Queers4Change! A 2-Day Sale @ the Bureau!
2016-03-27 13:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Save the dates! The Bureau is having a big two-day sale on Saturday, March 26th, and Sunday, March 27th, during our regular store hours: 1 to 7 PM!
Deals and steals!

Union Square Slam presents STEVEN WILLIS and *NEW SH*T* Slam (Open Slam 3.5)
2016-03-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are beyond thrilled to welcome Steven Willis to the Union Square Slam stage!!! And don’t miss our very last New Shit slam of the season!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups
7:30pm: Open Mic and Feature
8:20pm: Poetry Slam
All Ages // $5
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

About our Feature:
Born and raised in Chicago Illinois, 23 year old Steven Willis uses his creative writing background to poetically reflect on the pop culture issues of our time. With art heavily influenced by urban life and religion, Steven mixes elements of hip hop and classic literature to help express his eclectic personal narrative. A recent graduate of Manhattanville College in Purchase, Willis began doing spoken word at the age of 15 as a participant of Louder Than A Bomb and has performed on stages with the likes Jasmine Mans and Joshua Bennett. Steven was Louder Than A Bomb University’s 2014 Individual Champion, is a contributing writer to the BreakBeat Poets Anthology and Manhattanville College’s Graffiti Magazine, a member of Nuyorican Poetry Team 2015, an Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and this past summer worked as assistant poetry writer for the film CoCo starring Jill Scott, Common, and Azelia Banks set to be released in Spring 2016.
About our Slam:
::NEW SHIT SLAMS::
New Shit is defined as:
– any piece of work that has not been heard on the USS mic.
– any work that has been on the USS mic that has been overhauled/edited (at least 50% new material)
We will take up to 8 poets in each New Shit Slam. The points you earn will be added to your total in the quarter (1,2 or 3) and help you in qualifying for that semifinal. Your participation in one New Shit slam, regardless of placement/score, meets your requirement for Final Stage Participation.
All slammers who are competing to represent Union Square Slam nationally in 2016 and beyond, at either IWPS, WOWPS, or as part of the Union Square Slam Nationals Team, MUST participate in BOTH a New Shit Slam and a Theme Slam at any point during the slam season. (9/14/15 – 4/28/15). You may compete in any or all of these slams, whether or not you intend to go out for the team, however, preference may be given to competitors that have qualified for Semis or Finals.

TELL 22: Nightlife
2016-03-31 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Nightlife is the theme of the twenty-second installment of TELL. Featuring Merrie Cherry, Sarah Jenny, Foxy Squire, and Gretchen Wylder.
$10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com

Photo by Santiago Felipe
Merrie Cherry reigns over the Brooklyn drag community with a sweet hand. She hosts, MCs, and plans events in the popping community and beyond. The creator of the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards she was set a new meaning of what is means to be a drag queen. With no plans to stop we can expect so much more from this cherry. Stay tuned!

Sarah Jenny is a queer, princess-identified, TMI-loving high femme and co-producer of Hey Queen!, a long running and award winning mixed queer party which highlighted emerging and established LGBTQ performers and artists. Her other nightlife credentials include but are not limited to: being crowned Miss Congeniality at Murray Hill’s Miss Lez Pageant (2009), Go Magazine’s 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards winner for Best MC, Miss August in the I Heart Brooklyn Girl Calendar (2008), $pread Magazine party producer (2007-2010), guest host (Muff Muff Give, Le Bingo with Murray Hill & Linda Simpson, Will Clark’s Porno Bingo, Psychic Spring), gogo dancer, burlesque performer, MC, event producer and fundraiser in at least two of the five boroughs and for a slew of non-profits and community based organizations.
Currently, Sarah Jenny manages a non-profit marketing program at an anonymous large non-profit and co-curates the annual Everybooty party at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, now entering it’s fifth season this June.
Sarah Jenny earned a B.A. from Hampshire College cultural studies and studio art and an M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she investigated the ways technology can be used to reduce HIV transmission and to improve the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS. In her free time she enjoys social justice projects, pre-war architecture, reading non-fiction and doting on her cats, Otto and Paloma. She resides in Ditmas Park.

