Poems Are Not a Luxury: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich
2020-01-28 18:30 - 21:30, 2020-02-04 18:30 - 21:30, 2020-02-11 18:30 - 21:30, 2020-02-18 18:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York)
The Bureau is excited to partner again with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to bring you:
Poems Are Not a Luxury: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich
Instructor: Amy Schiller
“Poetry is liberative language,” wrote Adrienne Rich. “Poems are not a luxury,” argued Audre Lorde. How can we understand these claims about the intersection of poetry and politics? This course delves into the lives and works of Rich and Lorde, as we explore their respective poetic oeuvres. To Rich and Lorde, liberation was a through-line of experience between eros, politics, and language. And both express in their works understandings of gender, sexuality, and the body. In a famous interview between the two writers, they discuss poetry as the language of the dark, the feminine, the unconscious; we will explore this tendency in their work and the ways in which their respective renderings of the feminine influenced the trajectory of feminist theory and politics in the mid and late-20th century. Their conversations with one another, and treatments of their legacies by Claudia Rankine, Lisa L. Moore, Marilyn Hacker and others, will inform our investigation of poetry as part of feminist theory. How do Rich and Lorde navigate antiracism and intersectionality among allies with different race and class affiliations? How does poetic form contribute to their political practice? Readings will include Diving Into The Wreck, The Fact of a Doorframe, Uses of the Erotic, Sister Outsider, and the Arts of the Possible, among others.

The Bureau sells copies of
Adrienne Rich’s Diving Into The Wreck and Arts of the Possible,
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, which includes the essay “Uses of the Erotic,”
and other titles by both Lorde and Rich. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us! Thank you!

Course Schedule
January 28, February 4, 11, and 18, 2020
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm
4 sessions

$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.

Open enchanting historical closets with three NY novelists
2020-01-30 19:00 - 21:00
Author readings, with slides and videos; Q & A. Explore enchanting historical closets through the eyes of three local award-winning novelists Loretta Goldberg, Joshua Ian, & Christina Britton Conroy!

Australian-American Loretta Goldberg is an accomplished pianist with nine commercial CDs to her credit, a former financial advisor and now a published author. Her debut novel, The Reversible Mask, recounts the exploits of a sixteenth century bisexual spy, Edward Latham, and his work as a double agent for Queen Elizabeth I. Intrigue, lust, war, and betrayal fill its pages https://www.facebook.com/LorettaGoldbergAuthor.

Joshua Ian writes mostly historical and speculative fiction, all with a queer bent. The Harvest Moon is the first in his Darkly Enchanted Romance series, which takes inspiration from mythology, fairy tales, folklore, and legend. Witches, ghosts, and mythical creatures – you never know what you might fall in love with. Find his steampunk collection and upcoming works at https://www.moodyboxfan.com/ or on social @joshuaianauthor.

Novelist/ screenwriter/ singer/ actor/ Irish harpist/ Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, Christina Britton Conroy has many passions. Her 4-book Victorian novel series His Majesty’s Theatre is filled with the history of the British theatre and allusions to Shakespeare. Her characters are gay, straight, rich, poor, educated and illiterate. Professional rivalries, jilted lovers, and finally a murder bring them all together under one roof: His Majesty’s Theatre. https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBritConroy.

Oral History: A Queer Art: A Two-Day Workshop
2020-02-01 09:30 - 15:30
THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL. PLEASE SIGN UP FOR THE WAITLIST, AND WE WILL BE IN TOUCH IF SPACE OPENS UP.
Oral History, a Queer Art will follow the course of our usual immersive workshops by offering foundational oral history training–theory, method, practice– while inviting exploration into the way that oral history values and theory are arguably queer and/or well-positioned to support emergent complex queer narratives. This workshop will also seize upon the history and abundance of queer oral history projects, approaching this canon as both case study of “insider history” and as inspiration for future projects. We’ll challenge a purist oral history model, asking how it can/should be adapted with queer values and theory in mind.
This workshop is appropriate for those looking for foundation oral history training, those embarking (or currently working) on queer oral history projects and/or those who wish to learn in a queer-centered space. All are welcome.

More about Oral History Summer School: Our workshops are set up to bring together learners with a range of experience and motives, to think about how oral history’s best practices apple to their work and personal lives. We emphasize listening, collaboration, co-creation, ethics, trauma training, self-care, familiarity with archival practices and project design, though not all of these subjects will be covered at length in shorter (1 to 2-day) workshops.

Oral History, A Queer Art: NYC Trans Oral History Project: Public Event
2020-02-01 16:00 - 17:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
4 PM to 5:30 PM (Doors open at 3:45 PM)
Free and open to the public
Please join us as Michelle Esther O’Brien and Nico Fuentes present their work with the NYC Trans Oral History Project (NYC TOHP) in conversation with Suzanne Snider and the audience.
NYC TOHP is a public, online community archive devoted to the collection, preservation and sharing of trans histories, organized in collaboration with the New York Public Library. The NYC TOHP works to confront the erasure of trans lives and to record diverse histories of gender as intersecting with race and racism, poverty, dis/ability, aging, housing migration, sexism, and the AIDS crisis.
During the event, Fuentes and O’Brien will discuss some of the most challenging lessons related to the NYC Trans Oral History Project and the broader implications for rethinking best practices in oral history. This talk will address the Project’s and Collective’s emergent ideas around ownership, vulnerability, accessibility, fetishization of orality/aurality, compensation, mission-driven work and collective liberation.

