BGSQD

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

Flyer design: Sara Rabin @ssarabin

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

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

Photo by Kali Spitzer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feminism and Psychoanalysis

Instructor: Paige Sweet

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

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

Course Schedule

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

$315.00*

Registration is required. Please click here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sucking Straight Dick and Fighting for Gay Rights
2019-12-19 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A Rare and Very Important Intergenerational Dialogue Between August Bernadicou (25) and Gene Fedorko (77)

GENE FEDORKO participated in his first Civil Rights protest in 1963 and was a crucial member of ACT UP. He is a medical professional, caregiver, art collector, curator, sexual explorer and Downtown fixture.

AUGUST BERNADICOU is the founder of The LGBTQ History Project. Since he was 14 years old, August has been recording and transcribing interviews with gay elders from the 1950s through the AIDS Crisis. To date, he has done 200 interviews.

TELL 59: Turn On(s)
2019-12-21 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.
Turn On(s) is the theme of the 59th TELL, on Saturday, December 21, 2019. Featuring stories by Cecilia Gentili, Diana Oh, and Nina Ki.
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.

Nina Ki is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright who uses fantasy and magical realism to give voice to the communities that she belongs to. Originally from California, she now lives with her partner and three dogs in Brooklyn. She likes her dogs better than most people.

Diana Oh (they/she) is a multi-genre performer, singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and creator of performance, installation, concert-ritual, and party. An open channel to the art that feels good to their body. A feeder of the soul. A non-conforming free spirit. Passionate about decolonizing & queering processes, Diana is driven most by pleasure, mutual care, and keeping things heart-centered. As a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ Influencer, the First Queer Korean-American interviewed on Korean Broadcast Radio, a TOW Fellow (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Van Lier Fellow in Acting (Asian American Arts Alliance), Venturous Capital Fellow, Sundance Institute Fellow, writer with The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit and EWG, Williamstown Theatre Festival Artist-in-Residence, Oh tours with their art in unexpected spaces and enjoys not fitting into boxes. Oh is the creator and performer of {my lingerie play} with national underground installations and concert staged in an effort to provide a safer, more courageous world for women, queer, trans, and non-binary humans to live in, CLAIRVOYANCE (her yearlong installation and concert series in Harvard Yard, the Boston Public Library, Institute of Contemporary Art, Harvard Arboretum and A.R.T.), The Infinite Love Party: an intentional barefoot potluck dinner, dance party, and sleepover for QTPOC and Their Allies (Bushwick Starr), Asian People Are Not Magicians (mic.com) and My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (The Public Theater). TV/FILM: Queering, How to Be Single, NY is Dead (Tribeca Film Fest), Hey Yun (feat. on Janet Mock), Unicornland. The New York Times calls Oh “irreverent,” her best friend calls her “the punk goddex,” you can call her “friend.”

Cecilia Gentili is the founder, principal and owner of Transgender Equity Consulting.
Originally from Argentina, Cecilia found her passion for advocacy and community service when she started working as an intern at the LGBT Community Center in New York City. She served on the staff of Apicha Community Health Center between 2012 to 2016, where she managed the Transgender Health Program. She then served as the Director of Policy at GMHC, the world’s first and leading provider of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy.
Cecilia is also contributor to Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community, and a board member for Translatina Network. Throughout her career, Cecilia has trained more than 3,000 individuals on a range of issues that include LGBTQ inclusion, immigration, drug use, sexual health, trans sensitivity, and intersectionality. She has worked with city, state and federal governments, non and for profit organizations, helping organizations bring about lasting and meaningful change.
For fun, she loves performing at storytelling and stand-up comedy events where she talks about her life experiences as a Latina transgender woman. She played the role of Ms. Orlando on the acclaimed television series POSE, a drama on FX that follows the live of TGNCIQ New Yorkers in the ball room scene of the 1980s.
Cecilia has been a tremendous inspiration to our translatinx members and our TGNCIQ Justice organizing committees. She has helped us elevate the fight to decriminalize the sex trades in New York, to fight for undocu-trans communities' access to legal representation that is culturally competent, and to push for essential services in NYC that center Trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming and queer communities.