After completing the burlesque class series by Deflouered Productions, Foxy Squire gathered her wits and talent to begin performing. Her first performance residence was Rivers of Honey Cabaret and she was a regular performer at Matthew Silver’s Circus of Dreams and Crimson Kitty’s Cataclysm. Her artistic skill has been shared both nationally and internationally in London (Bar Wotever), Connecticut, West Virginia, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts (WTF Queerlesque 2), North Carolina (Heavy Rebel Weekend), Georgia (DragonCon), Virginia, Florida, Washington DC (The Weirdo Show), Philadelphia (Fierce Festival 2015), and NYC (Hypergender Burlesque and Bushwig 2015). Foxy’s first headliner performance was in May 2013 at the DC Gurly Show (Washington, DC). In 2014, she was proud to be one of the original cast for NYC’s first all female drag show, Crimson Kitty presents FAUXVASION and DC’s Chocolate City Burlesque & Cabaret. She starred as Josephine Baker in J’ai Deux Amours and finished a 3-state tour as Lana Kane in An Archer Tribute show. Her motto is EMBRACE YOUR SPECTACLE.

Gretchen Wylder

Queering The Stage With Jack Shamblin
2016-04-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Jack Shamblin performs his book, Queering The Stage, via video-art, music and monologue. In his archive, we visit GLBT stories such as an eighteenth century transgendered female-to-male soldier, the Bowers v. Hardwick Supreme Court 1986 attempt to end sodomy laws that persecuted homosexuals, and the ACT-UP activist Tim Bailey, whose corpse was dumped on the White House lawn.
Produced in 90s Manhattan during Mayor Giuliani’s anti-art and nightlife agenda and the infamous Club Kid Murder, these performance-as-protest plays appeared at La MaMa, P.S. 122, Dixon Place, Mother, Jackie 60s; and the nightclub, Tunnel. Theatre artists, Kate Bornstein, Ellie Covan, and Theodora Skipitares were involved in original productions while working with playwright Caryl Churchill and director Anne Bogart influenced the storytelling.
In a front-page feature of The Jersey Journal, John Petrick writes about my play Sodomite! “Shamblin gets his message out in bold and unconventional ways. If it’s family entertainment you’re looking for, see The Lion King. If it’s cutting edge social commentary — often visually stunning — go downtown to KGB on East Fourth Street in Manhattan . . . ” “A fierce stage presences.”
Reception at 7PM, performance 7:30 PM – 8 PM, discussion 8 PM – 8:15 PM, and socializing till 9 PM.
$5 suggested donation to benefit the Bureau, or $15 donation includes admission plus autographed copy of book. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Photo of Jack Shamblin by Ian Miyawaki

Jack Shamblin writes:
In a front-page feature of The Jersey Journal, John Petrick writes about my play Sodomite! “Shamblin gets his message out in bold and unconventional ways. If it’s family entertainment you’re looking for, see The Lion King. If it’s cutting edge social commentary — often visually stunning — go downtown to KGB on East Fourth Street in Manhattan . . . ” “A fierce stage presences.”
I am honored to have worked with the best in theatre and media. This list includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jayne Atkinson, Alexis Arquette, Caryl Churchill, Anne Bogart, Godfrey Reggio, Kate Bornstein, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Basil Twist, J. Carlos Díaz, Theodora Skipitares, Cara Seymour, Jodie Melnick, Sara Rudner, Mark Wing-Davey, Paulo Henrique, Eva Mueller, Valda Setterfield, and Ellie Covan.
My New York venues are La MaMa, P.S. 122, Dixon Place, The Public, HERE, and the underground. In Los Angeles I presented at Human Resources and Planet Queer. In Europe, I have performed extensively in Portugal, as well as in Germany, England, and Canada. Notably, I headlined opposite of Penny Arcade for a Portuguese Queer performance festival called Loose Holes. Currently with filmmaker Marika Maiorova I broadcast a web series called Anarchist Mia on YouTube. In addition, I am developing a television pilot.