Presenters:
Michelle Esther O’Brien is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University. She is currently conducting dissertation research on LGBTQ social movements in New York City. Michelle also works as a Community Oral History Coordinator at the New York Public Library, where she helps lead the New York City Trans Oral History Project. The Project is gathering a growing online archive of personal oral histories from trans New Yorkers. Michelle received her Masters of Social Work from the Hunter College School of Social Work, CUNY (now Silberman School). She spent several years working in HIV/AIDS service agencies, as a community organizer, support group facilitator and case worker. She served as the Executive Director of Housing Here and Now, at the time the leading coalition of tenant rights organizations in New York City.
Nico Fuentes is a rank and file organizer, sex shop worker, listener and sometimes speaker. She is interested in trans political organizing, difference, and bridging class and identity politics. She most recently completed a two year contract campaign at the Pleasure Chest NY and is looking forward to continuing to work with the New York Trans Oral History Project as an interviewer.
Suzanne Snider is a writer, documentarian, and educator whose work is deeply influenced by oral history theory and practice. Her most recent projects have taken the shape of sound installation, essays, and archive design. In 2012, she founded Oral History Summer School, an interdisciplinary training program in upstate New York. She consults frequently for institutions and project teams; collaborations include the National Public Housing Museum, MoMA, Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Library of Kosovo. Her writing/audio work appear in The Guardian, The Believer and The Washington Post, along with several anthologies and artist catalogs. Snider teaches at The New School. With support from the Yaddo Corporation and the MacDowell Colony, she is completing her first book, The Revival.

Oral History: A Queer Art: A Two-Day Workshop
2020-02-02 09:30 - 17:00
THIS TWO-DAY WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL. PLEASE SIGN UP FOR THE WAITLIST, AND WE WILL BE IN TOUCH IF SPACE OPENS UP.
Oral History, a Queer Art will follow the course of our usual immersive workshops by offering foundational oral history training–theory, method, practice–while inviting exploration into the way that oral history values and theory are arguably queer and/or well-positioned to support emergent complex queer narratives. This workshop will also seize upon the history and abundance of queer oral history projects, approaching this canon as both case study of “insider history” and as inspiration for future projects. We’ll challenge a purist oral history model, asking how it can/should be adapted with queer values and theory in mind.
This workshop is appropriate for those looking for foundation oral history training, those embarking (or currently working) on queer oral history projects and/or those who wish to learn in a queer-centered space. All are welcome.

More about Oral History Summer School: Our workshops are set up to bring together learners with a range of experience and motives, to think about how oral history’s best practices apple to their work and personal lives. We emphasize listening, collaboration, co-creation, ethics, trauma training, self-care, familiarity with archival practices and project design, though not all of these subjects will be covered at length in shorter (1 to 2-day) workshops.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Colette
2020-02-05 18:30 - 21:30
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. Our regular venue is the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On February 5th please join us for a viewing of Colette (2018), directed by Wash Westmoreland and starring Keira Knightly and Dominic West.

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: In 1893, 20-year-old Colette marries the writer Willy and moves to Paris. Willy introduces her to the intellectual and artistic life of the city, encourages her relationships with other women, and takes credit for her writing. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes.

Four Way Books Reading
2020-02-07 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for a poetry reading featuring the amazing Four Way Books authors Patrick Donnelly (Little-Known Operas), Rigoberto González (The Book of Ruin), Julia Guez (In an Invisible Glass Case Which Is Also a Frame), and Sam Ross (Company).

Books will be available for sale. To reserve a copy of any of these titles, please write to the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Patrick Donnelly is the author of four books of poetry. Former poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, Donnelly is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, and an associate editor of Poetry International. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Slate, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Yale Review, and many other journals. Donnelly’s translations with Stephen D. Miller of classical Japanese poetry were awarded the 2015-2016 Japan- U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. Donnelly’s other awards include a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program Award, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Margaret Bridgman Fellowship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and an Amy Clampitt Residency Award. He lives outside of Northampton, Massachusetts.

Rigoberto González is the author of 17 books of poetry and prose, most recently of the memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth. His awards include Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. A critic at large for The L.A. Times, he sits on the board of trustees of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and is currently professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.

Julia Guez’s 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 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.

Office Hours Craft Class & Reading with Gregory Pardlo
2020-02-08 11:00 - 14:30
Join us Saturday February 8th, 2020 at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for a FREE Craft Class and Reading with author Gregory Pardlo. Featured readers include Alexis Aceves Garcia, Darise JeanBaptiste, and Christina Quintana (CQ).

