marilyn Hacker for the Poetry Society of America’s 2014 New York Chapbook Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo, Catch-Up, The Acentos Review, Generations, Prick of the Spindle, and Apogee Journal.

Jimin Seo lives in Queens. He teaches at CUNY Baruch.

Feminism and Psychoanalysis
2019-11-12 18:30 - 21:30, 2019-11-19 18:30 - 21:30, 2019-12-03 18:30 - 21:30, 2019-12-10 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
The Bureau is excited to partner again with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to bring you:

Feminism and Psychoanalysis

Instructor: Paige Sweet

Sigmund Freud famously described femininity as a “riddle” and “dark continent.” Yet, the psychoanalytic theories Freud generated, particularly his conception of how the unconscious influences the development of the self, has proved crucial to many feminist accounts of gender and sexuality. Paradoxically, it’s precisely because Freud did not know what a woman is that he felt compelled to discover how she becomes one. In other words, feminists have found in Freud a vocabulary for conceptualizing and articulating ways in which gender and sexuality are not natural—that is, not based on any pre-existing biological, anatomical, or psychic material.

In this course we will explore the intersection of feminism and psychoanalysis in order to understand the network of relations between sexuality and the unconscious, gender and the body, “feminine” experience and feminist politics, unconscious dynamic and social structures. Reading works by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and others, we will ask: How does psychoanalysis theorize sexual difference in a way useful for feminist politics? Do theories of hysteria have any viability for feminist politics? Is there political potential in writing or thinking from the (“female”) body? If there is a “masculine” logic that has repressed a “feminine voice,” how might we go about hearing differently in order to listen to that voice? How might the poetic or experimental text be recruited for a psychoanalytically inflected feminism? What are the limitations of these theories of gender and sexuality; that is, what experiences might they occlude?

Course Schedule

Tuesday, 6:30-9:30pm
November 12 — December 10, 2019
4 sessions over 5 weeks
Class will not meet Tuesday, November 26th.

$315.00*

Registration is required. Please click here.

*Three scholarship spaces are reserved in each course because we realize that not everyone can afford to pay the full fee for our courses. Students who cannot pay the full fee should email us at info@thebrooklyninstitute.com to learn about our scholarship options. We will not ask questions about your financial situation but we do ask that you use the system in good faith and consider the needs of other students and faculty members.

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The LGBT Community Center in Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an organization of young scholars in New York City, founded in November 2011 by a few then-graduate students at Columbia University with a shared interest in pedagogy and genuinely interdisciplinary conversation. We teach classes all over the city, record a regular podcast, run a digital humanities initiative to preserve rare and out-of-print academic texts, and in general work frantically at any given time on a broad range of other academic and para-academic projects. We are a nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization.

Image:
Louise Bourgeois
Le Lit Gros Édredon (with lips)
1997
Version 3 of 3, state XI of XI
Etching, aquatint, drypoint, engraving, and roulette
Plate: 50 x 67.8 cm; sheet: 63.6 x 80 cm

Queering China: a Mental Health Perspective
2019-11-13 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Q-Wave is excited to host Ying Xin (Iron), Executive Director of the Beijing LGBT Center in an evening of learning and conversation. This event is co-sponsored by GAPIMNY, API Rainbow Parents, and Chinese Rainbow Network.
Established in 2008, the Beijing LGBT Center has focused on advancing the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people nation-wide. It was one of the first China-based organizations to recognize the importance of mental health among the LGBTQ population. LGBTQ people in China are at 3x the risk of developing depression as the rest of the Chinese population and approximately 5% of LGBTQ people are “completely out” (i.e. out to family, friends, work). The Beijing LGBT Center has established a LGBTQ-friendly therapist network and runs a hotline dedicated to transgender individuals.
Starting as a grassroots campus organizer, Ying has worked with many LGBTQ groups, at home and abroad. She will first share how it’s like to live as an LGBTQ person in China. She will then introduce the Center’s research on the Chinese LGBTQ mental health situation and how they are raising awareness and supporting members of this community. She will also speak about the Center’s strategy against gay conversion therapy in China.
There will also be time for a Q&A section. All are welcome!
Note: The event will be held in English