Book Launch: Playing Monogamy by Simon(e) van Saarloos
2020-01-08 19:30 - 21:00 | NY
Love is love, but not really. To recognize love as love we need comprehensible images. What are those contemporary images that help us identify love and how could we identify love differently, figuring it as less defined by safety procedures, measured commitment and feelings of ownership and entitlement? Playing Monogamy refuses to see personal relationships as safe havens where people can hide from the precarities of society, and instead proposes to make public life more intimate and romantic.

Through a contemporary rereading of the cult of monogamy, Van Saarloos playfully queers the way in which the structure of monogamy is upheld through social convention within Western contexts. Written for more of a lay audience, the book proposes an expanded and polyamorous engagement with intimacy and sexuality as a possible alternative.

After a tour through the US and Canada in September, writer Simon(e) van Saarloos now lands in NYC to launch their book at the Bureau. After an introductory talk, there will be ample time for a Q&A and an exchange.

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

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“Playing Monogamy pushes for the bolder and deeper challenges to our current systems of family, relationships and intimacy. The time is right for this book and this argument. Simon(e) van Saarloos’s elegant account of romance, love and sex outside of the couple form allows us to imagine life beyond the iron grip of monogamy.”
— Jack Halberstam, author of Gaga Feminism

“It is a thrill to live at a time when words and the ideologies that underpin them have re/entered the vernacular. Playing Monogamy puts patriarchy, capitalism, and monogamy – long unquestioned pillars of “the way things are” – to the test, unpacks them and declares them the faulty defaults they are. Simon(e) van Saarloos writes urgently and poignantly for all of us who refuse to play along with those defaults. Playing Monogamy teases out the privilege and the power that underpin assumptions of how intimacy should behave. It tempts and challenges those who have long chafed under them: come out and play!”
— Mona Eltahawy, author of The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls

“Monogamy and other prevailing models of romantic coupleship will be dethroned as biological ideals, must be disrupted as norms or we will continue to do harm within their default capitalist framework. We must love more, own less. Use this book as a deprogramming tool, use it quick.”
— Viva Ruiz, founder of Thank God For Abortion

Simon(e) van Saarloos (1990, Summit, New Jersey) is a writer, philosopher and performer living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They published several books in Dutch including Ik deug / deug niet (a collection of columns originally published in the Dutch national news- paper NRC), De vrouw die (a novel about a molecular biologist running the NYC marathon in a burqa), Enz. Het Wildersproces (a feminist and queer report of the trial against the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders) and Herdenken herdacht, a non-fiction work about queer forgetfulness, white erasure and embodied commemoration. Simon(e) also writes and performs theatre and regularly appears on stage as a lecturer and interviewer. Currently, they are a MA student at the Dutch Art Institute. Their recent artist residencies include the Deltaworkers in New Orleans, the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience in Delft and at IKSV in Istanbul.

This book is printed by Publication Studio (founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2009) prints and binds books one at a time on-demand, creating original work with artists and writers we admire. “Working within an international network of eleven sister studios—who together share in the weight of global distribution—we use any means possible to help writers and artists reach a public: physical books, an online library, eBooks and unique social events with our writers and artists in many cities.”

Closing Reception: Queer|Art Karaoke Party
2020-01-09 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
To close out the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual, we invite you to join us for Queer|Art’s first-ever karaoke “recoupment” party, hosted by Candystore and Ripley Soprano. Make a donation, grab the mic, and ring in the new year with us—all proceeds will be shared among the graduating Fellows to help offset expenses incurred in the process of making their work this year!