Office Hours Presents: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” with Gregory Pardlo!
In the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle craft class with Gregory Pardlo, Cliché is perhaps the only thing a poem cannot abide. Clichés are not just trite or overused phrases. They are the images, ideas, and narratives that make up the shared body of knowledge we call “common sense.” In the writing process, we poets often reach for clichés and common sense thinking in times of crisis or discomfort instead of boldly depicting the thing that likely inspired the poem in the first place. Language that is flat and unimaginative can signal, paradoxically, the very passages in a poem that are the most emotionally fraught. Rather than simply discarding them, we might consider ways to honor the original sentiments buried within that stale language. In this workshop, we will discuss strategies for getting at the useful emotionally raw material fossiled into such otherwise disposable language. We will dig through your printouts of failed poems, we will scroll through forgotten files on your laptop, and we will use this material to generate new work that is moving, surprising, maybe even a little discomforting, and above all fresh.

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 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.

Gregory Pardlo‘s ​collection​ Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other honors​ include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts for translation; his first collection Totem won the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. He is Poetry Editor of Virginia Quarterly Review and Director of the MFA program at Rutgers University-Camden. His most recent book is Air Traffic, a memoir in essays.

Alexis Aceves Garcia is a first-generation genderqueer Latinx and Indochinese poet from San Diego, CA. In 2019, they were awarded a full fellowship as the Teaching Assistant for Catapult’s inaugural 12-month Poetry Generator Workshop with Angel Nafis and the Cisneros Poetry Fellowship from the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. You can find their poems in the June Jordan Poetry & Protest Anthology, Como Maracuya, Peptalk, and Cipactli with poems forthcoming in The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT, Apogee Journal, and Selfish Magazine.They are currently working on their first book and living in Queens, NY.

Darise JeanBaptiste is a fiction writer born and raised in the Bronx. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark and her MA in English literature from Brooklyn College, where she began teaching English composition. Darise has written for The Press & Sun-Bulletin, The Ithaca Journal, and City Limits. Darise is a VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation) alum and a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop fellow. In her creative process, she aims to trace the trajectory toward a woman’s embrace of her intuitive power.

Christina Quintana (CQ) is a queer, cross-genre writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. She is the author of the full-length play Scissoring (Dramatists Play Service, 2019) and The Heart Wants, a chapbook of poetry (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Most recently, CQ worked as staff writer for the upcoming ABC series, Baker and the Beauty. For more, visit cquintana.com.

Pasolini's Arabian Nights
2020-02-14 18:30 - 21:30
On Friday, February 14th, please join us for a viewing of Arabian Nights (Il fiore delle mille e una notte), (1974), directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Please arrive at 6:30 pm at the Bureau for pre-screening socializing, buying drinks, and finding a seat.

At 6:45 pm Ara H. Merjian, Professor of Italian, New York University, and author of the forthcoming Against the Avant-Garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Contemporary Art, and Neocapitalism (University of Chicago Press, April 2020), will introduce Arabian Nights.

At 7 pm sharp we will begin the screening.

The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to support the Bureau is much appreciated!

Pasolini’s adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights, tells the story of Nur ed Din and Zumurrud, two young lovers separated through error. Nur ed Din learns through stories within stories of love, betrayal, revenge and renewal to help guide him back to Zumurrud. Shot in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, India and Nepal, landscape beautifully expands each story. It is the third film of Pasolini’s “trilogy of life” series, which preceded his final film, Salò. Dreamlike and poetic, it opens one’s mind to life’s creative possibility and imaginative potential.

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Subtitles: English

TELL 60: Queer Black Love
2020-02-15 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. That makes this TELL the sixth anniversary edition!!!
Queer Black Love is the theme of the 60th TELL, on Saturday, February 15, 2020, with special guest host Elsa Waithe. Featuring stories by Calvin S. Cato, Lois Thompson, and Lamar Shambley.

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

Calvin S. Cato has performed all across the United States and has even crossed the border into Canada. His television appearances include the Game Show Network, Oxygen’s My Crazy Love, National Geographic’s Brain Games, and an unaired pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. His comedy has been featured in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, Austin’s Out of Bounds Comedy Festival, Brooklyn Pride, and the Women in Comedy Festival. In addition, you may have heard him overshare on many podcasts including Keith and The Girl, The Beige Philip Show, RISK!, and Tinder Tales. In 2017, Calvin was named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics of Color to Watch Out For. You can catch Calvin every Monday as the host/producer of Ed Sullivan on Acid at Freddy’s Bar in Park Slope, one of the longest running free comedy shows in Brooklyn. Or you can check out the podcast he co-produces called Playable Characters Podcast, which has been featured in AV Club and Splitsider.

Lamar Shambley is a Brooklyn-born educator with experience teaching middle school math and high school Spanish. He’s the Founder and Executive Director of Teens of Color Abroad, a nonprofit program that provides local high school students of color with language immersion study abroad programs.

