TELL 20: The Dead
2016-01-16 19:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | 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.
The Dead is the theme of the twentieth installment of TELL. Featuring Heather M. Ács, Susana Cook, Melissa Febos, and Svetlana Kitto.

$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

Photo by Alison Picard

HEATHER M. ÁCS is a Brooklyn-based, multi-media theatre performance artist, activist, curator, educator and high-femme troublemaker. Her work has been featured in festivals, theatres, and galleries across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including Vauxhall Tavern in London, Les Complices Gallery in Zurich, W2 Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., and the Public Theater, HERE Arts Center, the Kitchen, Dixon Place, the Culture Project, and the International Fringe Festival in New York City.
She performs and facilitates workshops at community spaces, colleges and conferences, past engagements include: Duke University, multiple Femme Conferences, and volunteer projects with LGBTQ youth at the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York City.

Heather has worked with Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Nao Bustamante, Karen Finley, Lois Weaver, Claude Michelle-Wampler, and J. Ed Araiza of the SITI Company. She has also collaborated on projects with the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, the Department of Transformation, and MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival. Heather is the Co-Producer of the Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow, now in its fourth year.

Film credits include Building No. 7, dir. Steven Soderbergh; blink, dir. Silas Howard, co-starring Ben Foster; Valencia (the movies): Chapter 9 based on the novel by Michelle Tea; and most recently,Sunset Stories, an official 2012 South by Southwest Selection.

Heather is also a dedicated teaching artist. She uses theatre as a tool for social change with low-income youth in cities across the country and has studied with Cornerstone Theatre Company, Sojourn Theatre, the Living Theatre, and Augusto Boal. Heather can be contacted via email at acs.heather@gmail.com.

Born in Argentina, Susana Cook is a New York based playwright, director and performer who has been presenting original work for over 30 years. Her work is bold and funny, sometimes surrealistic and poetic, cleverly tackling issues of social justice. She approaches her theater as a ritualistic transformative force. Her most recent work focuses on the fluidity of presence and absence, life and death.
Her work has been presented in numerous performance spaces in New York City, including Dixon Place, W.O.W Cafe Theater and The Kitchen. She also teaches and performs internationally in Spain, France, India, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Canada.
Some of her latest shows are : Conversations with Humans, We Are Caligula, The Funeral of the Cow, The Homophobes, The Fury of the Gods, Homeland Insecurities, The idiot King, The Values Horror Show, 100 Years of Attitude, Dykenstein, Hamletango, Prince of Butches, Gross National Product, Hot Tamale, Conga Guerrilla Forest, The Fraud, Butch Fashion Show in the Femme Auto Body Shop, Rats: The Fantasy of Extermination and Tango Lesbiango.
Her work is archived at the Digital Video Library of The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics of New York University.

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press 2010), and the forthcoming essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017). Her work has appeared in venues including The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Glamour, Post Road, Salon, New York Times, Guernica, Hunger Mountain,Portland Review, Electric Literature, Dissent, Poets & Writers, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Bitch Magazine, and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, and she has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, Anderson Cooper Live, CNN’s Dr. Drew, and elsewhere. Her essays have won prizes from Prairie Schooner, Story Quarterly, and The Center for Women Writers, and she is the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The MacDowell Colony. The recipient of an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, she is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Monmouth University and MFA faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). She serves on the Board of Directors for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and co-curated the Manhattan reading and music series, Mixer, for eight years. The daughter of a sea captain and a psychotherapist, she was raised on Cape Cod and lives in Brooklyn.

Svetlana Kitto is a writer and oral historian in New York City. Her fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in Salon, VICE, the New York Observer, the Huffington Post, ART21, OutHistory, Plenitude and the book Occupy (Verso, 2012) among other publications and anthologies. She has contributed oral histories to the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She is currently at work on a novel called Purvs, which means “swamp” in Latvian, and is the name of that country’s first gay club.

Union Square Slam presents Shira E. and the Say Their Name Slam!
2016-01-18 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The incomparable SHIRA E. will be gracing us all with her magnificence!
(Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We open at 6 PM on Mondays for the Union Square Slam.)
6 pm: Free Writing Workshop
7 pm: Sign-ups for Open Mic and Slam
7:15 pm: Open Mic
7:35 pm: Feature
8:00pm: Open Slam
Bureau of General Services-Queer Division
(located in the LGBT Center, 208 W 13th St, #210)
$5 // ALL AGES // 18 and under FREE
About Our Feature:
Shira Erlichman is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in Israel and immigrated to the US when she was six. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work can be found in The Huffington Post, Psychology Tomorrow, BuzzFeed, NPR, Bust Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, and Winter Tangerine Review, among others. She received her BA from Hampshire College & a James Merrill Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. As a musician she’s shared stages with Tune-Yards, Mirah, Andrea Gibson, & Coco Rosie. Learn more at www.shirae.com
About Our Slam:
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, poems read tonight are in tribute to those murdered by police or vigilantes and the ongoing work towards justice, equality, and freedom.
We have a variety of Theme Slams, meant to introduce different artistic elements, challenges, and inspiration to our work. Points will be recorded for the sake of naming a “winner”, however, these points do not count towards your total score for the quarter. Your participation in one Theme Slam meets your requirement for Final Stage Participation. All theme slams will take up to 8 competitors, and will be ranked in an 8,5,3 cumulative fashion. Each round has a 3 minute time limit unless otherwise stated.

