BGSQD

regarding JEF+KEV//SIM: a Happening @ BGSQD
2014-07-30 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
An interactive and delusional commercial for the upcoming premiere of the play JEF+KEV//SIM. About Dahmer, midwestern queer traumas, and meth-fueled seropositivity sorcery, this happening gives a glimpse into the interconnected stories JEF+KEV//SIM presents. A pair of complimentary tickets will be rewarded to one lucky person for the intragalactic premiere of JEF+KEV//SIM. Written and performed by Randal Barnett.

Randal Barnett is an actor and artist from the Pacific Northwest. He is sometimes called RJ.

Emanuel Xavier hosts an evening with Studs
2014-07-18 19:00 - 22:00
Studs: Gay Erotic Fiction
Edited by Richard Labonte, foreword by Emanuel Xavier

The event will feature contributors:
Charlie Vazquez
Lee Houck
Sam J. Miller
Emanuel Xavier

Rough and surly, smooth and sultry, or quick and raw — however you like it, you’ll find it in Studs, 20 of the hottest and best-written man-to-man sex stories to appear in print this year. In “Underground Operator” two men on a nearly empty subway platform indulge in rough, anonymous sex that lets them momentarily forget the stifling summer heat. “Donuts to Demons” finds a self-described “rock-n-roll artfag” searching for a lover “as patient and gifted and generous as he advertised on Craigslist.”

Charlie Vázquez is a writer and freelance editor, as well as the director of the Bronx Writers Center and New York City coordinator for Puerto Rico’s Festival de la Palabra. He is the CCO of Editorial Trance, an e-publishing platform, and is currently working on a novel and accompanying short stories set in the Puerto Rican terror/suspense genre.

Lee Houck was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and, in 2014, celebrates 16 years of living in New York City. His poems, essays, interviews and stories have appeared online and in print in the US, France and Australia, and in three limited-edition chapbooks. His debut novel, Yield, was the winner of Project QueerLit 2008, and was published by Kensington Books in 2010. More at www.LeeHouck.com

Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lightspeed, Shimmer, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, The Minnesota Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He is a graduate of the 2012 Clarion Writer’s Workshop, a 2014 nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award, and the co-editor of Horror After 9/11, an anthology published by the University of Texas Press. Visit him at www.samjmiller.com

Emanuel Xavier is author of the poetry collections Nefarious, Pier Queen, Americano: Growing up Gay and Latino in the U.S.A., If Jesus Were Gay & other poems and the novel, Christ Like. An LGBT History Month Icon, he also edited the anthologies Me No Habla With Acento- Contemporary Latino Poetry and Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry. He appeared twice on HBO’s Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry and continues to perform regularly throughout the country and around the world as a spoken word poet. He selected finalists and wrote the foreword for Studs. www.emanuelxavier.com

Poetry Reading with Greg Wrenn, Billy Merrell, & Paul Legault
2014-07-17 19:00 - 21:00
Three emerging gay poets will read from their latest collections: Greg Wrenn (Centaur), Billy Merrell (Talking in the Dark), and Paul Legault (The Other Poems and The Emily Dickinson Reader).

Greg Wrenn is the author of Centaur (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). A Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, he has received the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and a Stegner Fellowship. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2014, The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book of linked essays about coral reefs, the impermanence of beauty, and human destiny. (gregwrenn.com)

Billy Merrell is the author of Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir (Scholastic, 2003), and co-editor of The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing about GLBTQ, and Other Identities (Knopf, 2006), which received a Lambda Literary Award. Merrell also writes for children, and is a contributor to Spirit Animals: Tales of the Great Beasts, part of the New York Times bestselling series. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Find him online at www.talkinginthedark.com.

Paul Legault is the author of three books of poetry: The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn 2010), The Other Poems (Fence, 2011), and The Emily Dickinson Reader (McSweeney’s, 2012). He co-edits Telephone Books, an imprint of Nightboat Books focused on works of radical translation. Currently he is a Writer in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis, and can be found here: www.theotherpaul.com.

Author Leslie L. Smith Reads from and Speaks about his new book Sally Field Can Play the Transsexual
2014-07-16 19:00 - 20:00
Author Leslie L. Smith will read from and speak about his new book Sally Field Can Play the Transsexual
A serio-comic tale of sex, loss, redemption and pharmaceuticals in the modern AIDS era, Leslie L. Smith’s Sally Field is a coming-of-age story about one lost soul on a journey to find himself and his community.
But it’s also a saga about the last 25 years of gay and AIDS culture. A volume of bruising honesty and heartfelt emotion, Smith’s novel takes an unflinching look at difficult questions: safer sex, barebacking, personal responsibility, current treatments — and why HIV has once more become a rising threat among gay men.

Leslie L. Smith received his MA in Educational Theater and a BA in Creative Writing, both at New York University.
His 1997 film “David Searching,” starring Anthony Rapp, Camryn Manheim, and Julie Halston, was screened at more than 65 film festivals across the world and also had a British release. “David Searching” now belongs to the permanent collection at the Outfest Legacy Project/UCLA film archive. A New York City theatre producer, Smith is a member of the League of Off-Broadway Theaters and Producers and previously served on the Administration Committee for the Lucille Lortel Awards.
Smith is the editor of “Leaving The Rest: Gay Men On Alcoholism, Addiction, And Sobriety,” available from Magnus/Riverdale Avenue Books. He has written for numerous publications, including Premiere, Movieline, OUT, POZ magazine and The Advocate.
The author divides his time between New York City and the Jersey Shore.