Ying Xin is the executive director of the Beijing LGBT Center. Currently, she is doing a visiting scholarship program at Columbia University. Since 2009, she has been actively campaigning for LGBT rights. At the Beijing LGBT Center, Ying has led advocacy and awareness campaigns against conversion therapy for LGBT persons and for the removal of homosexuality from the CCMD-3 ( Chinese Classification of Mental Disorder). Ying also co-curated the China Women’s Film Festival and co-founded Wuhan Rainbow, a community-based LGBT organization. Ying was an initiator of the National Survey on Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression in China, which was conducted in partnership with the United Nations Development Program and Peking University. She also initiated the first National Survey on Living situation of transgender people in China. She holds a bachelor degree and master degree in public administration from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and a bachelor degree in Japanese from Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Recklass @The Bureau- light, laughter & love... oh, and food!
2019-11-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join noted author and poet Anna Dunn as they dive into a Recklass Conversation with author Scottie Jeanette Madden, (Getting Back To Me – from girl to boy to woman in just fifty years) about her new book Recklass in The Kitchen – a year of light, laughter & love… oh, and food! The conversation will get into cooking from the heart while living life with all of it’s strange and wonderful and sometimes heart breaking complexities as Mrs. Madden shares an intimate look into the last year of a 32-year love story & queer marriage. It’s an inspiring rollercoaster of an evening that includes a Q&A, reception, and book signing with author Scottie Jeannette. You won’t want to miss this one.

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

Scottie Jeanette, born Scott James, didn’t make it easy on herself. Like many late-stage trans women, Scottie had created one helluva guy. Everything in her life screamed “Alpha Male.” With over 30 years in television production, no one knew that Scottie, a top survival showrunner who lead über-male productions into the world’s most dangerous spots, was engaged in a lifelong battle for her soul. despite rising through the ranks of production to become writer, director and showrunner AND a marriage of 26 years. She put all of this on the line when she wrote “Getting Back To Me” from girl to boy to woman in just fifty years. She left behind “male privilege” to embrace truth, grace and womanhood. Her gut-wrenching journey of love, acceptance and honesty was the ultimate survival show. Scottie is an advocate, activist and educator and currently serves on the DTLA Proud advisory board and the Trans*Panel Trust for Kaiser Permanente Transgender Health Initiative. and Her TED Talk “What would my Father Say?” is being used by counselors and therapists for those suffering from Gender Dysphoria and their families.

Anna Dunn is a freelance editor, as well as a food and crime fiction writer. She was born in Western Massachusetts and greatly appreciates Bruce Springsteen, rescue pups, mezcal, and Murder She Wrote. Early on her mother threw the television out when Anna let it slip that she aspired to be Magnum P.I. when she grew up. Ever since Anna has lead a successful career in cracking crimes of the imagination. She is the co-author of two cookbooks, Dinner at the Long Table and Saltie: A cookbook as well as Editor In Chief of Diner Journal, an independent food, art and literature magazine which she has edited since its inception in 2006. Most nights you can find her mixing cocktails at Roman’s in Fort Greene, Brooklyn or tucked away above Marlow & Sons, collecting recipes and art work for a forthcoming issue. For at least twenty minutes every day she is hard at work on her first crime fiction novel and/or concentrating on her breathing.

QT SHORTS: an evening of queer & trans short films to benefit KIND OF a new #t4t short film
2019-11-15 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for an evening celebrating the work of local queer and trans filmmakers to benefit KIND OF, a new queer & trans short film.
QT SHORTS is a fundraiser and curated screening shining a spotlight on recent work by filmmakers Matthew Puccini, Natalie Tsui, Morgan Sullivan, Brit Fryer, & Nona Schamus. This is a chance to see short films by emerging filmmakers from our local queer community AND support the creation of a new QT short film project.
Before and after the screening, guests will have the opportunity to mingle with friends and filmmakers over drinks, and enter a raffle for some choice prizes related to the themes in KIND OF.
All proceeds from the event will benefit the production of KIND OF, a new queer & trans short film directed by Nona Schamus set to shoot in January 2020.
Suggested donation: $10-20 (sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds)
About KIND OF
KIND OF is a new short film written by director/editor Nona Schamus and their partner, Arno Mokros. The film tells the story of a trans couple who have recently become non-monogamous as they navigate a new, and tense, moment in their relationship. It’s a trans dramedy about love when your partner knows you better than you know yourself.
You can learn more and support the project at www.kindofthefilm.com.