Opening Reception for Benjamin Fredrickson: Salon
2016-01-21 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Please join us for the opening reception for Benjamin Fredrickson: Salon
Organized by Daniel Cooney Fine Art
On view at the Bureau: January 20 — March 20, 2016
Download Press Release

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and Daniel Cooney Fine Art are very pleased to present New York City artist Benjamin Fredrickson’s solo exhibition at the Bureau’s space in The LGBT Community Center on 13th Street. This exhibition coincides with Fredrickson’s collaborative exhibition with Juan Betancurth at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in Chelsea.
The exhibition, titled Salon, will feature previously unseen Polaroid photographs and new images made with paper negatives. Fredrickson’s early work documents his sexual life and his community of gay men. His new work, while less explicit, unexpectedly offers deep intimacy and beauty among his subjects. Fredrickson relies on his intuition while working with his subjects and achieves an ephemeral quality that is unique to this new work.
Fredrickson himself appears in many of his own images as part of the culture he photographs as his work is highly autobiographical. He photographs other men but he never photographs “the other”, instead he is interested in revealing himself, his humanity and his vision of the world around him. His photographs are loving and honest, brimming with sexual desire. Many of his subjects look directly at the camera, all of them are aware that they are being looked at and gladly present themselves for that purpose.
The consistent theme throughout Fredrickson’s images continues to be a longing for human connection, either by sexual interaction or through the act of photographing and being photographed. He makes himself vulnerable and in turn his subjects reveal themselves for his camera and the viewer’s gaze.

Fredrickson graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2003 and moved to New York City in 2010. He has been included in the Museum of Art and Design’s “New York Makers”, group exhibitions at Darkroom Gallery, La Mama Galleria in addition to collaborations with Visual AIDS. His work has been published in Apartamento, BUTT, Capricious, Dazed and Confused, and Pin-Up. He is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art.

Image: Benjamin Fredrickson, Dog, 10 x 8″. Gelatin silver print.

The Bureau will host a conversation between Benjamin Fredrickson and Hunter O’Hanian, Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, on Thursday, February 18, at 7 PM.

Benjamin Fredrickson
Born: 1980 Minneapolis, MN
Lives and Works: New York, NY
Solo Exhibitions:

Benjamin Fredrickson, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, NY, January 8 – February 28th, 2015
Selected Group Exhibitions:
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, NYC Makers: the MAD Biennial, July 1-October 12, 2014
The Darkroom Gallery, Vermont Junction, VT, XY; Masculinity in Photography, July 17- August 10, 2014
La MaMa Galleria, New York, NY, Ephemera as Evidence – Visual AIDS Exhibition, June 5-29, 2014
Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, NY, All the World’s a Stage, group exhibition with Bear Kirkpatrick and Rachel Stern. April 3-May 22, 2014
Luhrig Augustine Gallery, New York, NY, 16th Annual Postcards from the Edge, January 25-26, 2014
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., 15th Annual Postcards from the Edge, January 25-27, 2013
David Louis Fierman Projects, Brooklyn, NY, His and Hers: Lucas Michael and Benjamin Fredrickson,Two person exhibition of drawings and photographs. October 1-November 15, 2010
Lectures & Performances:
Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY, Play Smart Together: Artist Talk and Launch, February 20, 2014
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, Benjamin Fredrickson, Artist, December 2011
Special Projects:
Play Smart IV Trading Cards, Visual AIDS, 2014
Education:
BFA, Photography. Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 2003
Advanced Studies, Photography. Paris College of Art, 2001

Canceled! Paper Cuts Zine Reading
2016-01-22 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
As of 2:30 PM, on Friday, January 22nd, The LGBT Community Center is closed until further notice due to a water main break. So the Bureau is now closed and our events for tonight, Friday, January 22, and tomorrow, Saturday, January 23, will be rescheduled. We will post updates, so stay tuned…
Paper Cuts is an exploration of the contemporary world of zines and DIY publishing that airs on Clocktower.org. In 2015, Paper Cuts took the show on the road in a monthly reading series that’s touring independent bookstores in New York. We feature writers, zinesters, artists, and performers who typically share their work in print, on paper, and in small editions. This series is a cross section of the varied landscape and rich history of publishing and the institutions that support it. Listen to voices that would normally live in your hands and demand your eyeballs.
Readers:
Paul Moreno
Arno Mokros
Posture // Winter Mendelson and M. Lamar
Sy Abudu
Nicholas Boggs

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Event image: Drawing by Paul Moreno
Sy Abudu is from Los Angeles and lives in Brooklyn, where she creates visual art and zines under the moniker great/grand/golden. Her work, which has been shown at the Black Lesbian DIY Fest, the Feminist Zine Fest, and the Allied Media Conference, features archival images from the Library of Congress “remixed” into new pieces that explore themes of visibility, African-American identity, and relationships through the lens of historical imagery. Sy earned her BFA in film & television from NYU, where she now works as a multimedia producer.
Nicholas Boggs is writing a book about his search for the untold story of James Baldwin’s collaboration with French painter Yoran Cazac, which has been supported by fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell and grants from the Camargo and Jerome foundations. Co-editor of a forthcoming new edition of Baldwin and Cazac’s “child’s story for adults,” Little Man Little Man: A Story of Childhood, his writing has appeared in the journals PANK and Callaloo and in the anthologies James Baldwin Now, The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin, and Best Gay Stories 2013. He teaches in the Department of English at New York University.
Arno Mokros is an aspiring art historian invested in the personal as political. He creates zines exploring queerness, art, and how histories are written. He graduated from Smith College in 2013, and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Paul Moreno was born in Sparks, NV. Studied Literature at University of San Francisco and then moved to New York to attend the Gallatin School of Independent Study at NYU. After an early departure from a program in Critical Thought, Paul pursued careers as a Gallerina, a Home-maker, and most recently, a set and prop stylist. Throughout these careers, Paul, a self taught visual artist, has been making drawings, paintings, and zines that deal with sexual positions, tropes of masculinity, and notions of beauty. Paul, in collaboration with Charlie Welch, is the creator of KNOWSGAY, a zine that takes an artistic approach to gay iconography. Paul lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Posture is an online and print arts publication that explores identity, sexuality, and gender through artistic practice. The publication features extraordinary LGBTQI and allied individuals who seek to simultaneously address and overcome oppression. They believe that visual activism, fashion, and artistic practice are powerful forces that can further cultural progress and build community. Posture’s audience is unified by the shared interpretation of queerness as a lifestyle that is defined by an openness to possibility rather than exclusions or boundaries.
Posture’s featured artist for the Zine Reading is M. Lamar.