Bureau Book Club 1: Martin Duberman's Stonewall
2014-07-13 19:00 - 22:00
The Bureau Book Club is a home for freewheeling discussion about the books and the issues that captivate us. Inspired by the conversations that break out after so many of the Bureau’s more formal events, we’ll have a one-hour session each month about a different work of fiction or non-fiction. Buy the book from the Bureau and get a 10% discount. Come prepared with a favorite quote. The Book Club discussions will be moderated by Ben Miller.
This month’s book, inspired by Pride and by the thought-provoking Helix stickers being given out with all the Bureau’s books this month, will be Martin Duberman’s Stonewall. A work of history that explodes preconceived notions of how history must be written, this captivating and novelistic work tells the life stories of six of the key actors at the Stonewall Rebellion.
Ben Miller is a New York-based writer and student of history. Current projects include thesis research on early gay activist Harry Hay that has taken him to archives in California and conferences from Pennsylvania to New Mexico, an adaptation of an early Mozart libretto for performance at Carnegie Hall, and new short fiction influenced by his historical research. He is the 2014 winner of New York University’s Bessie and Louis Levy Prize for Excellence in American History, and the recipient of the Steffi Berne Research Scholarship in the Humanities from the same institution. His teachers in history and writing have included Linda Gordon, K. Kevyne Baar, Marcelle Clements, and Jonathan Safran Foer. His academic writing has appeared in Historian, College Film and Media Studies, and the Chicago Journal of History; and his short fiction has appeared in Brio, Studio on the Square, and West 10th. He is editor or co-editor of several publications, co-founder of Squid Ink Magazine (launching soon), and serves on the communications committee of the New York City Anti-Violence Project. He tweets @benwritesthings.

DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-edge Queer Artists JULY EDITION: Sabrina Chap, Rachel Kerry, Ted Kerr, and Betsy Housten
2014-07-12 19:30 - 22:00
Post-Clown Disaster, Ariel Federow and Cabaret Idiot, Sabrina Chap bring you this new works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
Ariel “Speedwagon” Federow will be your host this evening, presenting a very special book report sponsored by the Bureau.
Sabrina Chap will be performing the second half of her electric guitar radio musical, ‘Postcards from Nevermore’, visually scored by a projection from Anna Hovhannessian.
Betsy Housten will be reading a piece from her upcoming zine about queerness, quick fixes and questionable
choices.
Rachel Kerry will be performing The Heart Demands a Superhero Vogue Battle, A fierce spoken word/movement piece performed in spandex, masks, and at least 2 capes.

MORE TO FOLLOW: HOLD THIS SPACE!
Ariel “Speedwagon” Federow‘s work has been seen on Broadway, Lafayette, Houston, Chrystie, Fulton, N 6th, and other streets and avenue in NYC and beyond. Her stories, slideshows and slapstick have been seen places like LaMama ETC, Dixon Place, the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, Pussy Faggot, and Hey Queen! Company member: the Ballez and Butch Burlesque.
Deemed, ‘Rousing!’ by the New Yorker, Sabrina Chap is a writer, musician, cabaret artist and all around dilettante. Her latest album, the anthemic queer bonanza ‘We Are the Parade’ was deemed, ‘Joyous’ by the Advocate. She also edited the book, ‘Live Through This- On Creativity and Self-Destruction’, now with an intro by Amanda Palmer and essays by Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Swoon, Kate Bornstein and more. sabrinachap.com
Anna Hovhannessian is a filmmaker and editor. TV credits include a lot of sensationalistic murder shows and some talk show nonsense. Her film credits include in the documentaries ‘Bully’ (Tribeca premiere), ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’ (Boston Independent Film) and the short film ‘Happy Hour’. Her performance videography was featured in the dance production of ‘Echoes and Dreams’ (NYC Fringe Festival).
Betsy Housten is a Brooklyn-based queer femme writer, zinester, massage therapist, herbal medicine maker, tarot reader and astrology nerd. Her work can be read in such places as Hoax zine, Soon Quarterly and We’ll Never Have Paris, and has been seen at such places as Bluestockings, St Marks Books, Pete’s Candy Store and the How I Learned series. She most recently published issue 7 of her zine You Know Better.

Rachel Kerry is a director, writer, and designer interested in innovative, transmedia storytelling. She hosts the monthly East Village variety show Pop Culture Fondue! and is the artistic mastermind behind theatre/video company Brain Melt Consortium. Her work emphasizes devised movement, immersive environments, and the exploration of popular culture. Very often, her work features girls making out.

THE LATINA GURLESQUE: Monica McClure, Lucas de Lima, and Jennifer Tamayo
2014-07-11 19:30 - 22:00
¡OMDiosa!
Who let this “new grrly, grotesque, burlesque” poetics leak out of the border in a divine ooze of caliente pink?
Monica McClure’s debut collection, Tender Data, will be published by Birds, LLC this year. She is the author of the chapbooks, Mood Swing, from Snacks Press and Mala, forthcoming from Poor Claudia. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Tin House, Jubilat, Fence, The Los Angeles Review, The Lit Review, Lambda Literary Review’s Spotlight Series, The Awl, Spork and elsewhere. She curates Atlas, a collaboration series of visual artists and poets, and lives in New York City.
Lucas de Lima was born in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. He is the author of Wet Land (Action Books, 2014) and the chapbooks Ghostlines (Radioactive Moat) and Terraputa (forthcoming from Birds of Lace). A contributor to Montevidayo, he pursues doctoral studies in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jennifer BARRRRFFFF Tamayo is a New York-based performance artist, writer, and activist. She is the author of three collections of art and writing, most recently YOU DA ONE (Coconut Books, 2014). JT lives in Brooklyn and serves as the Managing Editor of Futurepoem.

David Pratt and Rafe Haze Read
2014-07-09 19:00 - 21:00
David Pratt reads from his sexy comic novel Looking After Joey. Rafe Haze reads from his hot (in more ways than one) new mystery, The Next.

David Pratt is the author of two novels, Looking After Joey (Wilde City) and Lambda Literary Award-winner Bob the Book (Chelsea Station) and a short story collection, My Movie, (Chelsea Station) He has directed and performed his work for the theater in New York City at the Cornelia Street Cafe, Dixon Place, HERE Arts Center, the Flea and the NY International Fringe Festival. David was the first American director of work by Canadian playwright John Mighton. He is currently working on two more novels and a novella for young people.