TELL 58: Destruction
2019-11-16 19:00 - 21:00 | 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.
Destruction is the theme of the 58th TELL, on Saturday, November 16, 2019. Featuring stories by Rachel Garbus, Laura Jayne Martin, and Early Riser.
Photograph by Grace Chu

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 the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Rachel Garbus is a writer, performer, and oral-history maker. She writes cultural criticism, forays into queer history, and the odd satire when the mood strikes. You can find her around town playing with Thank You For Coming Out, the queer improv and storytelling show, and sharing quasi-reasonable opinions on various podcasts. Hopeless with plants, but ever hopeful for botanical redemption, she lives in a raucous Brooklyn brownstone with her many roommates, dogs, and an absolutely superlative cat.

Laura Jayne Martin has performed at How I Learned, Tell Your Friends, Powerhouse Arena, and elsewhere. She wrote one book and contributed to another—both of them are meant to be funny. She’s writing another one now. Her mom thinks it’s “just okay.” She has also written for McSweeneys, The Village Voice, Cosmo, Esquire, The Toast, and others. She tweets @laurajaynemart, but she gets all of her news from actual birds.

Early riser is a NYC based artist best known for her unique, stylized public and street art. Working predominantly with vibrant colors her subjects range from animals to people, each portraying a complex inner emotionality. She is a New York native and holds a degree in fine art printing and illustration.

Another Queer Reading
2019-11-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for an evening of poetry featuring readers Aldrin Valdez, Cristóbal Guerra, Demian DinéYazhi´, and Nicole Wallace.

Flyer design: Sara Rabin @ssarabin

Cristóbal Guerra is an interdisciplinary artist from Puerto Rico currently based in New York. His/their work currently combines experimental video , documentary form and text to explore ideas of home, “el caribe” and queerness.

Aldrin Valdez is a baklâ writer & visual artist. Their book ESL or You Weren’t Here (Nightboat Books) was a 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Poetry. They were awarded a Brown & Weary Residency and fellowships from Tumblr@3AM, Mangos & Monsoons—Again, Children of Overseas Filipino Workers, and Navient.

Photo by Kali Spitzer

Demian DinéYazhi´ is a transdisciplinary Indigenous Diné nádleehi´ artist, poet, and curator. In 2018 they self-published two books of poetry, ANCESTRAL MEMORY: poems 2009-2016, and AN INFECTED SUNSET. Demian’s stance as a self-publishing poet is a political statement of maintaining autonomy without the jurisdiction or approval from Western-trained editors, publishers, or critics. Demian also publishes zines and publications through R.I.S.E.: Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment. Follow Demian @heterogenenoushomosexual + @RISEindigenous

Nicole Wallace is the author of WAASAMOWIN (IMP, October 2019) and was a 2019 Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow. She is the Managing Director of The Poetry Project and a member of the Indigenous Kinship Collective. Recent work can be read in print in Survivance: Indigenous Poesis Vol. IV Zine and online at A Gathering of The Tribes, LitHub, and A Perfect Vacuum (forthcoming). Originally from Gakaabikaang, located in what is currently called Minnesota, she is of settler/European ancestry and a descendent of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe).

HUNG With Care: A Spectacular Queer Burlesque Meet & Greet
2019-11-21 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
HUNG With Care – Big Gay Hudson Valley’s Queer Burlesque Spectacular is coming to Brooklyn’s 3 Dollar Bill on December 6th & 7th!

On November 21st at the Bureau you’ll have an opportunity to purchase your tickets AND get a special bonus! Yes, only those who purchase their tickets on the 21st at the Bureau will receive a free 11 x 17 limited edition print ($15 Value) of the HUNG With Care cast as illustrated by Queer Illustrator @TerryBlas.

Joining the fun will be HUNG With Care emcee Shelly Watson and cast member Go Go Gadget and HUNG With Care Producer, Stephan Hengst.

Don’t miss a teaser performance by Shelly Watson at 6:30!

So come on by grab your tickets, pick-up your limited edition print, and grab a hung and a photo with Shelly & Gadget on Nov 21st at the Bureau!