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

Papers will not protect us: fugitive alien voices | launch and celebration for "Intergalactic Travels: poems from a Fugitive Alien" by Alan Pelaez Lopez
2020-02-19 19:00 - 21:30
is there a noun for the type of energy
the Black body feels when it senses danger?;
is there an adjective for the type of sex
the Alienated wanna have in order to stop time?;
is there a verb for traveling into another dimension
to understand how the Self is surviving?;
is there the possibility of being Human once again?;

Please join The Operating System in celebrating the launch of Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien, the debut hybrid collection from Alan Pelaez Lopez. “Papers will not protect us” features the voices of Jess X. Snow, Alejandro Heredia, and Wo Chan, together with the author, in celebration, resistance, and visionary resilience, conjuring futures for bodies named alien by an imperial capital state.

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

We ask that you please avoid wearing perfumes/scents so that those with allergies and sensitivity to scent can attend.

Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Thanks you for supporting the Bureau by buying books from us!

‘Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien’ is an experimental poetry collection that renders an intimate portrait of growing up undocumented in the United States. Through the use of collages, photographs, emails, and immigration forms, Alan Pelaez Lopez formulates theories of fugitivity that position the Trans*Atlantic slave trade and Indigenous dispossession as root causes of undocumented immigration. Although themes of isolation and unbelonging are at the forefront of the book, the poet doesn’t see belonging to U.S. society as a liberatory practice. Instead, Pelaez Lopez urges readers to question their inheritance and acceptance of “settler rage, settler fear, and settler citizenship,” so that they can actively address their participation in everyday violences that often go unnoticed. As the title invokes, Intergalactic Travels breaks open a new galaxy where artists of color are the warriors that manifest the change that is needed not only to survive, but thrive.

Advance Praise:
“‘Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien’ brilliantly expands the conversation on undocumented migration by tracing the legacy of illegality. Claiming ‘every crossing becomes mine,’ Alan Pelaez Lopez, as fugitive alien, bravely takes on the task of traveling across galaxies to reach an elsewhere that is something more like a new holding. Against the failure of political language, this book of multimedia poems becomes a verb, an active imagining that takes the banality of papers and transforms it into poetry. This intergalactic traveling brings the ‘Black NDN’ migrant touchingly back to their mother’s arms, and to her vision for life. If illegality is to be their legacy, Alan reimagines that illegality as both disruptive of settler-futures and productive for black and indigenous futures. We should be immensely grateful for this vision.” – Javier O. Huerta, author of ‘American Copia: An Immigrant Epic’

“This is a stunning book. It’s history, it’s their story, it’s an archive and a hard drive with a playful vibe. Its sense of humor girds and grounds and gallops around the gravity of law and belonging and erasure and choosing words and narratives and modes that were made without people like us in the room. It revels in colonial language as it tells that language to sit the f down. There’s a new b on the scene. Take note and pay your respects.” – Tommy Pico, author of ‘Feed’

Alan Pelaez Lopez is an AfroIndigenous poet, installation, and adornment artist from Oaxaca, México. They are the author of the art and poetry collection, ‘Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien’ (The Operating System, 2020), and the chapbook, ‘to love and mourn in the age of displacement’ (Nomadic Press, 2020). Their poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and “Best of the Net,” as well as published in Best New Poets, Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, Puerto Del Sol, Everyday Feminism, & elsewhere. Pelaez Lopez has received fellowships and/or residencies from Submittable, the Museum of the African Diaspora, VONA/Voices, and UC Berkeley. They live in Oakland, CA & the internet (as @MigrantScribble).

Wo Chan is a queer poet and drag performer living in Brooklyn. Wo has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, and the Asian American Writers Workshop. As a member of Switch N’ Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, and BAM Fisher. Check them out @theillustriouspearl.

Jess X. Snow is a queer migrant asian-canadian artist, filmmaker, and pushcart-nominated poet based in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, they are currently a MFA candidate at NYU Graduate Film. Through film, large-scale murals, poetry and art education, they are working to build a future where queer, trans and migrant people of color may see themselves heroic on the big screen and city walls & then can grow up with the agency to create their own. Their murals and political graphics have appeared on outdoor buildings across the country and on PBS Newshour, The LA Times, and in the permanent collection of the Ford Foundation and the Library of Congress. Their art and films have been used as organizing tools at protests such as the Women’s March on Washington, as a part of migrant rights organizing on both sides of the border, as well as on college campuses to support survivors and end rape culture. Their multi-disciplinary practice combines art and somatic healing practices to empower communities to discover inside their own bodies—a sanctuary of healing and collective liberation.

Alejandro Heredia is is a Queer Afro-Dominican writer from The Bronx. He is a member of Project X’s first Slam team, and national outreach coordinator for PEN Across America, where he develops literary advocacy and press freedom programming throughout the country. Since 2016, he has used his writing and organizing skills to create and support literary events in the Bronx, including efforts to resist gentrification in low-income communities. Heredia is passionate about the creative, intellectual, and social lives of Black LGBTQ people across the diaspora. In 2019, he launched a workshop and event series in the Bronx centering Black LGBTQ writers.

45 Years Behind the Leather Curtain - Community Panel
2020-02-21 19:00 - 21:00
An unforgettable community panel sharing the history, passion, and livelihood of men and women bonded through leather expressions.

Join the Brothers of Excelsior M.C. and notable panelists Witti Repartee, Richard Majewski, and Scott Erickson.