Rafe Haze was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives on the west side of New York City. Having worked for the legal compliance industry, fashion industry, music industry, art industry, and flesh industry (the most interesting people on earth have), his most life-changing employment was teaching Meisner Technique of Acting. He wrote himself out of one whopping funk with his debut novel The Next, and is ecstatically thankful for the entire, messy, beautiful cadence.
Rafe refuses to be handcuffed to one discipline only: he writes classical music for orchestra and small ensemble, country music songs, musical theater, plays, screenplays, and digs two-stepping, line dancing, and West Coast Swinging. Be it words, notes, or movement, the emotional origin, schlep, and endpoints are equally compelling and satisfying.
Rafe is grafeful to his twin brother (the straight one) who continues to make the slicing through this rambling, thorny life worthwhile.

ITNA PRESS Summer Readings
2014-07-02 19:00 - 22:00
An evening of reading performances by ITNA PRESS authors Slava Mogutin, Christopher Stoddard, and Prix de Flore winner Bruce Benderson (also reading on behalf of La JohnJoseph).
ITNA PRESS is a Brooklyn-based company dedicated to publishing honest works of American literature deemed too provocative for the mainstream.

Photograph by Michael Stipe
Slava Mogutin is the author of two monographs of photography published in the US and seven books of writings in Russian. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and featured in a wide range of publications, including i-D, Flash Art, Dazed & Confused, L’Uomo Vogue, Stern, and The New York Times. Food Chain is his first book in English.

Photograph by Leon Csernohlavek
La JohnJoseph is the author of the critically acclaimed solo memoir play Boy in a Dress. He’s performed at MOMA, the Royal Opera House, and across Europe, the US and the Middle East. He’s been published in The Gay Times Book of Short Stories, Bird Song, P.S. I Love You, Fat Zine, and 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves. Everything Must Go is his first novel.

Photograph by Daniel Moss
Christopher Stoddard is the founder of ITNA PRESS and the author of White, Christian (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010), chosen by the American Library Association for their 2012 list of commendable LGBT literature. His writing has also been published by Lambda Literary and Go Deeper Press. Limiters is his second novel.

Bruce Benderson is a novelist, essayist and translator whose most well-known book, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, was awarded the prestigious Prix de Flore in its French edition. Other publications include the essay collection Sex and Isolation, the novels Pacific Agony and User, and the story collection Pretending to Say No. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Libération and many other American and French publications. He regularly translates books from the French. His new book, Urban Gothic: The Collected Stories, is forthcoming from ITNA PRESS.

QP@QD: Drae Campbell Hosts a Queer Pride Party at Queer Division
2014-06-29 16:00 - 22:00
Tired of the crowds and corporate-sponsored floats at the Pride March? Come celebrate Pride on the Lower East Side at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division! Join Mistress of Ceremonies Drae Campbell and a smart and sexy crew of performers for a day of festivities surrounded by a stimulating array of queer books, zines, and art works.

Featuring performances by:
Kaitlyn Holland
Lady Quesa’Dilla
Shane Shane
Max Steele
Elsa Waithe

At 4 PM, Hanna Exel of the Queer Crisis Collective will be discussing the rainbow flag intervention that is based at the Bureau this week. For more info visit

www.queercrisis.tumblr.com

and https://helixqpn.tumblr.com/collectives.

Stickers of the flag are available at the Bureau with a purchase

How Much?
Option 1: $20 (includes unlimited drinks: mimosas, beer, wine)
OR
Option 2: $5 suggested donation (drinks available at cash bar, $5 each)
Both options guarantee you hours of entertainment in a queer oasis!

The Bureau is up 10 stairs and is not wheelchair accessible. We are happy to provide assistance to anyone who requests it–please contact us in advance at contact@bgsqd.com.
A gender-neutral bathroom is available at the Bureau.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, 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, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online and around town. www.draecampbell.com

Kaitlyn Holland is toy designer/lesbian comedian that can be spotted around the bushwick comedy scene. She’s throwing a benefit comedy show for breast cancer on june 24 at 8pm, The Titacular Extravaganza. Tickets are only 10 dollars and all proceeds go to the avon walk for breast cancer. She would love to see you all come.

Lady Quesa’Dilla AKA Alejandro Rodríguez– Alejandro is a native Tejan@ from the El Paso and Ciudad Juárez border. Their work is at the intersection of cultural identity, drag, and community. “The Brown Queen,” an autobiographical solo performance about growing up queer in the southwest, premiered at HERE Arts Center in the spring of 2010. Most recent solo performances include “My Tia Lupe” and “The Faggot in the Pink House”. He has performed in New York City, El Paso, Texas, and Chiapas, Mexico. Alejandro is a member of The House of Bushwig, as Lady Quesa’Dilla, duties include Volunteer Coordinator for the annual Bushwig Festival.
Alejandro can also be found as an Information and Referral Specialist at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in Manhattan; and as a Teaching Artist in The Bronx and Brooklyn.
Alejandro holds a BA in Theater from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, and a MA in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and is an alum from The Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics. Resides in Brooklyn.

Shane Shane is the gay dance music project of Shane O’Neill. He tours constantly and has shared the stage with such acts as Kool Keith, Har Mar Superstar, and Big Freedia.
He also plays in a band called Screamin’ Cyn Cyn & The Pons and occasionally does drag under the name Anita Lane Bryant.
He recently moved to Brooklyn where he likes to sew hideous costumes and eat mayonnaise-based salads.
He has a cat named Wanda and is so totally super gay.

Max Steele is a performer and writer living in Brooklyn. He has presented work at Dixon Place, the New Museum, Deitch Projects, BAM, Joe’s Pub, Envoy Enterprises, PPOW Gallery, UPenn’s Kelly Writers’ House, the Afterglow Festival and the Queens Museum of Art. He writes the psychedelic porno poetry zine Scorcher, and his writing has been featured in Dossier Journal, Spank, East Village Boys, Birdsong, Vice, Noisey, and Best Gay Stories 2014. He has been an Artist in Residence at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange since 2012.

Elsa Waithe is a 26 year old comedian from Norfolk, Va. She’s a 3x winner of the ViRginia Beach Funnybone’s Clash of the Comics. Comedian, Actor, Motivational Speaker, Epicenter of every awesome party, and Inventor of the Nike Swoosh.