Linda Whalen Quinlan & Vittoria Repetto Read at the Bureau
2019-11-22 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join us for an evening of poetry with Linda Whalen Quinlan and Vittoria Repetto!

Linda Whalen Quinlan will read from her poetry book, Chelsea Creek, which won the Wicked Woman Poetry Competition.

Long-time LGBTQ activist and poet, Quinlan grew up the daughter of union parents, a factory worker, and a carpenter. As the lesbian mother of two sons, Quinlan explores issues of gender and motherhood while also observing the particularities of the past and present cultural landscape.

“Linda Whalen Quinlan renders the rough terrain of working-class New England with a lush beauty that pulls no punches, letting the brute hardness of a place and its people coexist with longing and love, finding the tenderness hiding inside tragedy,” PEN Award winner Michelle Tea said of Quinlan’s work. “I love these poems.”

Vittoria Repetto will read from her first poetry book Not Just A Personal Ad and from her second book My Fingers Wonder, which is not yet published.

Her poetry paints unforgettable moments within unforgettable scenes and casts an unapologetically direct and witty eye on life’s complexity.

Poet and reviewer Rigoberto Gonzalez wrote in the Lambda Book Report about Vittoria Repetto’s first full length poetry book Not Just A Personal Ad : “Poems of intense sensibility and gorgeous imagery are a rarity these days; but this book of verse by a distinctly working class, distinctly lesbian, and distinctly Italian American voice is a must for all readers of good poetry.”

Vittoria Repetto hosted the Women’s/Trans’ Poetry Jam at Bluestockings Bookstore from 1999 until 2018.

Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Book Presentation and Celebration
2019-11-23 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join us for a presentation and celebration of Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería and Vodou, with author Roberto Strongman.

This presentation establishes Transcorporeality as the distinct Afro-Diasporic cultural representation of the human psyche as multiple, removable and external to a body that functions as its receptacle. This unique view of the body, preserved in its most evident form in African religious traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, allows the regendering of the bodies of initiates who are mounted and ridden by deities of a gender different than their own during the ritual ecstasy of trance possession. Through discussions of novels, paintings, films and interviews, the presentation assembles and interprets a representative collection of such transcendental moments in which the commingling of the human and the divine produces subjectivities whose genders are unconstrained by biological sex due to the flexibility that this non-Cartesian corporeal model affords.

Copies of Queering Black Atlantic Religions (Duke UP, 2019, $25.95) will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Roberto Strongman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

CopWatch Training
2019-11-24 18:00 - 19:30 | NY
CopWatch is an effective and legal tool for empowering communities, ending police misconduct, unprofessional behavior, and discrimination. You have the right to observe and record all police activities in public places. Learn how to exercise your rights safely and legally. Workshop will be taught by comedian and activist Elsa Waithe. Suggested donation of $5 to $10 to benefit the Bureau, but no one will be turned away.

“What to do if you’re stopped by the police” / “Qué Hacer Si Te Para La Policía” a handy guide from the New York Civil Liberties Union. Print it out. Share it widely. Keep it with you. And you can find other “know your rights” cards in English and Spanish.
At the bottom of this page you will find Immigrants’ rights pdfs in English, Spanish, Korean, Nepali, Portuguese, Tamil, Thai, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Pink Saturday at the Bureau
2019-11-30 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
Join NY Queer Zine Fair as we spend Small Business Saturday with the Bureau for Pink Saturday! This is your chance to snag some awesome work by queer zinesters from outside of NYC if you missed the Zine Fair. We will be selling zines by queer zinesters from all over the US and all over the world including LowdownDirtyrotten, Jack Oliver Coles, Sleeping Creatures, Camilo Godoy, Unity Press, Rachel and Megan, Marco Agosta, Wendy’s subway, BearWithLee, Kiss & Tell / Michael Wynne, Editorial Amistad and more. Come early for the best selection – these zines will be going fast! Event will run normal Bureau hours from 1-7.

A World AIDS Day Reading: Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book
2019-12-01 15:00 - 17:00 | NY
Featuring a special reading from Edmund White!

Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book celebrates the work of one our most iconic writers, with essays commemorating his entire oeuvre. On this day of remembrance and activism, we focus on Edmund White’s seminal work centered on the crisis, with readings from Michael Carroll sharing an excerpt from White’s impactful fiction, Lynne Tillman on The Farewell Symphony, Philip Clark on Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS, with Sarah Schulman reading from her Loss Within Loss essay “Through the Looking Glass,” and Brad Gooch will read from his Loss Within Loss essay.