Canceled! January Moon Show in Manhattan
2016-01-23 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
This event has been re-scheduled for Friday, February 5th!
The Moon Show is excited to be expanding its series to the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in Manhattan which is wheel chair accessible!
Starting at 7 pm
Featuring:
Valerie Brooks, poetry
Maxine Montilus, dance
Sunny Wilder, poetry
Noia Isaiah, music
Kiki Williams, performance
Frances Damian Arpaia, film
The Moon Show is a queer, trans, anti-racist, intersectional feminist performance series.
We will be asking for a $5-15 suggested donation for the performers. No one will be made to feel unwelcome for lack of funds. There are plenty of chairs for everyone to sit.
https://ourmoonshow.tumblr.com/

Union Square Slam presents PAULIE LIPMAN and Open Slam 2.4
2016-01-25 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Come get warm with Denver’s own hometown hero/National Poetry Slam Veteran/Wild Wild Word Wizard Paulie Lipman and our 4th open slam of the second quarter!!!
(Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We open at 6 PM on Mondays for the Union Square Slam.)
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

6pm: Free Writing Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic
8pm: Feature
8:30pm: Slam
About Our Feature:
Paulie Lipman is a Jewish/Queer/Writer out of Denver, CO. He has toured the U.S. extensively (and a little bit of Canada) performing poetry, is the voice of Neal Cassady in the documentary ‘Neal Cassidy: The Denver Years’, and has had work appear in The Legendary, Radius, Borderline, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, The Write Bloody Publishing anthologies ‘The Good Things About America’ and ‘We Will Be Shelter’, and the upcoming University Of Hell anthology ‘We Can Make Your Life Better’.He has been a member of 9 Denver Mercury Slam teams, including 2004’s 2nd place finishers and 2015’s 4th place finishers.

About Our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
– have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.

Gay Art and History at the Louvre Museum
2016-01-28 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Certain American museums, like the Met or the MFA in Boston, have great collections of art on gay themes. There are also of course museums like this in Europe, and the greatest of all is the Louvre. Its excellent Greek, Roman, and Italian Renaissance collections are full of works that refer to the gay side of their cultural moments, such as the museum’s *four* statues or busts of the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover Antinous and the most rapturously languorous of Michelangelo’s captives. The museum also contains great collections of French historical pieces and patriotic works of the Napoleonic period, and both of these also contain fascinating gay themed works. A gay tour of the museum turns up many surprises and speaks to us of many centuries of gay history.

Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti. Captive (The Rebellious Slave). Marble. After 1513. H. 2.09 m. Louvre

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

Dr. Andrew Lear is a world renowned expert on sexuality in ancient art and the author of Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods (Routledge 2008). He is also the founder of Oscar Wilde Tours, the world’s first gay history and art tour company. Oscar Wilde Tours gives gay art tours of the Metropolitan Museum, called “Gay Secrets of the Met” and will launch a gay tour of the Louvre this August as part of its Gay London/Gay Paris tour.

New Gay Fiction: Cardamone, Graves, Hoffman
2016-01-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Tom Cardamone, Michael Graves, and Wayne Hoffman will read from their new works of gay fiction.

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

Please contact the Bureau in advance to reserve books: contact@bgsqd.com

Tom Cardamone is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning speculative novella Green Thumb and the erotic fantasy novel The Werewolves of Central Park as well as the novella Pacific Rimming. His short story collection,Pumpkin Teeth, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and Black Quill Award. Additionally, he has edited The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered and the anthology Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy!, which was nominated for the Over The Rainbow List by the LGBT Round Table of the American Library Association. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, some of which have been collected on his website: www.pumpkinteeth.net.

Night Sweats: Tales of Homosexual Wonder and Woe

Set in Japan, small town America, midnight Manhattan, ancient Greece, Rome, and beyond, these stories run the gamut of urban nightmare, gay love lost and found, dragons, super villains, a fairy addicted to meth, and Satan on the subway. Readers of Night Sweats will find tales that push boundaries while supplying ample scares, erotic thrills, much wonderment, and some woe.

Michael Graves is the author of Dirty One, a collection of short stories. This book was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist and an American Library Association Honoree. His fiction and poetry has been featured in numerous literary publications. Connect with him at www.michaelgravesauthor.com

Parade
Reggie Lauderdale suffers from a crisis of faith. His cousin, Elmer Mott, dreams of becoming their hometown mayor. Both boys are stuck in suburbia trying to be adults… but they aren’t sure how to be themselves yet. When a twist of fate sends them fleeing in a stolen limousine, the cousins escape to Florida where they meet a retired televangelist, who inspires them on a path of glitzy sermons and late night parties. But are the celebrations sincere or deceptive? And who is keeping tabs? Who is watching?
Parade is a tour-de-force, comic tale of religion and government.

Wayne Hoffman is the author of three books—HARD, SWEET LIKE SUGAR (winner of the Stonewall Book Award), and AN OLDER MAN. His essays and short stories have appeared in such collections as BEST GAY STORIES 2010, FRESH MEN 2, and MAMA’S BOY. As a cultural reporter, he has written for the Washington Post, Village Voice, The Nation, Billboard, and Instinct magazine; he is currently executive editor of Tablet magazine. He lives in the West Village and the Catskills.

AN OLDER MAN is about a gay man struggling to come to terms with getting older, while he searches for love and sex in Provincetown. Jeff Mann (CUB) called the book “as much a touching examination of aging and loneliness as it is a witty tale of sexual shenanigans during Provincetown’s Bear Week.” AN OLDER MAN is a sequel to Wayne’s debut novel, HARD.

The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics
2016-01-30 14:00 - 16:00 | NY
Please join us for a public discussion of The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics. The New Mutants explores the queer history of superhero comics in the late 20th century; with case studies on The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Silver Surfer, and Captain America among many others, the book explores how mainstream comics engaged with the left-wing politics of women’s and gay liberation, black power, and third world movements since the 1950s. Author Ramzi Fawaz will join scholars and cultural critics Rebecca Wanzo (U of Washington, St. Louis) and Alexandro Segade to discuss queerness, comics, and the politics of popular culture. The conversation will include a Q&A with the audience.