Gays in The Great War Lance Ringel reads from his novel Flower of Iowa
2014-06-27 19:00 - 21:00
Writer Lance Ringel will read selections from his newly-released epic novel Flower of Iowa, a saga about World War I France in 1918 and two young soldiers – one from America, the other British – who unexpectedly find love together behind the battle lines. Chuck Muckle will sing songs from the period that appear in the book. In a Q&A afterwards, Ringel will examine the history of homosexuality in World War I.
The book is published as an e-book only and is available for purchase on the book’s site.

Reception at 7
Reading at 7:30
Suggested donation of $5 (No one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Beer, wine, and sparkling water will be available at a cash bar. Light snacks will also be available.

A journalist and writer for four decades, Lance Ringel has penned five novels and three plays. As editor of the Weekend section of the Taconic Newspapers in the Hudson Valley from 1996 to 1998, Ringel wrote theater and film reviews and maintained a weekly column. He served as Assistant Commissioner of Human Rights under New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Ringel currently resides in Poughkeepsie, New York, with his spouse of 37 years, actor-composer Chuck Muckle. Flower of Iowa is his first published work.

Something Way More Awesome: Trans Poets Perform
2014-06-25 19:00 - 22:00
A night of performance from a gaggle of sensational trans poets, featuring:

Phoenix Nastasha Russell

EC Crandall (and friends)

Charles Theonia

Paco Buenasnoches

Andy Eye

Cat Fitzpatrick

Charli Cleland

Mya Byrne

Kay Ulanday Barrett

J Mase III

Olympia Perez

Best Bi Short Stories--Book Release Party
2014-06-21 19:00 - 22:00
Best Bi Short Stories: Bisexual Fiction, edited by Sheela Lambert, is the first book of its kind, a literary anthology bringing together the very finest representations of bisexuality in fiction. This anthology offers a smorgasbord of genres that show bi characters through their own unique prism. Tonight’s reading will include:

Cecilia Tan: Dragon’s Daughter -speculative fiction

Sheela Lambert: Memory Lane -contemporary fiction

Kate Dureé: Companions -historical fiction-Medieval England

J.R. Yussuf: Face to Face -contemporary fiction

Florence Ivy: The Lottery -magical realism

Ann Herendeen: Pride/Prejudice -historical fiction-Regency England

Cut the Haters: a Showcase by Papercut Press
2014-06-20 19:00 - 23:00
In celebration of NYC Pride, Papercut Press is bringing together five queer artists who are bucking the system and creating their own ways to share their stories and art. The night marks the launch of the second edition of Max Schnuer‘s Estuaries #1, a hand-crafted comic book about the Staten Island Farm Colony, a former poorhouse that’s now a complex of ruins in New York City’s “forgotten borough.” Schnuer is joined by Acker Award winner Rami Shamir, the author of TRAIN TO POKIPSE, as well as writers Jillian McManemin and Francesca Normille and singer songwriter Frances Rex.

Lois Walden: Afterworld
2014-06-19 19:00 - 21:00
Lois Walden reads from her new novel, Afterworld. Meet four generations of the Duvalier family for whom sugar cane is both their blessing and their curse. From patriarch Carter, who perishes before the novel begins after being hit in the head by an exploding manhole cover, to his indomitable holy-roller wife, Lily, to their dysfunctional sons, Winston and Steven, and relations both dead and alive. Their story is rich, tragic, and funny. It steams and heaves with sugar, sex, drink, deviance and depravity.

Lois Walden is an American writer, singer, songwriter, librettist, record producer, performer, and teaching artist. The author of the novels One More Stop and Afterworld Lois Walden worked as a television writer in Hollywood with many major artists including Dionne Warwick, and Jane Fonda. As founder of the gospel group, The Sisters of Glory, she performed at Woodstock ’94 and at the Vatican for the Pope. She co-produced the group’s critically acclaimed album, Good News in Hard Times, for Warner Bros., as well as writing and co-producing her solo album, Traveller.
She was the lyricist for American Dreams Lost and Found, based on the book by Studs Terkel. Her life and music have been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning and Good Morning America. Her debut novel, One More Stop was a Lambda Literary Awards finalist and a Waterstones New Voices finalist. For the past 15 years Lois has travelled America for The Acting Company teaching teenagers in small towns and inner city schools how to tap into their emotions and understand their world through classic theatre and literature. She is currently co-writing the libretto for the Buddhist opera Mila, Great Sorcerer, and working on her third novel, Beyond Expectation.

Can We Come to the Table? - Stories About Gender Identity, Gender Expression, & Sexual Orientation
2014-06-15 19:00 - 22:00
Please join In Our Words Project for an evening of drink and performance of real stories from real people.
Can people from disparate views on LGBTQ issues come to meaningful consensus on the subject? And if so, how? These questions are answered through stories transcribed from interviews with people In Our Words Project Founder Alan L. Bounville met when he walked across the country for gender and sexual orientation equality. Through environmentally inspired staging, our actors will share some powerful, funny, and inspirational stories.
No matter how long you stay, everyone is sure to get a sneak peek of this entertaining and impacting piece of theatre. And please, bring some friends!

This event will directly support our upcoming New York City world-premiere production of: Can We Come to the Table? – Stories about Gender Identity, Gender Expression, & Sexual Orientation. A requested donation of $10 will be collected at the door, but no one will be turned away for inability to pay.

To learn more about In Our Words Project, visit our website: inourwordsproject.org

Alan L. Bounville (Founder and Script Curator) is a progressive-minded theatre for social change solo-performer, director, educator, and collaborator. He is also a civil rights activist. Earlier in 2013, Alan completed a 6,000-mile walk across North America to raise awareness for equality based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. During the walk he performed a solo interview-based play, When People Lead and now produces theatre, which is both engaging and designed to aid in social change efforts on a host of subjects.