Crashing Cathedrals editor Tom Cardamone will provide an introductory word about this collection and event.

Edmund White will close out the day with a reading from his work.

Copies of Crashing Cathedrals and Loss Within Loss are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. We also have many other titles by Edmund White and by the other readers at this event. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Michael Carroll has been married to Edmund White since 2013. He is the author of Little Reef and Other Stories and Stella Maris: Key West Stories.

Lynne Tillman‘s latest novel is Men and Apparitions (Soft Skull Press 2018). A book of her selected stories will appear in 2021.

Philip Clark is co-editor of the anthology Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS and of In the Empire of the Air: The Poems of Donald Britton (Nightboat, 2016).

Sarah Schulman is the author of 17 books, as well as plays and film. Her interview with Edmund was reprinted in her book The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination.

Brad Gooch is the best-selling author of City Poet, Flannery, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award, Rumi’s Secret, and the memoir Smash Cut. He is currently writing a biography of Keith Haring.

Tom Cardamone is the author of the LAMBDA-Award winning novella Green Thumb, among other works, and edited The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered.

Edmund White, recent recipient of an honorary National Book Award, is the author of the literary classics A Boy’s Own Story and Genet: A Biography. His latest novel, A Saint from Texas, is due summer 2020.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: The Wedding Banquet
2019-12-04 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On December 4th please join us for a viewing of The Wedding Banquet (1993), directed by Ang Lee.

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: Although Wei-Tung has been happily living with his boyfriend Simon for many years, he has not come out to his traditional Taiwanese parents, who are anxious for him to marry a woman. Simon suggests a marriage of convenience with a woman who needs a green card. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes, in English and Mandarin.

All That Heaven Allows: A Tribute to Rock Hudson
2019-12-05 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join us as we pay tribute to one of Hollywood’s most iconic stars – screen legend Rock Hudson. Mark Griffin, author of All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson and Steve Hayes, host of “Tired Old Queen at The Movies” will examine the life and career of the Oscar-nominated leading man. Following a reading by the author, Griffin and Hayes will discuss Hudson’s nearly forty year career, which encompassed film (“Giant,” “Pillow Talk”), television (“McMillan & Wife,” “Dynasty”) and theatre (“Camelot,” “On The Twentieth Century”). In the spirit of the season, we’ll be raffling off some fabulous Rock-related prizes. Copies of All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson will be available for signing. The Bureau is ready to Rock!

Copies of the paperback of All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson ($17.99, released 12/3/19) will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Mark Griffin is the author of “All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson” (HarperCollins) and “A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli” (Da Capo Press).

Film historian Steve Hayes hosts the long running YouTube series “Tired Old Queen at The Movies.” As an actor, Steve has appeared in scores of theatre productions and he had a memorable role in the film “Trick,” the classic boy-meets-boy comedy, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Two Jewish Dykes Read Poetry and Prose
2019-12-06 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
The writing of both Amy Hoffman and Robin Becker is motivated and influenced by their queer, Jewish identities. Colleagues and friends for decades, they will talk about their writing and influences and read from recent work.

Copies of Hoffman‘s The Off Season and Becker‘s The Black Bear Inside Me will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

In addition to her novel, The Off Season, Amy Hoffman is the author of the memoirs Lies About My Family; An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News; and Hospital Time. She was editor in chief of Women’s Review of Books for fourteen years and currently teaches creative writing at Emerson College and in the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program.

Robin Becker is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, The Black Bear Inside Me. She recently retired as Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Penn State. The Penn State Laureate in 2010-2011, Becker is the recipient of many awards, including a Bunting Fellowship, Massachusetts Artists’ Foundation grant, and a Lambda Literary Award.

Office Hours Presents: Craft Class & Reading with Jericho Brown
2019-12-08 11:00 - 14:30 | NY
Office Hours Presents: a FREE craft class and reading with author Jericho Brown.
Featured readers include: Catherine Chen, Bernard Ferguson, and Jameson Fitzpatrick!
The craft class takes place from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
A public reading will follow from 1:30 PM-2:30 PM.
Spaces for the craft class are limited to 17 persons so please RSVP in advance to sarahmariesala@gmail.com and include your full name, relationship to writing, and a brief bio.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. The workshop culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are woman-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

Jericho Brown is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Writer’s Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection is The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019). His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University.