To reserve a copy of The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics (NYU Press) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Ramzi Fawaz is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics (NYU Press: Fall 2015), which received the 2012 Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Fellowship award for best first book manuscript in LGBT Studies. His research and writing has been published in GLQ, American Literature, Callaloo, and Anthropological Quarterly.

Alexandro Segade is a video and performance artist whose collaborative works use theater, genre, play and spectacle to confront conditions of mediation, alienation, identification and difference. Founder of the collective My Barbarian, which received the 2013 Foundation For Contemporary Art award for performance and had video and performance included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial, Segade has co-directed the group since 2000. Segade leads classes on performance art internationally, most recently on a pedagogical workshop project in Jerusalem funded by Creative Capital. He currently teaches part-time at Parsons the New School, and serves as faculty for Film/Video MFA program at the Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College.

Rebecca Wanzo is Associate Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St Louis. Her first book, The Suffering Will Not Be Televised: African American Women and Sentimental Political Storytelling was published by SUNY in 2009. She has published essays on African American literature and comics, race and child abduction, black women film and television performers, and the role of feelings in police brutality discourse.

Feminists Read (and Watch): Carol, or The Price of Salt
2016-01-31 18:00 - 20:30 | NY
Lost your hearts to Carol? Desperate to discuss, analyze, gush?
We can relate.
Stop swooning and join us for our next meeting of Feminists Read (and Watch).
We will be discussing Carol – the book AND the movie. Once again, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division has graciously agreed to host us. See you there!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Purchase a copy of The Price of Salt (AKA Carol), by Patricia Highsmith, from the Bureau! Write to us to reserve a copy: contact@bgsqd.com.

Union Square Slam presents PAUL TRAN and Open Slam 2.5
2016-02-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
WWWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTT Too thrilled to be hosting the fiercest Queen of Queer Fabulosity and Wicked Sharp Wordsmith Paul Tran and our 5th open slam of this quarter, that’s what!
Hosted by CE Bain!!!
$5 // All Ages
(Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We open at 6 PM on Mondays for the Union Square Slam.)
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop, hosted by Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups for open mic and slam begin
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Slam
About our Feature:
Paul Tran is the 10th ranked slam poet in the world. His Pushcart-nominated work appears in Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, The Offing, and RHINO, which gave him a 2015 Editor’s Prize. He has received fellowships and residencies from Kundiman, VONA, Poets House, Lambda Literary, Napa Valley, Home School Miami, and the Vermont Studio Center. Paul is the first Asian American poet to represent the Nuyorican Poets Cafe at the National Poetry Slam in almost 20 years. He lives in NYC, where he is a graduate student at NYU.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
•consist of up to 8 poet competitors
•have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
•will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
•be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

NYC Revolutionary Feminism Study Group
2016-02-04 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us for week 14 of the Fall-Winter 2015/2016 NYC reading group of Revolutionary Feminism: Communist Interventions, vol. III, a reader from the Communist Research Cluster. All NYC Revolutionary Feminism meetings are open and welcoming to the public. Week 14 will look at materialist feminism, reading pieces written by Christine Delphy and Monique Wittig.
The reader can be found online here: https://communistresearchcluster.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/crc_ci_vol_three_1_1.pdf

February Moon Show in Manhattan
2016-02-05 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
The Moon Show is excited to be expanding its series to the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in Manhattan which is wheel chair accessible!
Starting at 7 pm
Featuring:
Valerie Brooks, poetry
Maxine Montilus, dance
Sunny Wilder, poetry
Noia Isaiah, music
Kiki Williams, performance
Frances Damian Arpaia, film
The Moon Show is a queer, trans, anti-racist, intersectional feminist performance series.
We will be asking for a $5-15 suggested donation for the performers. No one will be made to feel unwelcome for lack of funds. There are plenty of chairs for everyone to sit.
https://ourmoonshow.tumblr.com/

RuPaul's Drag Race Mad Libs Launch
2016-02-06 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Come play Mad Libs with the authors of RuPaul’s Drag Race Mad Libs!

DRAG QUEEN UPDATE!!!! WE WILL BE JOINED SATURDAY BY JIGGLY CALIENTE (Season 4) & VIVACIOUS (Season 6)!
ALSO THE SMART AND HILARIOUS ARIEL ITALIC FROM THE NOBODIES WILL BE ON HAND TO DO A MAD LIBS!!!

Authors of RuPaul’s Drag Mad Libs, Karl Marks and Nico Medina celebrate the publication of the fiercest Mad Libs in herstory. Appearing in their drag alter egos, the authors will invite local drag queens and audience members on stage to complete Mad Libs stories from the book.

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

RuPaul’s Drag Mad Libs is based on the hit reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race!

You’ll want to run—in heels—to pick up your copy of RuPaul’s Drag Race Mad Libs. Fans can relive their favorite moments from this fierce reality show by playing the 21 stories included in this book. Work!

Union Square Slam presents SAVON BARTLEY and Open 2.6 (NEW SHIT SLAM)
2016-02-08 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are thrilled to host internationally-ranked poet, Savon Bartley and our last open slam of this quarter!!
It’s also a NEW SHIT SLAM, so bring your freshest!!
(New Shit slams are open to anyone, however, if you are going out for the Nationals Team, you need to compete in at least one New Shit Slam at some point before Finals in May. New Shit is defined as anything that has not been heard on a Union Square mic, the exception being that it has been over 50% edited)
(Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. We open at 6 PM on Mondays for the Union Square Slam.)
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop, hosted by Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Slam
$5 // All Ages
About our Feature:
Savon Bartley is a North Chicago born poet, writer, and Oreo cookie connoisseur. Known for his lyricism and ability to command a crowd he has worked with HBO Def Poets, United Nation Officials, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Emmy award winners. Savon’s work is a reflection of his experiences with identity, mental illness, social justice, and what it means to be a man that’s better than his father. Having represented New York and New Jersey on the international poetry slam level multiple times, placing 3rd in the world in 2013, his work has captured the attention and hearts of many. Savon, who has been featured at The Apollo Theater, Auditorium Theater, and The United Nations General Assembly, has been published in Slate Magazine and was the youngest coach at the 2015 National Poetry Slam.