Witti Repartee
Witti Repartee is the Queen of the New York Leathermen. Currently, the Vice President and Show Director for Folsom Street East and board member of Delta Brotherhood International, she’s also the hostess for Continuum. She’s a former co-chair of Leather Pride Night, served as facilitator for GMSMA’s TNG Group, and has served on the boards of the Gay Activists Alliance in Morris County, Big Apple Performing Arts and the Imperial Court of New York. During the day she serves as the major gifts officer of the Stonewall Community Foundation and she’d love to know the hanky code for hot wax.

Richard Majewski
One of the founding members of Excelsior M.C., Richard will share the values lived and observed through the brotherhood of New York City’s leathermen.

Scott Erickson
After co-founding the Bay State Marauders in 2003, Scott currently serves as the club’s Historian and Atlantic Motorcycle Coordingin Council (AMCC) representative. He was co-chair of the New England Leather Alliance in 2007 and 2008 and remains active with the organization today. Scott was titled Mr. Boston Leather in 2004. In 2007, he won the Pantheon of Leather New England Regional Award. He has been active in the Boston leather community since 1990 and has shared his craft of knot tying for more than 40 years.

Purchase $10 ticket

Proceeds from tonight’s event benefit SAGE, New York City’s advocacy and service organization for LGBT elders.
Due to space capacity only 40 tickets will be available.

Book Launch with Jasmine Reid and Catherine Chen
2020-02-23 17:00 - 19:00
Catherine Chen & Jasmine Reid read from their debut poetry collections Manifesto, Or: Hysteria (Big Lucks) and Deus Ex Nigrum (Honeysuckle Press), the 2018 Winner of the Honeysuckle Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith, at this stop along their Dykes of the Universe co-book tour. Catherine will reach into your soul & hold you in the mirrored reality of their poesis. Jasmine will invite you to find posterity & futurity in the blooming surround of human being. Together, in sky, these sibling comets arrive.

Copies of Manifesto, Or: Hysteria and Deus Ex Nigrum 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!

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.

Jasmine Reid is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. An MFA candidate at Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Poets House and Jack Jones Literary Arts, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Apogee, the Shade Journal, and Pinwheel, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Ithaca, NY. Find her at reidjasmine.com

Romans/Snowmare Book Launch
2020-02-28 19:00 - 21:00
Come celebrate the launch of Cam Scott‘s Romans/Snowmare—a daybook of anti-capitalist ideation, a homoerotic reinvention of the prairie long poem, a ludic experiment with language and duration.

Copies of Romans/Snowmare 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!

CAM SCOTT is a poet, critic, and non-musician from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 territory. He is the author of WRESTLERS, a visual suite published by Greying Ghost in 2017, and ROMANS/SNOWMARE, published by ARP Books in 2019. In addition to his own writing and musical practice, he is artistic director of send + receive, a festival of sound art and experimental music based out of Winnipeg.

MIA KANG writes poems and other perversions. She is the author of City Poems (2020), a poetry pamphlet from ignitionpress. Mia was named the 2017 winner of Boston Review’s Annual Poetry Contest by Mónica de la Torre, and her writing has appeared in journals including POETRY, Washington Square Review, Narrative Magazine, and PEN America. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow, runner-up for the 2019 and 2017 Discovery Poetry Contests, and finalist for the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Mia is a PhD student in the history of art at Yale University, where she studies the contested rise of U.S. multiculturalism and its failures. www.miaadrikang.com

IAN DREIBLATT is a writer and translator interested in paganism, the ends of worlds, writing, and socialist mass culture. Recentish chapbooks include barishonah (DoubleCross Press) and how to hide by showing in the age of being alone with the universe (above/ground press); recentish translations include the prison letters of Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Comradely Greetings, Verso Books) and the poems of Pavel Arseniev (Reported Speech, Cicada Press). Forthcoming books include a translation of Dmitrii Furman’s Spiral (Verso Books) and a full-length poetry collection (forget thee, Ugly Duckling Presse). He is TV Commercials Correspondent at the Believer and edits Counter. If you but express mild interest, he will surely cook you soup.

Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Theory, Sexuality, and Subversion
2020-03-03 18:30 - 21:30, 2020-03-10 18:30 - 21:30
The Bureau is excited to partner again with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to bring you:

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Theory, Sexuality, and Subversion

Instructor: Paige Sweet

1990 saw the publication of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, a text that has become required reading for anyone interested in feminist theory, critical appraisals of gender, and the burgeoning field of queer theory. Central to Butler’s theory is the concept of performativity as a way to describe how we become gendered subjects, that is, how we come to enact gender in recognizable ways. The text is also well known for its account of how certain kinds of performative (gendered) practices—like drag—might become subversive; or how, as Butler says, it might be possible “to open up the field of possibility for gender.” Gender Trouble has proved surprisingly controversial, notably for its difficult prose, but also for its treatment of the body as discursively produced, as well as for its ambiguous “subversive” politics. How, 30 years after publication, does Gender Trouble complicate, or help us make sense of, contemporary problems of feminism, identity, queerness, and politics?