Union Square Slam presents SIAARA FREEMAN and Open Slam 3.6
2016-04-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We can’t hardly wait to welcome the unstoppable Siaara Freeman and our *very last* open slam of the season!! This is the last chance to qualify for semifinals and compete for a spot on the team representing Union Square Slam at Nationals this August! (see details below)
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm: Sign-ups and Socialization
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:20pm: Poetry Slam
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.
About our Feature:
Siaara Freeman is a friendly neighborhood hope dealer who spends her spare time growing her afro so tall God mistakes it
for a microphone and speaks into her. She’s got an unusually large purse full of poems and clapback. Patron Saint of Trill & Lost Causes Who Save Themselves.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are 3 quarters of competitive poetry slam, each culminating in a Semifinal. Each quarter consists of six open slams (one or more of which is a New Shit slam — competition in New Shit slams counts towards your total points!)
Each open slam will :
•consist of up to 8 poet competitors
•have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
•will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
•be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
At the end of each quarter, the poets with the 8 highest cumulative scores FOR THE QUARTER, are invited to compete in Semifinals. If a qualified poet opts out, then the next highest ranking poet qualifies. Semifinals are run using the same rules as the Open Slams. The top two highest ranked poets in each Semifinals bout will advance to Finals Stage, along with the top two winners of the Last Chance slam.
Last Chance Slam will be INVITATIONAL only to include the top 8 poets who have the highest cumulative scores over the entire season/all three quarters, but who didn’t not otherwise qualify for FINALS.

Do You Like Stories? Contributors to Jonathan Read
2016-04-08 19:00 | NY
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present an evening of Sibling Rivalry Press fiction!
Come join RAYMOND LUCZAK, the editor of Jonathan: A Queer Fiction Journal (published by Sibling Rivalry Press), and listen to EIGHT writers read from their work:
NORMAN BELANGER
COLLIN KELLEY
TOM LÉGER
PELHAM LEVY
JOHN LUGO-TREBBLE
CAMERON MITCHELL
KEN SHAKIN
JONATHAN VATNER

ASL interpreted!
Suggested donation: $10 to benefit The Center and the Bureau. Buy tickets in advance.

Room 301 of The LGBT Community Center

Everyone is invited to join us for a reception in the Bureau (room 210) following the reading! Beer, wine, and sparkling water will be available by donation! And, of course, copies of Jonathan and many other publications will be available for purchase.

Bureau at The Rainbow Book Fair--Hosting Queer Zines Panel
2016-04-09 12:00 - 18:00 | NY
Come visit the Bureau’s table at The Eighth Annual Rainbow Book Fair!
Fair hours: noon to 6 PM
The Bureau will host a panel discussion on Queer Zines as Social Media with Anne Alex Hays (Alex), Winter Mendelson (Posture), Billy Miller (Straight to Hell), & Paul Moreno (Knowsgay) from 3:15 to 4:30, moderated by Bureau volunteer Jason Haaf.

Anne Alex Hays is the author of Alex, a zine loosely themed around the lived experience of gender. S/he’s published fiction and essays in PANK, Ms. Magazine blog, the Brooklyn Rail, and others. S/he runs a zine distro called Sleeping Creatures, and works as a Librarian at CUNY.

Winter Mendelson is the Founding Editor of Posture, an arts and fashion magazine that is dedicated to the creative exploration of identity. After graduating with a B.A. in Art History in 2012,​ she moved to NYC to immerse herself in ​non binary ​and feminist discourse. From that passion Posture developed and officially launched in Fall 2013 as a platform to support creatives and further feminist and lgbtqi+allied visibility. When she is not writing or editing, she enjoys going on personal photo shoots around the city and taking in as much art as possible.