Ron Dizon is native NYer and a graduate of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting Conservatory. Theatre credits include: Miss Saigon (Riverside Theatre); The Spanish Tragedy (Page / Genesis Repertory – Spotlight-On Awards Nominee: Best Supporting Actor); A Chorus Line (Paul/Broadhollow Regional Theater); The Choice (Charles/TNC’s Dream-Up Festival); Brecht in the Park (Elephant Run District); Glass Menagerie (Tom/ButterflyTheatre Co.). Ron has also performed at the Duplex in his sold-out one man show Transactions of Love and played Peaches in Simpatico – The Web Series. He starred in the indie film Rooftop Heist – which premiered at the 2012 Big Apple Film Festival, and can be seen next in the upcoming comedy short film, A Box Came to Brooklyn. www.rondizon.com

Adrian Gebhart (Actor) I’m a theater/film performer, as well as theater educator originally from Berkeley, CA. I’m especially interested in theater and film that is new, experimental, and/or LGBTQQIA-themed.

Ron Grimshaw (Director) is a New York based director, designer, and producer. Most recently Ron produced and directed Coffee/Evil, a new work as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Ron is also a founding member and artistic director of New York based ManTown Productions.

Beth Hintze (Intern) is a master’s candidate in Educational Theater in Colleges and Communities at The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Beth is a 2010 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Theater Production and History. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, games, and traveling.

Beth Maria is a working art teacher, musician, and stand up comedian.

Courtney Nolan Smith is thrilled to be a part of Can We Come To The Table? Originally from Massachusetts and a graduate of the University of Miami (BFA: Musical Theatre), she has performed with: Sierra Repertory Theatre, Ocean State Theatre Company, Cape Rep Theatre, Bristol Valley Theatre, Boston Children’s Theatre, Mt. Washington Valley Theatre Company and The Theatre Barn. Favorite credits include: PICk Love at The Rochester Fringe Festival, Cats (Grizabella), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Jolene), The Marvelous Wonderettes (Cindy Lou), The Full Monty (Estelle) and Enchanted April (Caroline). Thanks to Alan and Ron! www.courtneynolansmith.com

Book Launch for Pamela Sneed's Lincoln
2014-06-14 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for the launch of Pamela Sneed‘s latest chapbook of poetry, Lincoln. Pamela will read from Lincoln and other new work, and will sign copies following the reading.

Pamela Sneed is a New York based poet and actress, featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out, Bomb, VIBE, and on the cover of New York Magazine. She is author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, published by Henry Holt in April 1998 andKONG and other works published by Vintage Entity Press 2009. She has performed original works for sold out houses at Lincoln Center, P.S. 122, Ex-Teresa in Mexico City, The ICA London, The CCA in Glasgow Scotland, The Green Room in Manchester England, and BAM cafe. She has headlined the New Work Now festival at Joe’s Pub/Public Theater. In 2013, she performed at Central Park Summer Stage, The Whitney Museum of Art, Columbia University’s, “Geographies of Mass Incarceration.” In 2011, she performed in South Africa, in collaboration with the women’s organization FEW. She is a guest faculty member at Sarah Lawrence teachingWriting for Solo Performance and Solo Performance in Production. Her work is included in The 100 Best African American Poems edited by Nikki Giovanni. Her recent publications include work in Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays, Future Perfect, and LIU Teaching Narratives.

“Pamela Sneed’s latest ode breathes history, poetry, intellection, and mystery into the mouth of the world, making us, along with her characters and sensibility, sing, and sing.”

Hilton Als, Staff Writer, The New Yorker

What Is Queer Performance? Marissa Perel Workshop
2014-06-14 11:00 - 23:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com. Curated by Li Cata.
MARISSA PEREL / SAT JUNE 14TH / 11A – 1P

Touching Into Text
This class will combine somatic awareness with reading to create an embodied approach to understanding language. For each class a short selection of text will be presented for reading and discussion. Through exercises that draw from various somatic practices, and experiments made up by the instructor and participants, the class will play with ways of feeling language; bringing words and their meanings into an intimate experiential sphere. There is room in this class for contemplation, finding an individual pathway for movement and speech, and for giving space to the often daunting mind-body split. It’s possible that we will get emotional about language, that we will love or not love how some texts feel, and that we will invent radical interpretations of what we read. We will investigate who we are as bodies that are simultaneously reading and being read by others. The desired outcome of this class is that participants find possibilities for integrating language and movement in their artistic processes. Texts include selections from Judith Butler, Gregg Bordowitz, Susan Sontag, Faith Wilding, and Lucy Lippard among others

bio
Marissa Perel is an artist and writer based in New York. Her interdisciplinary work includes performance, installation, criticism and curatorial projects. She often uses collaboration as a platform for the exchange of disciplines, working methods and discourses with choreographers, composers and visual artists. She is interested in drawing from the polemics of identity and representation to create compositional models for performance and installation. She orchestrates an immersive world where text, objects, dance and video transmit experiences of personal and societal conflicts. Her materials are cathected objects, cues that connect an immediate physical and psychic state to past events. Her work has been shown at numerous galleries, theaters and performance spaces in the U.S. and abroad.
Perel asks, “How do we move across space and time with respect to our collected histories?” Her essays, reviews, experimental prose and interviews engage this question at the convergence of the fields of contemporary art and performance. She originated the column, “Gimme Shelter: Performance Now” for Art21 Magazine and edited Critical Correspondence, the on-line dance and performance journal of Movement Research. She also pursues this question in her curatorial work, seeking to bring visibility to a multitude of forms and discourses. She has curated performances, panels and talks at such venues as the New Museum, New York Live Arts and at the Aux Performance Space at Vox Populi where she recently served as Curatorial Fellow.