Whether one is a devotee of Gender Trouble or to some degree a skeptic, it remains a text to be reckoned with. This course will take Gender Trouble as the primary text and keep both approaches in mind—one appraising, one critical—as we pair it with select supplemental readings. We will consider its historical context and theoretical frameworks. In addition, we’ll grapple with the insights and limitations of its core arguments about gender and sexuality. Finally, we’ll consider how its politics resonate (or don’t) today. We will ask: Why was it written when it was? With what other texts and ideas was it in conversation? How does it understand the relation between language and categories of sex and sexuality? What polyvalent meanings of performativity, whether reverential or revisionary, did Gender Trouble originate and inspire? What is the legacy of Butler’s argument for shifting the subject of feminism away from “women” to “gender”—especially in view of Robin Weigman’s critique, or in view of more recent studies of trans subjectivity? How might we evaluate the political potentials or failures of parody today? Although some might come to the course curious about enduring relevance of this seminal text, the course also welcomes first-time readers of Butler’s work.

The Bureau sells copies of Judith Butler‘s Gender Trouble, among other titles by Butler. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us! Thank you!

Course Schedule
March 3, 10, 17, and 24, 2020
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm
4 sessions

$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: photograph by Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Habana Eva
2020-03-04 18:30 - 21:30
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. Our regular venue is the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On March 4th please join us for a viewing of Habana Eva (2010), directed by Fina Torres and starring Prakriti Maduro, Yuliet Cruz, and Juan Carlos García.

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: Eva, a factory seamstress living with her parents in Havana, dreams of designing clothes and is frustrated by the rut her relationship with her boyfriend has fallen into, when she meets a wealthy visitor from Venezuela. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

The New Feminine: Poetry Reading & Open Mic
2020-03-06 19:00 - 21:00
A reading and discussion featuring Chocolate Waters, Tantra-Zawadi, Patricia Carragon, and Iris N. Schwartz. Open mic for anyone who identifies as feminine or non-binary.

Chocolate Waters has been writing and publishing poetry for over five decades. During the second wave of feminism, she was one of the first openly lesbian poets to publish. Her latest collection, Muddying the Holy Waters, will be released by Eggplant Press in 2020. The Greatest Hits of Chocolate Waters, a “Sapphic Classic” chosen by Sinister Wisdom will appear sometime in 2022. Poets Wear Prada published her poetry chapbook The Woman Who Wouldn’t Shake Hands in 2011. Like and follow her at https://www.facebook.com/ChocolateWatersPoet/

Tantra-Zawadi, recording artist, performance poet, actress, educator, and mentor, is author of 3 collections of poetry including her latest Bubbles: One Conscious Breath (Poets Wear Prada, 2013).

Patricia Carragon’s recent publications include Bear Creek Haiku, First Literary-East , Jerry Jazz Musician, Narrative Northeast Review, and Stardust Haiku. Her latest books Meowku (2019) and The Cupcake Chronicles (2017) were both published by Poets Wear Prada. Her debut novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Patricia hosts Brownstone Poets monthly reading series and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology.

Iris N. Schwartz is the author of more than sixty works of fiction. Her flash appears in dozens of publications, including Blink-Ink, Crack the Spine, Fictive Dream, Gravel, Jellyfish Review, and Literary Orphans. Her second short short story collection, Shame (Poets Wear Prada, 2019), contains Best Microfiction 2018 nominee “Dogs” and was shortlisted by North of Oxford for recommended summer 2019 reading. Ms. Schwartz has also written erotica, most notably the story “Hedonics,” anthologized in Stirring Up a Storm: Tales of the Sensual, the Sexual, and the Erotic (Running Dog Press).

Bureau closed indefinitely beginning on Friday, March 13th
2020-03-13 - 2020-03-31
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, The LGBT Community Center will close at 6 pm on Friday, March 13th, and remain closed indefinitely (full statement here). As a result, the Bureau will be closed beginning on Friday, March 13th, and all events scheduled for the remainder of March will either be rescheduled or canceled.
We will post updates as we receive them from The Center.

Postponed: Opening Reception for Paul Moreno / Problem Areas
2020-03-13 18:00 - 20:00
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Center will be closed indefinitely beginning Friday, March 13th, at 6 pm. The Bureau will reschedule an opening reception as soon as we can. But for now the Bureau will be closed starting Friday, March 13th, and will remain closed until further notice.
We will post updates as we receive them.

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Paul Moreno / Problem Areas. This will be Paul’s first solo exhibition and will include a selection of paintings and drawings from 2016 through 2020.
Paul is a self-taught artist who grew up in Sparks, Nevada. Paul studied Literature and Critical Thought at University of San Francisco and NYU.
About the title, Problem Areas, Paul states “I took the title from the old adage that art-making is largely a process of problem solving. However, the title is also meaningful in that when I choose subjects for my work, I try to look at something that I have complex or unresolved feelings about. By spending time with the subject, against the background of parsing it into formal elements that serve
the picture, I find spiritual resolution can also present itself. In this way, the problem, as it were, is not a negative, but an opportunity to expose the beauty in the subject to myself and hopefully the viewer.”