Billy Miller is an artist/curator/publisher/musician/bad-ass based in NYC. His writing has appeared in publications such as BUTT, Index, VICE, Little Joe, Revel, and others. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at galleries and cultural institutions such as PS1 MoMA, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Team Gallery, D’Amelio Terras Gallery, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and others, and he has curated numerous exhibitions and film screenings at venues such as The Mix Festival, The Fringe Festival and the White Cubicle Gallery London, Exile Gallery Berlin, Invisible Exports Gallery NYC, 80WSE, the Queer Biennial LA, and many others. And he is the publisher of several independent publications including the infamous chapbook series Straight To Hell, aka, The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts.

Paul Moreno, originally from Sparks, NV, is a Brooklyn based visual artist. He is the co-creater of the queer art zine Knowsgay; and has made a number of other art based zines. Paul has most recently been writing semi-fiction which he has been sharing through events organized by Paper Cuts. Paul also works as a prop-stylist and decorating consultant.

The Eighth Annual Rainbow Book Fair will take place at:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W. 59th Street (just west of 10th Avenue)
Saturday, April 09, 2016
12:00pm – 6:00pm

Once a year, approximately 1500 people get together in New York City to mingle, get to know each other, enrich, broaden, and even extend their lives through the amazing medium of LGBT books. The New York Rainbow Book Fair is America’s longest-running LGBT book fair, and the largest LGBT book event in the country. It has grown every year since its beginning in 2009. It brings together thoughtful, interesting people of all ages, from early teens to those in their 70s and 80s; from a spectrum of countries, ethnicities, gender identities, and viewpoints. It attracts readers and writers of course, but also publishers, editors, agents, and media attention – people who have never experienced queer culture, and others who have made it the focus of their lives. Rainbow Book Fair is open to the public, with book discounts and giveaways.

A Very Queer Disability Reading
2016-04-10 17:00 - 18:30 | NY
Come meet these wonderful writers from QDA: A QUEER DISABILITY ANTHOLOGY and hear them read from their work!
– Brenna Cyr
– Cyree Jarelle Johnson
– Liv Mammone
– Donna Minkowitz
The editor Raymond Luczak will be there as well!
Copies of QDA: A QUEER DISABILITY ANTHOLOGY are available for purchase at the Bureau.

The event will be ASL-interpreted. Both the Bureau and The Center are wheelchair-accessible.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Union Square Slam Monday Fundraising Event with Emily Rose and Ben Clark plus special guests
2016-04-11 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The National Poetry Slam is coming up and Union Square Slam plans to send its first team to Atlanta to be one of the great venues representing NYC. We are holding our first fundraising event on a MONDAY April 11 and we have quite a show planned for you.
We have Emily Rose and Ben Clark as our features. We have also included some spotlight features as well: Jeanann Verlee, Jayson Smith, Jani Rose, Timothy DuWhite
We also plan on having a very limited open mic in case you want to add to the poetry glorious atmosphere.
We also plan on actioning off what is called a “Pile o’ Poetry” which will be a pile of poems submitted by different poets to sharpen your poetry reading needs.
Please note: the Bureau is closed on Mondays. Doors open at 7 PM for this event.
Doors open at 7pm
Show starts at 7:30pm
$5 admission (all goes to sending a team to Atalanta)
Beer, wine and water will be there for donation as well.
Host: Gabriel Ramirez

Union Square Slam presents ROYA MARSH and SEMIFINALS #3
2016-04-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Roya Marsh is the poet/author of the chapbooks Not All of Me Shall Die, Pieces Vol. I & II and 26. She works as a teacher and youth mentor and has the bombest sneaker collection to date.
Roya was a finalist in the 2013 Poetry Idol, 2013 Inspired Word Slam Master Jam Champion, 2014 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and captain of the first all female slam team in the tristate area, representing Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She has competed in two Woman of the World Poetry Slams, placing 2nd in 2015 and 18th in 2016. She has been featured in the Village Voice, Huffington Post, Blavity, Button Poetry, Def Jam’s All Def Digital and at many venues and colleges around the country. Actually, just google her, she’s hella googleable.