Catherine Chen is a poet, performer, and author of the chapbook Manifesto, or: Hysteria (Big Lucks). Their writing has appeared in Slate, The Rumpus, Apogee, Anomaly, and Nat. Brut, among others. A recipient of fellowships from Poets House, Lambda Literary, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, they’re currently working on a libretto.

Bernard Ferguson (he/him) is a Bahamian poet, essayist, and MFA candidate at NYU. He’s the winner of the 2019 Hurston/Wright College Writers Award and a winner of the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. He has work published or forthcoming in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Southampton Review, Winter Tangerine, and the Best New Poets 2017 anthology, among others. He wants you to riot about the climate crisis. He hopes you tell him about your wonder.

Jameson Fitzpatrick is the author of Pricks in the Tapestry (Birds, LLC, 2020). His chapbooks are Mr. & (Indolent Books, 2018) and Morrisroe: Erasures (89plus/LUMA Publications, 2014). He teaches at New York University.

Book release: Love Around the World
2019-12-12 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
In 2017, European artist duo Fleur Pierets and her wife, Julian Boom, came up with the idea for a performance art project in which they would get married in every country that had legalized same-sex marriage (22 when they started the project, now 28) After four countries, Julian was diagnosed with brain cancer and died approximately six weeks later, on January 22, 2018.

Fleur Pierets will be launching the first part of her two-volume children’s book series Love Around the World in which Fleur and Julian fulfill the dream of their beautiful project. They travel to Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States, learning the fascinating traditions and customs and peculiarities surrounding marriage in each country.

She will be talking about the work she and her wife Julian did as an LGBTQ artist couple, about their magazine Et Alors?, and the start of the wedding performance piece. Fleur talks about the importance of “completing” 22 through a children’s book and the need to keep on working as a human rights advocate by launching bridge-building projects.

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

Fleur Pierets is an award-winning Belgian artist and LGBTQ+ activist whose work combines photography and performance with theory and writing in a research-based practice that questions the construction and mainstream understanding of queer identity. She is the founding editor of Et Alors?, an online magazine devoted to LGBTQ+ politics, fashion, identity, and other issues. Her book Julian has just been published by Dutch publisher Das Mag, and the first volume of the children’s book Love Around the World is published at 6ft. Press – US.

Fagnanimous: Kazim Ali, Wo Chan, Joey DeJesus, and Rajiv Mohabir
2019-12-13 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Four poets unanimously agree that winter needs heat. Kazim Ali, Wo Chan, Joey De Jesus, and Rajiv Mohabir read new work.

Kazim Ali‘s new books include Inquisition (poetry) and Silver Road: Essays, Maps, and Calligraphies (cross-genre).

Wo Chan is queer poet and drag performer living in Brooklyn.

Joey De Jesus edits poetry at Apogee Journal and is a 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship recipient. They live in New York.

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of, most recently, The Taxidermist’s Cut, and the translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara, by Lalbihari Sharma.

Raw Meat Collective's Holiday Market
2019-12-14 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
Please join us Saturday, December 14th, 2019 at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for a full day of wonder and merriment from 1pm – 7pm. Raw Meat Collective has put together a magical crew of independent publishers and artists to help fill those stockings this holiday season. We’ll have tables of great gifts and books for that special someone in your life. Vendor’s featured at the all day event are Anxiety Dreams, Camilo Godoy, Irrelevant Press, Mathew Dean Stewart, Raw Meat Collective and Zach Grear who will be selling books, tee’s, pins, prints and much more. Help support these terrific artists and makers, as well as, New York’s best bookstore by stopping by for Raw Meat Collective’s Holiday Market.

An Evening with Author Caleb Woods
2019-12-15 17:00 - 19:00 | NY
Join us for an evening with Alabama author Caleb Woods! Caleb will discuss his struggles with mental illness and what it was like to grow up gay in the Bible Belt. He will also read from his book Harnessing Darkness: Expressing Mental Illness Through Poetry. Afterward, there will be a book signing. Be sure to make plans to attend this event and don’t forget to pick up your copy of this thought-provoking book that dives deep into the raw emotion that someone with mental illness experiences on a daily basis.