About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
•consist of up to 8 poet competitors
•have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
•will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
•be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-02-10 20:00 - 21:30 | 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 $5 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Bi Book Club discusses The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
2016-02-11 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On February 11, The Bi Book Club will discuss:
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
Shakespeare turned topsy turvy: a clever bisexual mashup between a sexy young Hamlet and characters from the sonnets. Very readable–no olde English. Note: The Sonnets, and Shakespeare, were bisexual.
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, give us your critique of the book: what worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had the chance to read the book, come anyway because we read passages aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

Love Songs from the Closet - Valentine's Eve Poetry and Dance - Poet Brad Vogel accompanied by dancer Mariusz Kujawksi
2016-02-13 07:00 - 21:30 | NY
Whether you’re partnered, single or in some kind of mingle, join poet Brad Vogel as he reads from his poetry book, Broad Meadow Bird, with a focus on the series “Love Songs from the Closet” – taking on unrequited love, sublimated desire and both the perils and conquering of the closet. Dancer Mariusz Kujawksi will accompany and interpret a number of the poems.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Poet Brad Vogel recently debuted Broad Meadow Bird, his collection covering poetry from the past 15 years. Born in Wisconsin, Vogel lived and worked in post-Katrina New Orleans. He and his boyfriend Suresh live in New York City.

Mariusz Kujawski – A dancer and model, Mariusz was born in Poland and grew up in Iceland.

Union Square Slam present JOSE' OLIVAREZ and our LOVE AND HEARTBREAK THEME SLAM
2016-02-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Oh. It’s that time of year again. That time when no matter who you are, you got something to say about Love. Welp. Let’s hear it!! Join us for an incredible feature by Chicago’s own literary badass, José Olivarez, and our Love and Heartbreak Theme Slam!!
COMPETING POETS, TAKE NOTE: THIS IS THE LAST THEME SLAM BEFORE THE IRON POET SLAM ON APRIL 26TH. IF YOU HAVEN’T COMPETED IN A THEME SLAM YET AND WANT TO GO FOR TEAM, THIS IS YOUR SECOND TO LAST CHANCE TO DO SO.
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign ups for Open Mic and Slam
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm: Poetry Slam
About our Feature:
José Olivarez is the co-author of the book of poems Home Court. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the Program Director at Urban Word NYC. A winner of a 2015 Bronx Recognizes Its Own award from the Bronx Council on the Arts, his work has been published in The BreakBeat Poets, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, The Acentos Review, Specter Magazine, Union Station Magazine, among other places. His work has also been featured on Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie basketball blog, Chicago Public Radio, and on Mass Poetry’s PoeTry on the T program. He is from Calumet City, IL, and he lives in the Bronx. You can purchase Home Court at https://homecourtpoems.tumblr.com/purchase & follow him on social media at @jayohessee.
About our Slam:
Bust out your sexy erotica, your heartfelt odes, your viled and anguished break-up lines.
::THEME SLAMS::
We have a variety of Theme Slams, meant to introduce different artistic elements, challenges, and inspiration to our work. Points will be recorded for the sake of naming a “winner”, however, these points do not count towards your total score for the quarter. Your participation in one Theme slam meets your requirement for Final Stage Participation. All theme slams will take up to 8 competitors, and will be ranked in an 8-5-3 cumulative fashion. Each round has a 3 min time limit unless otherwise stated.
All slammers who are competing to represent Union Square Slam nationally in 2016 and beyond, at either IWPS, WOWPS, or as part of the Union Square Slam Nationals Team, MUST participate in BOTH a New Shit Slam and a Theme Slam at any point during the slam season. (9/14/15 – 4/28/15). You may compete in any or all of these slams, whether or not you intend to go out for the team, however, preference may be given to competitors that have qualified for Semis or Finals.

Radicals Reading Series | New York
2016-02-17 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Radicals | New York features some of today’s leading LGBTQ activists, educators and commentators. From gay history and identity to awareness and sexual health, Radicals honors those who strive to make a difference through their work, provoking thought and demanding change. Featuring legendary writer and activist Larry Kramer, along with writer and editor, J. Bryan Lowder, and educator Damon Jacobs.

Larry Kramer is a distinguished American playwright and LGBT rights activist. He has won an Oscar nomination, two Obie Awards, the American Academy of Arts Award in Literature, and is a Pulitzer Award finalist. He also won two Tonys and an Emmy for the TV movie, The Normal Heart. As one of the most dynamic and influential forces for political activism, gay rights, public health policy, and AIDS-awareness, Larry is a widely-recognizable and remarkable speaker on these crucial issues.

Larry is renowned for both his literary achievements and political activism. At the root of both is his life-long commitment to criticizing and correcting gay apathy and government and social indifference to AIDS. He is a founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an AIDS service organization, and ACT UP, a widely effective direct action AIDS advocacy group. Larry’s most acclaimed plays include The Normal Heart (1985) and the Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Destiny of Me (1992). His screenplay for Women in Love was nominated for an Academy Award in 1969. He is also well-known for his influential novel Faggots (1978), a confrontational portrayal of gay culture, and his critical essay about the AIDS crisis, “1,112 and Counting” (1983).

Larry has also written the plays Sissie’s Scrapbook, A Minor Dark Age, and Just Say No, A Play about Farce. His other books are The Tragedy of Today’s Gays and Reports From the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist.

The recent Broadway revival of The Normal Heart was nominated for five Tonys and won three, including Best Play. The film version stars Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts and premiered in May 2014.