Union Square Slam is a literary arts organization providing a space for poets to share their voices, develop their craft, and build a community celebrating poetry in all of its expressions. Based in New York City, U.S.S. produces a weekly reading series featuring contemporary poets with a focus on working artists and authors in the spoken word and slam tradition. Our features are primarily queer-identified and/or people of color and/or identify as disabled or alter-abled. Readings are followed by a PSi certified poetry slam. Union Square Slam hosts a weekly open mic and facilitates free workshops, encouraging poets to explore creatively.
In general, every show is preceded by a free poetry workshop by Sara Emily Kuntz. Participants are encouraged to bring a few copies of a work-in-progress to the workshop.
As always, our shows are $5, all ages and are wheelchair accessible.
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

Bi Book Club finishes discussing The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
2016-04-14 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On April 14, The Bi Book Club will finish discussing:
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet by Myrlin A. Hermes
Shakespeare turned topsy turvy: a clever bisexual mashup between a sexy young Hamlet and characters from the sonnets. Very readable–no olde English. Note: The Sonnets, and Shakespeare, were bisexual.
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, give us your critique of the book: what worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had the chance to read the book, come anyway because we read passages aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

Fuck Everything
2016-04-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts (aka Straight To Hell chapbooks) & the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division present:
FUCK EVERYTHING
short films by STH contributors & comrades
FEATURING short films from/re: Steve LaFreniere (David Hurles — Old Reliable), Justin Spring (Sam Steward), Ryan Foerester, Kristian Kozul, Antonio DeSilva, Brian Brennan (Latino Fan Club), Randal Wilcox (Al Baltrop), & others to be announced
Programmed by Billy Miller

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Image on left: David Hurles (Old Reliable). Image on right: Sam Steward

BEARINGS: WORKS ABOUT BOUNDARIES, reading & book party
2016-04-16 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Bearings is an annual journal that publishes work about how individual people relate to their environments–internal, external, physical, imaginary. How do people define themselves in relation to these landscapes, and to the people in and outside of them?
Come to an evening of readings and musical performance by contributing writers and artists from issue no. 1!
Tess Brown-Lavoie
Isadora Reisner
Megan Stockton
Antonia Pinter
Olivia Durif
Alexandra Tatarsky

Timmy Straw

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

Union Square Slam presents ERICH HAYGUN and the LAST CHANCE SLAM
2016-04-19 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Erich Haygun is a 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion representing The House Slam, the first poetry slam venue located in his hometown Boston, MA. He has performed his writing throughout North America & Europe, and has shared stages with Mary Lambert, Patricia Smith and Richard Blanco. Erich’s work is forthcoming in The Dead Animal Handbook (University of Hell Press, 2016) and has been honored by the Massachusetts State Senate and House of Representatives. He is proud to be Program Director of the youth publishing non-profit Books Of Hope, as well as a facilitator & speaker for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. He lives in a mansion made of trash with a shaggy little dog.

Union Square Slam is a literary arts organization providing a space for poets to share their voices, develop their craft, and build a community celebrating poetry in all of its expressions. Based in New York City, U.S.S. produces a weekly reading series featuring contemporary poets with a focus on working artists and authors in the spoken word and slam tradition. Our features are primarily queer-identified and/or people of color and/or identify as disabled or alter-abled. Readings are followed by a PSi certified poetry slam. Union Square Slam hosts a weekly open mic and facilitates free workshops, encouraging poets to explore creatively.
In general, every show is preceded by a free poetry workshop by Sara Emily Kuntz. Participants are encouraged to bring a few copies of a work-in-progress to the workshop.
As always, our shows are $5, all ages and are wheelchair accessible.
Please note: the Bureau opens at 6 pm on Tuesdays for the Union Square Slam.

Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists Reading
2016-04-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Publishing Triangle will hold their third annual Finalists Reading, featuring some of the nominees for the Publishing Triangle awards. This sterling batch of LGBT authors will read excerpts from their books, which represent the best in LGBT writing for 2015.