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This event is part of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual, curated by current Fellow Jeanne Vaccaro and titled “How do we know what we need you to know: Intimate access and collective care.” The exhibition will present across multiple formats and locations (including The LGBT Community Center, Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, Movement Research, and La MaMa E.T.C.) new work by the graduating Fellows of the 2018-2019 Queer|Art|Mentorship program: J. Bouey, Candystore, Daniel Chew, Xandra Clark, Sarah Creagen, Cristóbal Guerra, Russell Perkins, Ripley Soprano, and Natalie Tsui. Learn more at www.queer-art.org/qam-annual

The New Masculine: Poetry Reading & Open Mic
2020-01-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A poetry reading and discussion led by Robert Gibbons and Austin Alexis. Open mic for anyone who identifies as masculine or non-binary.

New York-based performance poet, native Floridian, recent MFA graduate and Cave Canem Fellow Robert Anthony Gibbons takes us on a transcontinental and transformative voyage, sweeping and spectacular, across the United States in search of America and self in his recent poetry collection FLIGHT published by Poets Wear Pradain 2019. His critically acclaimed debut collection Close to the Tree was released by Three Rooms Press in 2012.

Austin Alexis is the author of Privacy Issues, winner of the 20th Annual Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, and also two chapbooks, both published by Poets Wear Prada: Lovers and Drag Queens (2007) and For Lincoln and Other Poems (2010). His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of journals, including Kansas Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Barrow Street , The Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, The Big Spoon (Ireland), Red River Review, Candelabrum Poetry Magazine (Britain), The Arts Cure, Tuesday Shorts, Poetry Now, Lips, Danse Macabre and others.

"The Son Will Rise In December" with Eddie Pabon
2020-01-11 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Meet Eddie Pabon, author of The Son Will Rise In December

Eddie Pabon has devoted over 15 years implementing, building, and sustaining behavioral health programs to diverse populations and communities in NYC. After a lifetime of homelessness, abandonment and abuse, Eddie became deeply passionate about connecting with and inspiring others to overcome health disparities, poor support systems and habitual self-destructive behavior.

As a peer educator at People of Color In Crisis from 2004-06, he traveled to the CDC in Atlanta twice to assist in the development of structural change initiatives for youth. Eddie has collaborated with Human Relations Media to produce an educational video for HIV/AIDS prevention hosted by rapper and actor Bow Wow. During this time he sat on the Planning Board for the official NYC Black Pride events.

As a Public Ally in 2007, he dedicated 1700 volunteer hours in 10 months for which he received the “Spirit of Diligence in Service Award”. From 2007 – 2015 he worked as a CASAC at Services For The Underserved. There he directly served in multiple substance abuse programs, managing homeless shelters, and providing care coordination in correctional settings in collaboration with the Department of Corrections and Department of Health.

Eddie noticed a clear correlation between lack of education and support and unhealthy mental and physical health practices in youth causing cyclic traumatic outcomes like incarceration, disease, homelessness, mental illness and early death.

In 2015 He suffered a traumatic car accident and changed the course of his life by creating LaLecheDelArte.com where he photographs light and love in the moment. In 2018 Eddie became an author releasing “The Son Will Rise in December” a hit memoir he shares to inspire anyone facing significant hardship and trauma. Recently Eddie became a member of the Bronx Borough President’s LGBT Policy Task Force. Additionally he is Chairman of the Board to Public Allies NY supporting the mission to create a just and equitable society and the diverse leadership to sustain it. Currently Eddie provides youth groups, bookclubs, and motivational workshops around the world promoting messages of self-empowerment and LOVE.

When Queens Collide: The Theater of the Ridiculous
2020-01-16 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A Rare and Important Intergenerational Dialogue with the Theater of the Ridiculous: Tony Zanetta (73), Agosto Machado (70+?) and August Bernadicou (25).

The Theater of the Ridiculous was an early 60s Downtown NYC theater troupe whose impact shaped glam, rock, fashion and culture. Over 50 years later, Tony Zanetta and Agosto Machado are still ridiculous. The last of the radical actors, catch them while you can.

A Night of Poetry with Jasmin Gibson and Sam Corfman
2020-01-17 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Belladonna* presents a night of poetry with Jasmin Gibson and Sam Corfman.
Join Belladonna* at the Bureau for our first reading of 2020. Be there to welcome poets Jasmin Gibson and Sam Corfman, during a night of poetry and for the launch of two new chaplets on January 17th at 7pm.