Paul Moreno / Problem Areas will be on view from March 13 – May 3, 2020.
Opening reception will be Friday, March 13, 2020, from 6-8 PM
Please join us for a conversation with Paul Moreno and contemporary art advisor, curator and critic, Bill Arning on Saturday, May 2, 2020, 2 PM
Download a pdf of the press release for Paul Moreno / Problem Areas.
Image: Paul Moreno. Ignatius (for a friend). 2020. 18″ x 23”. Mixed media on wood.

Postponed: Legible: A Queer Per-Zine Workshop
2020-03-14 11:00 - 13:00
Due to The Center’s cancellation of all groups, meetings, and events from March 16 through March 31 (full statement here), we will reschedule this workshop. Please check back for updates.

In this 4-session workshop we will read and analyze zines by queer and trans and queer writers to learn ways in which these authors explore their bodies, gender, and self-image through the creation of personal zines. These zines will help give us inspiration and directions for thinking about our own writing in the zine format. This workshop is an opportunity to build community with trans and queer writers and poets while also building a better understanding of one’s self through the creation of your own per-zine.
Over our four sessions we will create our own per-zines and share these zines with a reading at the end of our last session. The workshop will meet at the Bureau on:
Saturday, March 14, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, March 21, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, March 28, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, April 4, 11 AM to 1 PM
This workshop is entirely free. You’re welcome to bring your own materials but materials will be provided as well as copies of zines for that will be used in our discussions.
To sign-up email the organizer Robin Gow at robinfgow@gmail.com
(This workshop is on a first-come first-serve basis)
About the organizer:
Robin Gow grew up in rural Pennsylvania and now lives in New York where they are an adjunct professor and MFA candidate at Adelphi University. They also run the trans & queer reading series Gender Reveal Party.
Robin Gow is the author of the chapbook HONEYSUCKLE by Finishing Line Press and their first full-length poetry collection (OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DEGENERACY) is forthcoming with Tolsun Books.
Currently, they are a managing editor The Nasiona and Editor at Large of Village of Crickets. They served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine and are Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. They has also worked to help produce several zines.
They are an out and proud bisexual genderqueer man passionate about LGBTQIA+ issues. They are also a proud neurodiverse person.

Postponed: 3 (Trans) Lives
2020-03-14 19:00 - 21:00
This event has been postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic. We will reschedule the event, so please check back for updates.

How can the writing of trans lives move beyond the confessional memoir? Three different writers with three different trans lives and three different styles read selections from current or forthcoming works that push the boundaries of what trans writing can become. Featuring Jamie Hood, Jeanne Thornton, and McKenzie Wark.

Copies of McKenzie Wark‘s recently published Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotext(e)) will be available for purchase. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

• Jamie Hood (@veryhotmomm) is a poet, bartender, chronic over-sharer, and dog mom in Brooklyn. Her most recent work has been published by Peach Mag, Rumpus and New Inquiry. She’s finishing a book of poems, lyric memoir, and other miscellany on sexual assault and rape culture, called RAPE GIRL.

• Jeanne Thornton (@manwhohatesfun) is the author of The Black Emerald (Instar 2017), The Dream of Doctor Bantam (O/R Books 2012) and co-editor of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology (Stacked Deck, 2018), all Lambda Literary Award finalists. She is the co-publisher of Instar Books. Her next novel, Summer Fun, is forthcoming from Soho Press.

• McKenzie Wark (@mckenziewark) is the author of some books, including Capital is Dead (Verso 2019) and most recently, Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotexte 2020). She teaches at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Social Research.

Postponed: NYC Queer Comic Fair 2020
2020-04-11 13:00 - 19:00, 2020-04-12 13:00 - 19:00
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Bureau is closed until further notice. We hope to reschedule our late March and April events once we are able to reopen. Stay tuned!

The NYC Queer Comic Fair enters its 4th year with a Kickstarter funded in one hour! The event is a no admission showcase of queer-identified artists working in illustration, comics, and visual storytelling. The goal of the fair is to extend the reach and audience of the artists, and to provide a place where queer people can go to find and distribute art that represents them.

The 4th annual NYC Queer Comic Fair (NYCQCF) happens Saturday, April 11th, and Sunday, April 12th, from 1-7pm on each day. The NYCQCF is hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division inside the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.

Starting as a single-day fair inspired by the New York Queer Zine Fair, event creators, Bubba of WabiSabiZinez and Pat Reilly of Comics by Patrick, sought to fill a gap in the queer arts community – comic books. While the first fair focused solely on comics and graphic novel, each year they have expanded the scope of what is included: photo essays, illustration, illustrated poetry, children’s books, and coloring books are among the types of work now included. Bubba said, “we want to showcase the diversity of the medium, that is, of creating a conversation or narrative between words and images.”

The fair has now expanded to a two-day event. Bubba said, “while the we have extended the number of days, we have chosen to stay in a small venue.” He says that the NYCQCF wants to stay in queer spaces, specifically those dedicated to supporting the arts. He adds, “the Center is historic, and the Bureau is a great host! Why leave when they have everything we need: a coffee shop, gender neutral bathrooms, and a fantastic Keith Haring mural for attendants to see!”