Participants include:

* Corrina Bain, author of Debridement; finalist for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
* Marcia M. Gallo, author of “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy; finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
* Tanwi Nandini Islam, author of Bright Lines; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Rickey Laurentiis, author of Boy with Thorn; finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
* Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees; finalist for The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction
* Ioannis Pappos, author of Hotel Living; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, author of Blue Talk and Love; finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
* Maggie Thrash, author of Honor Girl; finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

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

TELL 23: Origin Stories
2016-04-22 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Origin Stories is the theme of the twenty-third installment of TELL. Featuring Bobby Hankinson, Winter Laike, Victoria Libertore, and Parrish Turner.

$10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Brooklyn-based writer and comedian Bobby Hankinson is the host and producer of monthly LGBTQ comedy and storytelling show Kweendom. He’s immersed himself in the queer experience as a columnist for leading LGBTQ website Towleroad.com, as a nationally touring member of “Awkward Sex and the City” storytelling troupe and by banging dudes on the regular. His writing has also appeared in The Boston Globe, The Houston Chronicle and Brokelyn.com.

Winter Laike is a queer musician, storyteller, son, brother, future boyfriend, and less-notably Original Plumbing’s 2013 Mr. Transman NYC. His most recent work includes a collection of songs based on Craigslist missed connections, a rock opera inspired by a series of dreams, and television recaps for Vulture.com. When he’s not writing music, Winter enjoys riding his bike, making not-your-mother’s Rice Krispie treats, playing with puppies, and eating all of the pizza and donuts and ice cream.

Photograph by Jennifer Koltun
VICTORIA LIBERTORE is a performer, writer, teacher, emcee and curator. She is the creator of seven solo shows: Camille: The Forgotten Artist, stalk(her), The Should Dream, My Journey of Decay, GIRL MEAT, No Need for Seduction and This Is My Last Attempt At Fame. She has collaborated with Jennifer Tuttle, Ryan Kipp, Leigh Fondakowski, Rosalie Purvis, Jen-Scott Mobley, Shelley Butler-Hyler, Ryan Migge, Rebecca Feldman, Kimberly I. Kefgen, and Sara Laudonia. She has performed her work throughout NYC over the last 18 years in venues such as Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Carolines on Broadway, Dixon Place, Joyce Soho, New Dance Alliance, PS122 as well as in Boston, Chicago, Hastings, Montreal, Philadelphia, Provincetown, Toronto and Washington, D.C. Libertore teaches workshops in NYC and at colleges across the country on how to make your own original performance incorporating intuition, movement and archetypes. Libertore is passionate about encouraging other artists to create their own work and has curated dozens of local and a few international artists with backgrounds in performance, variety arts, music, comedy and dance. She has emceed in clubs, at events, on the boardwalk, in parks and at private parties as a faux Liza Minnelli where she utilizes her improvisational skills to make “people laugh so hard that their faces hurt.” She was a Humana Festival finalist for her short play Monster and Lola. Libertore was a 2008 – 2010 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Theater Artist in Residence and she has a BFA in theatre from Otterbein University where she recently received a Young Alumni Award for Creative Achievement. She is currently working on her first book entitled Should I Do My Laundry or Crawl into an Open Grave? A Guide for Living. www.howlingvic.com

Parrish Turner is the kind of guy who will tell you he knows what he is doing. That is until further questioning. But aren’t we all kind of making it up as we go along? Speaking of made up things, Parrish tends to write nonfiction. Although he is also a playwright because he likes putting words into other people’s mouths. He is a writer, essayist, playwright, occasional cook, and lover of terrible gay films. His credits include Lambda Literary Fellow in Nonfiction in 2014 and four year participant in the Georgia Southern Ten-Minute Play Festival. He currently works in children’s publishing during the day and attends the New School in the evening for an MFA which will probably get him nowhere. But it did help him get out of Georgia, so there’s that.