Jasmine Gibson is a Philly jawn. She spends her time thinking about sexy things like psychosis, desire, and freedom. She is the author of Drapetomania (Commune Editions, 2015) and Don’t Let Them See Me Like This (Nightboat Books, 2018). She is a part of the editorial collective Pinko, magazine for gay communism.

Sam Corfman is a nonbinary poet from Chicago, living in Pittsburgh. Their first book Luxury, Blue Lace came out this past March, chosen by Richard Siken for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize; it received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it an “extraordinary debut…a work of rare beauty and thoughtfulness.” They are also the author of the letterpress chapbook, Meteorites (DoubleCross Press), an excerpt from a forthcoming second collection My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites, chosen by Cathy Park Hong for the Fordham POL Prize and forthcoming in Fall 2020.

Discover Queer Jewish Buddhist Kabbalistic Tarot! Book Launch
2020-01-19 15:00 - 17:00 | NY
How can you use tarot cards to take a 49-day Kabbalistic inner spiritual journey to greater wholeness and spiritual connection?
Mark Horn’s new book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation, is your guide to a highly unorthodox way to practice the traditional discipline of Counting the Omer. In this introductory discussion, you’ll learn how to use tarot cards to explore your inner blocks to free yourself from internalized homophobia, misogyny and racism. You’ll discover how to use the practice of counting days to gain insight into your personal life journey, so you can recognize and overcome any issues that hinder your growth and spiritual awakening (and if you count days in a 12-step practice, this will give you more tools deepen your journey). This will give you a new path for a greater connection to the Source of all life, no matter what spiritual tradition you practice.
Along the way, you’ll learn about the hidden historic connection between tarot and Kabbalah. We’ll look at how Pamela Colman Smith’s gender expression and sexuality in her life give us an unexpected way to relate to the images in the Waite-Smith deck. And we’ll look at how spiritual connection can lead to more effective political activism.

Copies of Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation 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!

Photograph by Rachell Morillo

Author of Tarot and the Gates of Light, Mark Horn received his first tarot reading at age 16. He started studying and reading tarot immediately.
In 1970, he became an activist in the post-Stonewall LGBT movement as one of the youngest members of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance. He has served as a Peer Counselor and board member of Identity House, New York’s all volunteer LGBT mental health center. He has also served on the board of NewFest, New York’s largest LGBT Film Festival He is the editor/writer of the Stonewall Seder liturgy, a ritual dinner celebrating Jewish Queer Pride, which has been used and adapted by congregations around the United States, as well as in Europe and Australia.
Mark has studied Kabbalah with academic, religious and practical teachers of Kabbalah in organizations ranging from the highly respected to the highly unorthodox. And he has studied tarot with many of today’s leading teachers. He has led classes at tarot conferences and meet-ups.
He is available for private instruction and consultation. You can reach him through his website, GatesOfLightTarot.com

Leather Art Retrospective
2020-01-24 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
The Leather Art Retrospective has been extended through February 23, 2020!

The brothers of Excelsior M.C. invite you to the opening reception of a gallery style exhibition showcasing some of the most famous artwork and photos taken over the past 45 years held at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, in room 210 of The LGBT Community Center. Proceeds benefit New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth. Ticket includes:

Event access
Complimentary admission to the Eagle NYC until 11pm
Complimentary drink ticket to The Cubbyhole
Variety of random prize drawings

$15 admission
Purchase tickets here.

New Alternatives increases the self-sufficiency of LGBTQ+ homeless youth and young adults by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives. They do this by providing long-term support, weekly case management, education services, life skills training, community-building recreational activities, opportunities for self-expression, and programs for HIV+ youth. New Alternatives’ guiding principles are those of harm reduction, youth development, and empowerment.

Excelsior M.C.’s Leather Art Retrospective will remain on view at the Bureau from January 24 through February 9, 2020.
The Leather Art Retrospective has been extended through February 23, 2020!

Poems Are Not a Luxury: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich
2020-01-28 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
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 | NY
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.