The NYCQCF has been covered by Hornet.com and The Comic Book Bears Podcast, with promotional events and signings happening at Carmine Street Comic inside Unoppressive Non-imperialist Bargain Books in the Village and for the New York City Anarchist Book Fair. Bubba says, “as a member of the queer community, I think it is important to collaborate and crosspollinate. We need to support each other’s events, meet new people, create a web of connections. That’s what we are doing here; yes, it is one event, but we talk to people at other fairs, other bookstores, anywhere we can.” Bubba adds that the NYCQCF relies on participants and attendants to bring in the kinds of creators they want to see; he asks that artist suggestions be sent via Instagram, and that if anyone wants to stay current with signup announcements, they follow WabiSabiZinez on Kickstarter.

The event is free and open to the public.

Find the NYC Queer Comic Fair on Instagram and Facebook.

Contact: Bubba – wabisabizinez@gmail.com

Shh! I'm Listening...
2020-04-17 18:30 - 20:00
Shh! I’m listening…
Friday, April 17, 2020
6:30 p.m.

RSVP required. A link to the meeting will be sent prior to the event.

New York Queer Zine Fair, Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, and The LGBT Community Center are happy to present Shh! I’m listening…

This virtual event brings together four queer zine makers to share their work. Expect fun visuals and text that is informative, inspiring and maybe even a little titillating.

Presenters include:

Elvis B.
Creator of the long-running “Homos in Herstory” comics zine, which includes flashes of queer history over the century. They are also the co-founder of the NYC Feminist Zinefest, and deeply excited about the potential for queer, feminist creativity in these unusual times.

Luis Martin / The Art Engineer
Artist, podcaster and New Age capitalist

Kel R. Karpinski of Queer Sailors zines
Queer zinester and librarian, researching and making zines about queer sailors, Times Square and film. Kel also co-organizes the NY Queer Zine Fair.

Paul Moreno
Queer artist, zine maker, designer and other co-organizer of NY Queer Zine Fair. He also awaits the postponed opening of his exhibition “Problem Areas” at the Bureau.

Side note: We promise to try to not discuss COVID-19; we all need a break.

Postponed: Anatomies of Want: The Queer Desires of Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills
2020-04-25 19:00 - 21:00
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Bureau is closed until further notice. We hope to reschedule our late March and April events once we are able to reopen. Stay tuned!

Poets Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills guide us through the terrain of wanting—from carnal to familial, satiation to longing—reading from their oeuvres including works from their most recently published books Anatomy of Want (Lee), Objects In This Rearview Vol 02: The Roads in Me (Montez), and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (Mills).
Copies of these three titles will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

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

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

Stephen S. Mills is the author of the Lambda Award-winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices (2012) as well as A History of the Unmarried (2014) and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (2018) all from Sibling Rivalry Press. He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, The Rumpus, and others. He is also the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award and the 2014 Christopher Hewitt Award for Fiction. Two of his books have been placed on the Over the Rainbow List compiled yearly by the American Library Association. He lives in New York City with his partner and two schnauzers. Visit his website at: www.stephensmills.com

TELL 61: 2020 / A Virtual Event
2020-05-09 18:00 - 20:00 | 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.
2020 is the theme of the 61st TELL, on Saturday, May 9, 2020, 6 to 8 PM (EST). Featuring stories by Christy DeGallerie, David Reyes, Buzz Slutzky, and Renair Amin.

The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.

Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register for the event on eventbrite.

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.

Becoming a vessel of healing wasn’t an easy process for the Pink Love Specialist, Renair Amin. The person she is today has survived addiction, family tragedy, sexual assault, depression, grief, divorce, religious trauma and domestic violence. From those experiences, Renair penned four books – Mental Silhouette, Domestically Cursed, Pit Crew: How to Survive a Spiritual Pit Stop and Come with Me, Love: A 21-Day Journey into the Song of Solomon for couples. A life and relationship coach, she has also had the privilege of speaking across the nation helping others find Pink Love in their lives. In 2018, she was given the esteem honor of being named “Miss Full-Figured USA Miss Congeniality.” Renair completed her Doctor of Ministry degree from New York Theological Seminary in 2019.

Christy DeGallerie is a writer, actor, producer, and host of the podcast It’s Not Me It’s You.

David Reyes is a Latinx American comedian from New Jersey. By day, he helps people regain control of their sexual health as a lead on Roman’s Care Team, a health start up that helps people suffering from erectile dysfunction. By night, he’s telling jokes and performing improv wherever they’ll let him. He enjoys long walks on the beach and watching people trip.

Buzz Slutzky is a non-binary transgender artist, writer, and performer whose practice incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture, and video. Their visual art and writing often play between autobiographical and historical content. Lately, they’ve been drawing mashups between instructional manuals. As a performer, Buzz has mixed stand-up comedy and musical comedy under the persona Stoni Butchell, among others. They currently teach film and art to 18 year olds at CUNY College of Staten Island and SUNY Purchase College.