Caleb Woods began writing at a young age, first to cope with bullying at school and later to soothe his depressing thoughts. Growing up in the small town of Pisgah, Alabama, he was surrounded by religion and found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his faith with his sexual orientation. Caleb was told he would spend an eternity in hell for being gay – and he believed it. He was first officially diagnosed with PTSD in high school after his closest friend died unexpectedly. He moved away to college but ignored his symptoms and didn’t seek help for his mental illness. After years of suffering silently, he began to accept his sexual orientation and eventually met his now husband, Luke. Despite a happy marriage, Caleb continued to suffer with symptoms of PTSD. At their peak, the night terrors and panic attacks finally drove him to seek professional help. Today, Caleb receives treatment for PTSD, panic disorder, and depression by attending reoccurring therapy sessions. Throughout these years, Caleb wrote poetry about his specific struggles surrounding mental illness and growing up gay in the Bible Belt. In his debut book, “Harnessing Darkness: Expressing Mental Illness Through Poetry,” he reveals his most personal thoughts – some dark, some light, some suffering, some uplifting, but all existential. Currently, Caleb lives with his husband in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a full-time writer, author, and poet.

Office Hours Fall Showcase Reading
2019-12-17 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Office Hours Poetry Fellows from the Fall 2019 cohort will read the innovative poetry they’ve developed over the course of six workshop sessions. The Office Hours free workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are femme-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

Laura Cresté is the author of the forthcoming chapbook You Should Feel Bad, which was selected for a 2019 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and a BA from Bennington College. The winner of Breakwater Review’s 2016 Peseroff Prize, she has published poems in No Tokens Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Powder Keg, and Bodega. She lives in Brooklyn.

Sharon Her is a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker who comes from a non-profit and community organizing background. A 2001 Jerome Travel and Study Grant recipient and former instructor for the Loft Literary Center and SASE: the write place, Sharon brings a passion for multi-cultural and social equality programming and storytelling. She is currently a workshop leader with the New York Write’s Coalition and her work has been published in Asian Week, City Pages, New York Press, and the Hmong creative writing anthology, “Bamboo Among the Oaks” (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

Sophie Herron received an MFA in poetry from NYU, where they were a Goldwater Fellow. They work at the 92nd Street Y’s Poetry Center, live in Brooklyn, and love their cat. Their poetry can be found in Bodega and Cleaver Magazine.

Emily Hockaday is the author of five chapbooks, including the forthcoming Beach Vocabulary from Red Bird Chaps. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals, most recently Newtown Literary, The Maine Review, and Salt Hill. She is the managing editor of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and she can be found on the web at www.emilyhockaday.com and @E_Hockaday.

Jen Levitt‘s debut collection is The Off-Season (Four Way Books, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Boston Review, The Literary Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches high school students.

Paco Márquez is a poet based out of Manhattan, author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). He has poems forthcoming in Fence, and previously published in Apogee, Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache. As Spanish Editor for William O’Daly, he assisted in translating Pablo Neruda’s initial book, Crepuscualrio, for the first time into English as, Book of Twilight, (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). He is currently working with Mexican poet Coral Bracho to translate her work into English. Paco’s work has been supported by The Center for Book Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and New York University, where he acquired an MFA in creative writing and was poetry editor of Washington Square. Originally from León, México, Paco has spent most of his life in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. pacomarquez.net

Holly Mitchell is a poet from Kentucky. A winner of the 2017 Amy Award from Poets & Writers and a 2012 Gertrude Claytor Prize from the Academy of American Poets, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her poems have appeared in several journals including Baltimore Review, Day One, Juked, Narrative Magazine, and Paperbag. Holly first joined Office Hours in 2017.

Sarah Sala is a queer poet of Polish-Lebanese descent. Her debut collection, Devil’s Lake is forthcoming from Tolsun Books June 2020. She is the founder of the free poetry workshop, Office Hours, and Assistant Poetry Editor at the Bellevue Literary Review. Her work appears in BOMB, The Southampton Review, and The Los Angeles Review. Visit her at sarahsala.com and @sarahmsala.