Larry earned his B.A. in English from Yale University. They have also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. For the past three decades he has been researching American history and the cause of AIDS/HIVS for his novel The American People—the first volume was released in April 2015. He lives in New York City.

***

J. Bryan Lowder is an Associate Editor at Slate, where he has written and edited since 2011. He co-founded the magazine’s award-winning LGBTQ vertical, Outward, in 2013, which he continues to edit and write for regularly. Beyond the queer beat, he frequently contributes elsewhere in Slate, particularly to the culture and lifestyle sections, as well as to the magazine’s podcast, video, and live event operations. Lowder is a graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where he focused on cultural reporting and criticism. He lives in Harlem with his partner Charles McDonald and their cats Pieces and Suite—named for the two best gay bars in New York.

***

Damon L. Jacobs is a New York based Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and HIV prevention specialist who focuses his work on health, social justice, and pleasure. He is best known for championing the use of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) through his work in media including MSNBC, NPR, Vice TV, Here! TV, as well as New York Times, USA Today, Out Magazine, and many more.

He is featured as one of 35 “Leading HIV Activists” by The Advocate Magazine, and one of the Twelve “Influential Voices in HIV/AIDS for 2015” by Healthline Magazine. Damon recently spoke at The 2015 CDC National HIV Prevention Conference, The 2015 International AIDS Society Conference (IAS), The 2015 Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), 2014 Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) [Part 18:20-38:40], 5th Annual NYS Transgender Health Conference, 2015 European AIDS Treatment Group Conference, Albany Medical Center, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), New York University (NYU) as well New York State Health Department Of Health (NYS DOH) Trainings.

Benjamin Fredrickson in Conversation with Hunter O'Hanian
2016-02-18 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
In conjunction with the Bureau’s exhibition Benjamin Fredrickson: Salon, the Bureau hosts a conversation between Benjamin Fredrickson and Hunter O’Hanian, Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.
Benjamin Fredrickson: Salon organized by Daniel Cooney Fine Art. On view at the Bureau January 20 – March 20, 2016.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
No one turned away for lack of funds.

Image: Benjamin Fredrickson. EJ Sleeping, 2015, 10 x 8” Gelatin silver print from paper negative. Edition # 1/3.

Newfangled 9: Robert Siek hosts Yanyi Luo, Sam Ross, and Nomi Stone
2016-02-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for the 9th installment of Newfangled, poetry readings by emerging poets hosted by Robert Siek. Newfangled 9 will feature Yanyi Luo, Sam Ross, and Nomi Stone.

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

Yanyi Luo enjoys a masc edge. She is the recipient of a 2015 Poets House Fellowship and works as a contributing editor and poetry reader at Nat. Brut. Her poems have appeared in [PANK] and The Cortland Review, among others. She lives in Brooklyn.

Sam Ross’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Republic, Southern Humanities Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Guernica, Indiana Review, and other journals. He has received fellowship support from Columbia University, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is co-editor of Circumference: Poetry in Translation and poetry editor of Blunderbuss Magazine.

Nomi Stone is the author of the poetry collection Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly, 2008), an MFA candidate in poetry at Warren Wilson College, and a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at Columbia University. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Best American Poets 2016, Poetry Northwest, Blackbird, Guernica, Drunken Boat, Plume, and elsewhere. Stone is currently working on Kill Class, a manuscript based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted within combat simulations in mock Middle Eastern villages erected by the US military across America.

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.

Union Square Slam presents FRANNY CHOI and SEMIFINALS #2
2016-02-22 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
It’s that time of the year again! Time for Union Suare Slam’s top poets to duke it out for the next two spots on our first Finals stage ever this May, with none other than the legendary Franny Choi!!!
6pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7pm: sign-ups (open Mic Only)
7:30pm: Open Mic
7:50pm: Feature
8: 20pm: Semifinals Slam (invite only)
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
About our Feature:
FRANNY CHOI is a writer, performer, and teaching artist.
She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody, 2014) and a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellow. She has been a finalist for multiple national poetry slams, and her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Journal, PANK, The Rumpus, and others. She is a Project VOICE teaching artist, a Co-Director of the Providence Poetry Slam, and a member of the Dark Noise Collective.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
consist of up to 8 poet competitors
have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.
HOST: Thomas Fucaloro

Celebrating Queer: A Reader for Writers, featuring Editor Jason Schneiderman, and contributors Charles Rice-Gonzalez (moderator), Justin Vivian Bond, Mark Doty, & Ebony Smith
2016-02-24 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us for the launch of Jason Schneiderman‘s anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers, the first freshman composition reader built entirely around queer topics. Charles Rice-Gonzalez moderates a discussion amongst fellow contributors Justin Vivian Bond, Mark Doty, Ebony Smith, and Schneiderman.

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

Photograph by David Kimelman
Mx Justin Vivian Bond is a writer, singer, painter, and performance artist. Bond’s debut Cd Dendrophile was self-released on WhimsyMusic in 2011, and was followed by FCA-supported Silver Wells in 2012. In 2011, Bond’s art exhibition The Fall of the House of Whimsy was presented at Participant Inc., New York. Bond’s theatrical endeavors include starring as Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis in Scott Wittman’s production of Jukebox Jackie: Snatches of Jackie Curtis (2012) as part of La Mama E.T.C.’s 50th Anniversary Season; originating the role of Herculine Barbin in Kate Bornstein’s play Hidden: A Gender (1991); touring with the performance troupe The Big Art Group, and appearing in John Cameron Mitchell’s film Shortbus (2006). Bond’s memoir TANGO: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels, was published by The Feminist Press in (2011). With funds from V’s Grants to Artists, Bond made a down payment on V’s lease and was able to self-release the CD, Silver Wells(2012).
Bond has held performances at The Kitchen, Abrons Art Center, Performance Space 122, The Zipper Factory, The Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York; The Sydney Opera House, Australia; Soho Theater, London, Helen Hayes Theater, New York and the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Prior to V’s 2012 Grants to Artists, Bond received a an Obie Award for Kiki & Herb: Jesus Wept (2000), a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Choreographer/Creator Award for Kiki & Herb(2004), The Ethyl Eichelberger Award (2008), and The Peter Reed Foundation Grant (2011). Bond received a B.F.A. from Adelphi University (1985), and an M.A. from Central St. Martins College in London (2006).