Union Square Slam presents OMAR HOLMON and the IRON POET SLAM
2016-04-26 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us for the legendary Omar Holmon and our super hilarious Iron Poet Slam!!
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm Sign-ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:25pm: Slam
$5 // All Ages
About our Feature:
Omar Holmon is a guy that did things in slam on the Loserslam, Nuyorican and Urbana team. He enjoys wearing his Panda onesie and writing essays for Black Nerd Problems dealing with peak blackness. Omar has been on final stage, won some slam titles (4 in a row but who is counting right?) but the best thing he has been ever done is being his Mother’s son…. and joining the Steven Universe fandom.
About our Slam:
April 25th: Iron Poet Slam
Come get super silly with us as we test your slam poet chops in this our own version of Iron Chef. This slam is meant to push all of its competitors to their artistic and performative limits! Each round has secret rules that will only be revealed to the competitors at the beginning of each round. Are you game?

Sex Positive
2016-04-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
In the early 1980s, as the AIDS epidemic ravage our community Richard Berkowitz, Michael Callan and Joseph Sonnabend had a revelation that AIDS is sexually transmitted. This meant that the practice of safe sex might help prevent it spreading. However, this insight was met with contempt by some in the gay community. Knowing what was at stake, they pressed on and educated folks on “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic.” Berkowitz is the subject of Daryl Wein’s 2009 documentary, Sex Positive which won Best Documentary at OUTFEST. Please join us for a special screening of Sex Positive and Q&A with Richard Berkowitz and Brandon Cuicchi. We will discuss the evolution of safer sex from the beginning of the AIDS crisis to now. Organized by Sean Apparicio.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Richard Berkowitz is the author of Stayin’ Alive: The Invention of Safe Sex, A Personal History, his 2003 memoir about coming out amid the sexual exuberance of NYC in the 1970s. His collaboration with his physician, Dr. Joe Sonnabend and the late activist Michael Callen culminated in their May 1983 publication, “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic,” which is widely regarded as the invention of safe sex. Berkowitz is the subject of Daryl Wein’s 2009 documentary, Sex Positive which won Best Documentary at OUTFEST. He’s the last surviving co-founder of the PWA self-empowerment movement, which created the Denver Principles. He continues to live, write and protest in New York City.

Brandon Cuicchi was born and raised in a religious family in Memphis, TN. He has a BA in theater from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in film/TV from the University of Miami. In 2007 he moved to Brooklyn, and in 2011 he joined Queer Occupy Wall Street. Since then he has been instrumental in growing the online and digital impact of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) while working in post-production for reality tv by day. He sees AIDS activism as intertwined with Black Lives Matter, criminal justice reform, homeless advocacy and LGB-and-especially-Transgender liberation, and he works to show solidarity with those struggles through street activism.

Sean Apparicio is the founder of One+Love. One+Love is a geo-local mobile LGBT community center—connecting users to local events, supportive online community, entertainment, lifestyle and news that reflect and celebrate diverse sexual and gender identities.
Before forming One+Love, Sean was multidisciplinary creative director specializing in digital media, commercial direction, Branding and Marketing Strategy. He has over 17 years of award winning industry experience. He’s re-launched multiple brands, strengthened their visual identity and introduced current trends in technology to develop solutions for his clients. Most notably, under his direction, the BET Redesign won 11 Tellys and a Promax/BDA Diverse Voices Award.
Sean has worked for over 26 years as an advocate and activist for LGBTQ issues. He’s done outreach and community organizing with the Audre Lorde Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and TransJustice. He has worked as a life coach at the Ali Forney Center; raised hell with ACT UP to raise HIV/AIDS awareness; mentored LGBTQ youth and lectured at UC Berkeley regarding coming out in the age of AIDS; provided safer sex education via the National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project; served in a harm reduction center for at-risk clients; and has worked to become a griot of U.S. LGBTQ history.