What Is Queer Performance? iele paloumpis workshop
2014-06-13 19:00 - 21:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com.
iele paloumpis / FRI JUNE 13TH / 7P – 9P

Witchcraft – A Corporeal Practice
Over the past two years, changes in my health and body shifted the ways I approach dance and daily life. Without concrete answers from doctors or various bodyworkers, I began looking to witchcraft and earth-based rituals as somatic practices of integration, acceptance and healing. I’ve also been thinking a lot about how all bodies – whether elderly, disabled, or otherwise “different” – can enter into dance. For this workshop, we will look to magical herbs, astrology and the lunar calendar, as well as our own unique and defiant bodies, to generate restorative movement. Come with an awareness of something you might like to shed, heal and/or embrace.
Please contact me if you have any accessibility needs, including allergies/sensitivities to various herbs and smells. Also, if you are pregnant/breast feeding and wouldn’t mind sharing this information with me, I would like to touch base with you to make sure we’re on the same page about safer herbal usage. Email: dpaloumpis@gmail.com
This workshop is for anyone interested in connecting to their bodies. There will be time to improvise and make movement, but mostly I want to make sure folks get whatever they want out of this workshop. If dancing or improvising feels intimidating/not right in the moment, participants can engage in other equally valid ways (i.e.: through writing, drawing, observing etc). Generally, I will encourage everyone to take part in a group improvisation/movement practice (simply because I think feeling our bodies in motion is so important), but this can manifest in multiple ways and it’s totally at your discretion. Overall, the goal during this workshop is to tune into our bodies in whatever ways feel good to us as individuals.
If you’re a writer/drawer – please bring a journal/sketchbook and something to write with.

Post-script: I am SO EXCITED to offer this workshop during a Full Moon on​ ​Friday the 13th! This will not happen again for another 35 years!

With 13 Moons in a Lunar Year, the number 13 is a sacred numeral with a queer, lesser-known herstory.​ ​The superstitious roots of 13’s​ ​bad reputation are hidden deep​ ​within Western patriarchy and misogyny (surprise, surprise) so we will work to unearth​ ​her​ ​true power. In Tarot, she is represented by the​ ​Death card and in numerology 13 is the number of upheaval, so​ ​that new ground can be broken.

Additionally, this Full Moon will be in Sagittarius helping us to focus our energies on freedom, spontaneity, higher consciousness, and a return to nature. Sagittarius rules the region of the body directly surrounding the hips, so we will move from and send healing energy to the sacral region of the spine, the coccygeal vertebrae, the ileum, iliac arteries, sciatic nerves, liver, femurs, thighs, and pelvis.

bio
iele is a disabled, trans*/queer dance artist, choreographer, and teacher. Their work has been presented in New York through Movement Research, New York Live Arts, the Flea, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Dixon Place, in Pennsylvania at the Painted Bride Art Center, FLUXspace, Studio 34, The Community Education Center, Vox Populi, and the Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival, in Maryland at the Lof/t, and in Connecticut at Franklin Street Works. iele has had the pleasure of dancing for niv Acosta, devynn emory, Jen McGinn, Emily Wexler and Nina Winthrop, among others. As an educator of 9 years, they’ve taught movement improvisation and composition, as well as dance theory and critique. iele has practiced various forms of neo-paganism since age 13 and is now exploring the immense healing properties of witchcraft and ritual as bodily practices. They have served on numerous panels and facilitated discussions centered on issues of identity, perception and performance. In 2010, iele was a co-recipient of The Leeway Foundation’s Art and Social Change Grant. They felt fortunate to be a 2012-13 Studio Series Resident Artist at New York Live Arts, as well as work under the mentorship of Trajal Harrell through the Queer Art Mentorship Program. This past December, they concluded a 2013 Fall Space Grant residency at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. At the center of their practice are ideas exploring body politics and artist self-empowerment. For more information visit https://about.me/iele.paloumpis.

What Is Queer Performance? Tatyana Tenenbaum Workshop
2014-06-13 11:00 - 13:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com. Curated by Li Cata.

TATYANA TENENBAUM / FRI JUNE 13TH / 11A – 1P

My work is invested in the perceptual borders between sound and space, voice and body. Sound touches us and we instantly reflect its volume, as we would sense another body’s muscle tone. For the singing body, this experience is self-reflexive—from physical preparation to vibration to sound to sensing and back again. Through an embodied practice, I am working to blur the lines between the awareness of sound production and that of movement. As I reinforce the foundations of interdependency, I simultaneously define the parameters that destabilize them on their own terms. I am not looking for an absolute relationship, but a fluid state of being that embodies the space in between.

bio
Tatyana Tenenbaum is a choreographer and composer whose practice examines the perceptual, musical and kinesthetic spaces connecting the voice and body. Her work has been presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research, Cabinet Magazine, Danspace Project, The Watermill Center, Center for Performance Research, Chez Buswhick, Pieter PASD, and AUNTS, among others. She is a co-organizer of NY-based organization CLASSCLASSCLASS and former dance curator at The Tank (2007 – 2009) where she curated and produced The Raw and the Cooked Show, a forum for interdisciplinary improvisation. She is co-curating the 2014 Movement Research Spring “fallow time” in collaboration with Elliott Maltby, Jennifer Monson and Alicia Ohs. She has engaged in creative processes with Yoshiko Chuma, Daria Fain, Jennifer Monson, Levi Gonzalez, Michele Torino Hower and Buck Wanner, among others. She received dual degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music.

What Is Queer Performance? Jaamil Kosoko Workshop
2014-06-12 19:00 - 21:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com. Curated by Li Cata.
JAAMIL KOSOKO / THURS JUNE 12TH / 7P – 9P

Queering Structures and Other Ways to Slant the Truth: a writing (and reading) workshop

This will be a writing/reading based workshop focusing on queer writers/artists while exploring the craft and techniques they use to rearrange normality as both a politic and creative tool for fearless self exploration.
BIO
Originally from Detroit, MI, Jaamil is a Nigerian American curator, producer, poet, choreographer, and performance artist currently based in New York City. He is a 2012 Live Arts Brewery Fellow as a part of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, a 2011 Fellow as a part of the DeVos Institute of Art Management at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and an inaugural graduate member of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University.
His work in performance is rooted in a creative mission to push history forward through writing and socio-political art advocacy. Kosoko’s work in live performance has received support from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through Dance Advance, The Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative, The Joyce Theater Foundation, and The Philadelphia Cultural Fund. His solo performance work entitled other.explicit.body. premiered at Harlem Stage in April 2012 and is currently touring nationally. As a performer, Kosoko has created original roles in the performance works of Nick Cave, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Keely Garfield Dance, Miguel Gutierrez and The Powerful People, Headlong Dance Theater among others. Kosoko’s poems have been published in The American Poetry Review, Poems Against War, The Dunes Review, and Silo, among other publications. In 2011, Kosoko published Notes on an Urban Kill-Floor: Poems for Detroit (Old City Publishing). He is a contributing correspondent for Dance Journal (PHL), the Broad Street Review (PHL), and Critical Correspondence (NYC). He has served on numerous curatorial and funding panels including the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Baker Artists Awards, among others.