Photograph by Star Black
Mark Doty is the author of several collections of poetry, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which received the 2008 National Book Award.

Photo-by-Marisol-Diaz
Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBT activist, co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and a Distinguished Lecturer at Hostos Community College – CUNY. He received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel Chulito(Magnus Books 2011) has received nearly a dozen awards including a 2013 Stonewall Book Awards – Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor from the American Library Association and a “Small Press Highlights” mention from the National Book Critics Circle. He co-edited From Macho To Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Tincture/Lethe Press 2011) and his award-winning play I Just Love Andy Gibb will be published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology (Duke Press 2016). He serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures.

Jason Schneiderman is Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly and Poetry Editor of Bellevue Literary Review. His poetry collection Primary Source (Red Hen Press, forthcoming April 2016) won the 2014 Benjamin Saltman award, and his poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry,The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn.

Ebony Smith, originally from California, is currently a student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honors society. She is studying liberal arts while exploring psychology and criminal justice. Ebony loves to travel and has visited countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. She enjoys writing and hopes to publish a book in the future. She is a very strongly opinionated, artistic, and creative young woman who has dreams of helping others and flourishing in the career she desires.

NYC Revolutionary Feminism Study Group
2016-02-25 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us for week 17, the final week of the Fall-Winter 2015/2016 NYC reading group of Revolutionary Feminism: Communist Interventions, vol. III, a reader from the Communist Research Cluster. All NYC Revolutionary Feminism meetings are open and welcoming to the public. Week 17 will look at social reproduction, reading an article by Johanna Brenner.
The reader can be found online here: https://communistresearchcluster.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/crc_ci_vol_three_1_1.pdf

TELL 21: My Passion
2016-02-26 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. Come celebrate the second anniversary of TELL!
My Passion is the theme of the twenty-first installment of TELL. Featuring Aviya Eschenazi, Tanisha Thompson, Jess Tell, and Jacob Tobia.
$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

Aviya Eschenazi also goes by “Vi” and is a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence BA Theater program.
She has performed her poetry, monologues, and stories in Spanish, French, and Italian. She has narrated stories for a live online news broadcast called Wochit.
Her passion is finding strength in odd identities, as she feels she has been too many at once!
Growing up queer in a family of Colombian, Jewish, Italian, and Israeli-Egyptian immigrants, her work is always about finding root in the right ground. Her writing often deals with Jewish Orthodoxy, drug addiction, and having been a young gay boy who is now a proud gay girl.
She is most obsessed with lesbian history, poetry, and spaces around the world.

Jess Tell loves dad jokes & complicated multi-ingredient desserts. Jess grew up in Pittsburgh with a wacky queer family of two lesbians, a flaming queen, nine cats & a rotating cast of hippies & burnouts. Jess moved to NY in 2003; he throws dinner parties, fanboys for Brooklyn Transcore projects, sits on fashion panels & match-makes people to poems. Jess currently runs the meals program at the Ali Forney Center, an organization that supports homeless & vulnerable LGBTQ youth.

Tanisha Thompson is a Brooklyn based performer. Most recently performed in the OBIE award winning Fire This Time Festival plays Slavesperience, (Stacey Rose)Time in the Penn(Keelay Gibson), and You Mine, (Nia Witherspoon). As a member of the Hotel Savant Theatre Co. her roles include Dryope in Men Go Down- Part 3 (PS 122) and Alas, the Nymphs… (BAM Next Wave Festival 2015), Fury #2 in Funeral Games (The Public Theater), The Shady Maids of Haiti (Walker Space) and the title role of Mercurious (HERE). Other roles include, Richmond in Richard III (Judith Shakespeare Co.), Josie in “The Skriker” (WOW Café), and Moll a swashbuckling prostitute Moll in “The Roaring Girl”. She has also collaborated with Michelle Matlock (The Mammy Project), Lee Frisari(sez.me) and Becca Blackwell (Untitled Feminist Show), on an exploration of gender, race and punk rock in the piece Sum of Us at (Dixon Place).

Jacob Tobia is a leading voice for genderqueer, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming folks, ensuring that everyone is able to live their truth and feel their cute.
In 2014, Jacob made their debut on the national stage when they were interviewed by Laverne Cox as part of MTV’s The T Word, and in 2015, Jacob was profiled by MTV in an hour-long episode of True Life: I’m Genderqueer. A Point Foundation Scholar, Harry S. Truman Scholar, and recipient of the Campus Pride National Voice and Action Award, Jacob has captivated audiences at college campuses, national conferences, and corporate events across the country with their message of gender empowerment and social change. Their writing and advocacy have been featured on MSNBC, MTV, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Jezebel, among others.
Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, Jacob currently lives in Brooklyn and has worn high heels in the White House twice.

Keith Taylor Presents
2016-02-27 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Keith Taylor presents an encore screening of his short film “The Last Day,” directed by Infinite, followed by an acoustic musical performance by YouTube sensation Rockstar Sissy (Catherine Taormina), and displays of art work by visual artists Trevon Latin (as S. Relentless) & Catherine Taormina.

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

Keith Taylor is a poet, artist and actor.