What Is Queer Performance? Mariana Valencia Workshop
2014-06-12 11:00 - 13:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com. Curated by Li Cata.
MARIANA VALENCIA / THURS JUNE 12TH / 11A – 1P

“on the floor” is an improvisation. together we will define the space we make. i will present items in a room: bodies, objects, books, images, clothes, and sound. we will shape and arrange them and arrange ourselves among them. this is an improvisation, this is what happens when we think together; playfulness is at hand, imagination is at hand . spatio-temporal movement is at hand and on the floor.
BIO

Mariana is a dance artist who makes installations, garments and a zine called Rhinoceros Event.
Mariana travels for research, she’s been to Belize, Mexico, Guatemala and Denmark. Mariana has a BA from Hampshire College in dance and ethnography, she is based in New York since 2006 and works a day job at The Co-op School in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

What Is Queer Performance? Luke George Workshop
2014-06-11 19:00 - 21:00
Queer theory meets the queer body in these workshops. This smattering of queer artists bridges queer writing practices with queer bodybased practices. Drawing upon the varied performative interests and inspirations of the teaching artists, the workshops touch upon text, sound, witchcraft, impulse, free association, and movement.
These workshops are for folks with none to a lot of performance experience. Come see what inspirations and mini-spectacles are always-already burgeoning in your queer bodies.
Workshops are $10 each, all money goes to support the teacher and the space. Drop-in or take all of them. Space is very limited, so pre-registration strongly encouraged. Please send an email with your name and a quick tidbit about yourself to whatisqueerperformance@gmail.com. Curated by Li Cata.

LUKE GEORGE / WEDNESDAY JUNE 11TH/ 7PM – 9PM

For this workshop I am interested in exploring how we experience the unseen things in our bodies, in ourselves, that transmit between our body and others, and how this unfolds into a practice of performing and being seen, and then how being a performer is also being a maker, and being an audience.

We may or may not experience and explore:

mind
body
energy
sensing
touching
drawing
writing
talking
sounding
imaging
imagining
presence
presenting
‘reading’
perceiving
how we see body/s
how we are seen
experiencing our performing
performing our experiencing
the choreography of performing
the transmittance of information between bodies
firing into our intuition, imagination, criticality, receptivity and our playfully ferocious creativity
a field of enquiry that is about being a person, being a body, being a performer, being a watcher, being a maker, being queer.

BIO
Luke George is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts – Dance. He has been collaborating and performing on new works since 1999 by artists in Australia: Chunky Move, Stephanie Lake, Jo Lloyd, Shelley Lasica, and Phillip Adams BalletLab. Europe: Frances d’Ath (Berlin), Field Works (Brussels). Asia: ITOH Kim (Tokyo). United States: Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, K.J. Holmes, luciana achugar, Melinda Ring, Neal Medlyn, and Deborah Hay (solo commissioning project).

Luke is an artist working in dance and performance. He grew up in Tasmania and is based between Melbourne and Brooklyn. Luke identifies as a queer cisgender man. Luke makes his own performance work, as well as collaborating and performing in the work of other artists. His practice as a maker and performer is occupied with the interplay between the embodied and conceptual. In his work he is exploring energy and presence in relation to how we perceive ourselves, each other and the world around us. He is interested in the act of performance as both a collective and individual experience for both performer and audience, and in how things transmit between the two. He aspires to access multiple modes of performance and embodied knowledges in daring and unorthodox ways.

Meet the Author: Kenneth M. Walsh / "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful? A Memoir"
2014-06-07 19:00 - 21:00
An evening with blogger and journalist Kenneth M. Walsh — aka Kenneth in the (212) — who will discuss his new memoir, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?, in a lively Q&A with Tim Teeman, author of In Bed With Gore Vidal.
Kenneth M. Walsh is a writer, editor, and blogger in New York City. His popular site — Kenneth in the (212) —has been featured on the New York Post’s famed Page Six, Gawker, Romensko, BuzzFeed, New York magazine’s Daily Intel, Advocate.com, Out.com, and VH1’s Best Week Ever. In 2012 it was nominated for About.com’s Best Gay Blog Readers’ Choice award. A graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Walsh has a career in media that spans two decades, with reporting and editing gigs at The New York Times, The New York Post, The Orange County Register, and The Arizona Republic. He is a contributor to The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? is his first book.

Tim Teeman is a journalist, author and broadcaster. For many years he worked as an editor, feature writer, and interviewer for The Times of London, most recently as their US Correspondent. In Bed with Gore Vidal is his first book. He lives in New York City.

FANCY BOOK LEARNIN'
2014-06-06 21:00 - 2014-06-07 01:00
shane shane prezentz:
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FANCY BOOK LEARNIN’
at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
——————Performances by:
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XZX (chicago)
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TEENAGE STRANGLER (minneapolis)
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MERRIE CHERRY
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KAIONI
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ZOE LIGON
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with resident DJ TIMOTHY ALLEN LIVING kicking off your month of PRIDE! If you’ve been following the ignorant-assed conversations in your community happening on facebook, then you already know it’s time to LOG OFF and read a damn BOOK! And what better place to get one than the queerest book and art space in town, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division???

9:00 Doors

10:00 Performances

$6 suggested donation

ALL AGES

Dennis Altman Discusses His New Book The End of the Homosexual? with Christopher Bram
2014-06-05 19:00 - 21:00
Dennis Altman will discuss his new book The End of the Homosexual? and its links to his 1971 book Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. He will be in discussion with author Christopher Bram.

Dennis Altman is the son of Jewish refugees, and a writer and academic who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972. This book, which has often been compared to Greer’s Female Eunuch and Singer’s Animal Liberation was the first serious analysis to emerge from the gay liberation movement, and was published in seven countries, with a readership which continues today. [In 2012 University of Queensland Press issued a fortieth anniversary edition, and an anthology based on the book, After Homosexual, was published in 2014]
Since then Altman has written eleven books, exploring sexuality, politics and their inter-relationship in Australia, the United States and now globally. These include The Homosexualization of America; AIDS and the New Puritanism; Rehearsals for Change; Gore Vidal’s America and Fifty First State?, as well as a novel (The Comfort of Men) and memoirs (Defying Gravity). His book, Global Sex (Chicago U.P, 2001), has been translated into five languages, including Spanish, Turkish and Japanese. Most recently has co-edited Why Human Security Matters [Allen & Unwin] and his latest book, The End of the Homosexual? was published by UQP in August.
Altman is a Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (2001-5), and has been a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society and a Board member of Oxfam Australia. In 2005 he was Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard, and has been. He was listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever [July 4 2006], and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia June 2008. In 2013 he was awarded the Simon and Gagnon Award for career contributions to the field of sociology of sexualities by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sexualities.

Christopher Bram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia (outside Norfolk), where he was a paperboy and an Eagle Scout. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English). He moved to New York City in 1978.
His nine novels range in subject matter from gay life in the 1970s to the career of a Victorian musical clairvoyant to the frantic world of theater people in contemporary New York. Fellow novelist Philip Gambone wrote of his work, “What is most impressive in Bram’s fiction is the psychological and emotional accuracy with which he portrays his characters. . . His novels are about ordinary gay people trying to be decent and good in a morally compromised world. He focuses on the often conflicting claims of friendship, family, love and desire; the ways good intentions can become confused and thwarted; and the ways we learn to be vulnerable and human.” Bram has written numerous articles and essays (a selection is included in Mapping the Territory). He has also written or co-written several screenplays, including two shorts directed by his partner, Draper Shreeve.
His novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. (Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.)
Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001. In May 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in Greenwich Village and teaches at New York University.

Book signing - Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends (2nd edition)
2014-06-01 19:00 - 21:00
Brief talk and signing of the 2014 edition of the second book in Victoria Noe‘s Friend Grief series. Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends grew out of her involvement in Chicago’s AIDS community in the late 80s/early 90s. 25% of the sales (print and ebook) benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Victoria Noe began her career as a stage manager, director and administrator in addition to being a founding board member of the League of Chicago Theatres. She transferred her skills to raise money for arts, educational and AIDS service organizations, and later an award-winning sales consultant of children’s books. But after a concussion impacted her ability to continue in sales, she switched gears to keep a promise to a dying friend to write a book.

That book is now an award-winning series. The first three – Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives A Damn; Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends and Friend Grief and 9/11: The Forgotten Mourners were published in 2013. The next book in the series, Friend Grief and the Military: Band of Friends, will be published on Memorial Day, 2014.

Noe is a member of Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI), Chicago Writers Association and ACT UP/NY. Her freelance articles have appeared on numerous grief and writing blogs as well as Windy City Times, Chicago Tribune and Huffington Post. Her website, www.FriendGrief.com, was named one of the top ten grief support websites in 2012. You can follow her on Twitter @Victoria_Noe.

Poetry Reading with D. Gilson, Aaron Smith, and Randall Mann
2014-05-31 19:00 - 22:00
Join us for a special poetry reading with D. Gilson, Aaron Smith, and Randall Mann. Hosted by Lawrence Kaplun.

D. Gilson is the author of two chapbooks; Brit-Lit (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Catch & Release (Seven Kitchens Press). His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Indiana Review, Lambda Literary Review, Los Angeles Review & his book reviews appear on The Rumpus. He’s a Ph.D. student in American Literature & Culture at George Washington University, and lives in Washington DC.

Aaron Smith is the author of two books of poems; Appetite, and Blue on Blue Ground (both published by University of Pittsburgh Press). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Ecotone, Court Green, Gulf Coast, Witness, and other journals. He serves as Poetry Editor of Bloom, and teaches creative writing at Lesley University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Randall Mann is the author of three books of poems; Straight Razor (Persea Books), Breakfast with Thom Gunn (University of Chicago Press), and Complaint in the Garden. Booklist Magazine said, “readers would do well to recognize Mann’s place alongside poets like D. A. Powell, Marilyn Hacker, and Anne Sexton.” His poems have appeared in many journals including The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Literary Imagination, Subtropics, Salmagundi, and Poetry Magazine, which recently awarded him the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize. He lives in San Francisco.

Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins: Slide show, reading, and signing with Julia M. Allen
2014-05-30 19:00 - 21:00
Passionate Commitments is a dual biography of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins, life partners and labor journalists who were instrumental in establishing and maintaining the Labor Research Association in New York City during the mid-20th century. Julia M. Allen will present a slide show detailing their lives and will read selected passages from the book. Passionate Commitments received the 2014 Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, presented by the Publishing Triangle.

Julia M. Allen is Professor Emerita of English at Sonoma State University in California.

Opening reception for Diego Vela: Delicate Identity
2014-05-29 18:00 - 21:00
Join us for the opening reception of Diego Vela‘s exhibition Delicate Identity.

The exhibition will remain on view at the Bureau through Sunday, July 6.

The Bureau has extended the exhibition through Sunday, July 27.

Artist’s statement
My work is result of my thinking of identity in relation to what is considered to be the norm and what is considered to be beautiful. It reflects on the idea of what normalcy is and how society deems what that looks like. It is represented in the the human body, from the obviously sexual to the tormented physiologically. My imagery is based on photos of myself and my friends that are open to share a private moment with me. The paintings capture a moment of identity or identity forming.

Diego Vela lives and works in Harlem. He has shown at The Center NYC, and Gotham Gallery (New York City). He studied at the University of Mary Hardin Baylor in Texas, and at the American Intercontinental University in London.

Image:
Diego Vela
Thirteen 24″ x 30″
acrylic and human hair on canvas
completed 2004
A self portrait of the artist at thirteen.