He has exhibited pieces of his art in showcases at The AICH Community House Exhibition “ Rain Is Love-Honoring Water” 2010 “The 3rd Annual Night of the Arts” at The LGBT Community Center 2012, MCCNY’s Jackson Hall Gallery, “Autumn & Art in New York” 2013, and recently at the “OMNIA VANITAS – All Is Vanity / LIFEbeat Fundraiser” at The Chelsea Eye Art Gallery 2014 and has recited his poetry at The Fresh Fruit Festival 2013, All Out Poetry at Nuyorican Poets Café, Queens Book Festival “A Borough Without Borders Reading Series” 2015, V Henny Presents The Art Of Muzic Showcase 2015
Keith has his 1st role in The Hardest Love movie as Chapo winner of The 2014 Manhattan Film Festival Buzz Award & winner of International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival 2014 Peoples Choice Award. Keith has been featured in movies such as The Brave One, The Other Guys, The Back-up Plan and The Bounty Hunter and has also been a recurring background actor & featured on TV shows Law and Order SVU, How To Make It In America, Blue Bloods, Elementary, Power and Person of Interest, HBO’s Crime.
Keith has also acted in music videos by LGBT artists such as Greg Scarnici, Sherry Vine and Lovari.
Keith has recently played “The Ref” in A Story of Time at The Black Spectrum Theatre Company and now has completed his first short poetry/music film The Last Day which is his first original Keith Taylor production.

Catherine Taormina is a full time performer, producer, actor-artist and content creator. Performance includes playing a young Olympia Dukakis in the Paul Reiser movie “The Thing About My Folks” and as Rockstar Sissy singer-songwriter-guitarist pop-rock funk-punker. She produces shorts, enters creative contests (winning some – check them out!) music videos for her songs and also produced a downloadable feature film of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” having also designed and made most of all of the costumes, directed, edited, acted in and composed music for the film. Visit her website www.catherinetaormina.com for links to all!

Trevon Latin A.K.A. Shaturqua Relentless (b. 1987, Houston, Texas) is a Houston Interdisciplinary artist and Painting BFA graduate from the University Of Houston School Of Art. His paintings have been exhibited in the annual student show s of 2014, and 2015.His/their imagery feeds off the literal and Imaginative. “As a black, gay, femme, American male , my experience invites me to tell stories through my eyes and allows me to dive into the worlds I know often to inform outsiders of unfair and unjust treatment. “His current work takes on the main story of a history that is both true and imaginary. Using a mixture of media, from hand sewn pieces to a more traditional medium, He/they are Journeying through identity and self-exploration of what it means to be gay, black and having a “feminine side” in today’s society.

Union Square Slam presents GEOFF KAGAN-TRENCHARD
2016-03-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Well, here we are! A fresh new quarter on our Brand New Day: as of this show, Union Square Slam has officially moved to TUESDAYS!! Take note, then get your Art Hearts down here for the indominable Geoff Kagan-Trenchard, and our very first open slam in our last quarter!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:30pm Poetry Slam
About our Feature:
Geoff Kagan-Trenchard is a nationally recognized poet and theater artist. His work has been featured on HBO, All Def Poetry, TEDx, and Upworty. His poems have been published in published in numerous journals including Word Riot, Muzzle, Union Station Magazine and Freeze Ray. He has received commissions for theatrical work from the National Performance Network, Dance Theater Workshop, The Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the City of Oakland. He is also a lawyer with the Court Square Law Project. His work can be found at kagantrenchard.com/geoff
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
– have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

Juliana, the novel (Vol 1: 1941-1944): A Dramatic Reading with Vanda, the Author, and Actors
2016-03-02 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Vanda, author of Juliana, the novel (Vol 1: 1941-1944) will be joined by actors in a dramatic reading from the new novel. Juliana is the story of dreams, the dreams of two women who randomly, inevitably cross paths, of stage stardom and soulful songs amid the deceptions required in a 1940s New York City, where love was presumed to be straight, and destiny was supposed to be written in the stars.

Alice “Al” Huffman comes from the potato fields of Long Island with her beau, her best girlfriend and her girlfriend’s beau to make it on the Broadway stage only to find she has no talent. On the kids’ first day in New York City, they meet Maxwell P. Hartwell III, a failed nightclub owner and Broadway producer, who, according to Al, looks a little like Clark Gable. He invites them to a nightclub where Al hears Juliana, the glamorous, perpetually-on-the-brink-of stardom nightclub singer, sing for the first time. Al is instantly drawn to her and seeks her out. Juliana, a sexual risk-taker, easily reels in the mesmerized Al.

Al is increasingly pulled into a secret gay underworld of men who wear dresses and women who smoke cigars, while her childhood friends continue in their “normal” lives. Al glides easily between the two worlds until these worlds begin to collide.

To reserve copies of Juliana, please write to us at contact@bgsd.com

After the reading refreshments will be served and there will be an opportunity to talk with the author and the actors.

Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, and Christopher Soto: tour to end queer youth homelessness
2016-03-03 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Please join Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, and Christopher Soto for a reading celebrating the launch of Soto’s first chapbook Sad Girl Poems on the national TOUR TO END QUEER YOUTH HOMELESSNESS.

Natalie Diaz was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. She earned a BA from Old Dominion University, where she received a full athletic scholarship. Diaz played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion to earn an MFA. She is the author of the poetry collection When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), which New York Times reviewer Eric McHenry described as an “ambitious … beautiful book.” Her honors and awards include the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from Bread Loaf, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

Ocean Vuong‘s first full-length collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press (2016). He is also the author of two chapbooks: No (YesYes Books, 2013) andBurnings (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010), which was an American Library Association’s Over The Rainbow selection. A 2014 Ruth Lilly fellow, Ocean has received honors and awards from Poets House, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, and a Pushcart Prize. His poetry and fiction have been featured in Kenyon Review, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry, and the American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. His work has been translated into Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, French, Italian, Hindi, Spanish, and Ukrainian. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he resides in New York City and is currently at work on his first novel.

Christopher Soto (aka Loma) is a queer latinx punk poet & prison abolitionist. They were named one of “Ten Up and Coming Latinx Poets You Need to Know” by Remezcla. They were named one of “Seven Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Artists Doing the Work” by The Offing. Poets & Writers will be honoring Christopher Soto with the “Barnes & Nobles Writer for Writers Award” in 2016. They founded Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color with the Lambda Literary Foundation. They cofounded The Undocupoets Campaign in 2015. Their poetry has been called political surrealist and focuses on domestic violence, queer youth homelessness, and mass incarceration. For more information, visit christophersoto-poet.com