The Birthday Suit Reading
2016-04-30 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
A night of naked words in honor of poet Sarah Sala’s 30th birthday.
List of readers:
Abba Belgrave
Mary Block
Aimee Herman
Carrie Hohmann
Jen Hyde
Ricardo Maldonado
Amy Meng
Jerome Murphy
Peter Longofono
Christina Quintana
Anthony William Thornton
Aldrin Valdez
Sarah Sala
Suggested donation of $5 to support the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Sarah Sala is a native Michigander with an MFA in Poetry from New York University. Recently, her poem “Hydrogen” was featured in the “Elements” episode of NPR’s hit show Radio Lab in collaboration with Emotive Fruition. The Ghost Assembly Line, her first chapbook, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2016. Sarah’s poems also appear in Poetry Ireland Review, Atlas Review, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. She is a 2016 Home School Fellow. www.sarahsala.com

Abba Belgrave was born elsewhere but calls Brooklyn her hometown. A graduate of NYU’s Creative Writing Program, she was published in Argos Books’ anthology Why I Am Not A Painter and Phantom Books. Her essay, “Self Censored: When Writing Isn’t Right” was featured on the VIDA website.

Mary Block‘s poems have been featured in Rattle, Conduit, Tampa Review, and Saw Palm, among other publications. Mary was a 2012 finalist for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and was a 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee. She is originally from Miami, Florida, and she lives currently in New York City with her husband, her son, and her dog.

Aimee Herman is a queer performance artist and poet. Aimee teaches creative writing and composition in the Bronx. Biggest turn-ons include: farmers markets, gender non-conforming folks and the united states postal service.

Carrie Hohmann teaches writing at Edinboro University. She has degrees from Allegheny College and New York University and is the author of incongruent: someday (dancing girl press, 2014). Carrie lives on a 10-acre farm in Pennsylvania with several lively chickens, her pets, and her husband. Sarah Sala is one of her most favorite people in the world!

Jen Hyde is the author of Hua Shi Hua (画诗华) Drawings & Poems from China, forthcoming from Ahsahta Press. Informed by the material culture of her environment, community, and heritage, her practice experiments with generative translation and new technology for the production of printed things. She holds an MFA in poetry from NYU and is the recipient of writing fellowships from NYU Shanghai and Ithaca College.

Ricky Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He is the translator of Dinapiera Di Donato’s Collateral and a recipient of fellowships from Queer/Arts/Mentorship and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is managing director at the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center.

Amy Meng’s poetry has appeared in the Indiana Review, The Literary Review, and Pleiades, among others. She is a Kundiman Fellow and poetry editor at Bodega Magazine. She teaches creative writing at Rutgers University and once held a baggie of stainless steel screws that had just been removed from Sarah Sala’s arm.

Jerome Ellison Murphy received an MFA in 2011 from the Creative Writing Program at New York University, where he currently serves as Undergraduate Programs Manager. His critical writing has been featured in LA Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, Lambda Literary, American Poets and in the monthly column Outwords, which he authored for Next Magazine from 2010-2011, and he has frequently participated in the Emotive Fruition poetry performance series curated by Thomas Dooley. He currently serves on the board of Lambda Literary Foundation, the world’s foremost non-profit supporting LGBT literature.

Peter Longofono‘s poems have appeared in H_NGM_N, fields, Luna Luna Magazine, and Tenderloin, among others. He serves as the Reviews Editor at Coldfront and makes music with Big Figment and TH!CK. His chapbook, CHORDS, was published in March by the Operating System. He lives in Brooklyn.

Ben Purkert‘s first poetry collection, For the Love of Endings, is coming out from Four Way Books in March 2018. His poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Agni, Boston Review, Best New Poets 2012,and elsewhere. He currently teaches creative writing at Rutgers New Brunswick. More at benpurkert.com.

Christina Quintana is a New York-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Nimrod International Journal, Raspa Magazine, Foglifter, and Saw Palm, and her plays and musicals have been developed and produced in New Orleans, Atlanta, and New York City. For more information, visit cquintana.com

Anthony William Thornton is a New York-based poet, critic, and a 2016 Fellow of The Home School Miami. He has performed at numerous venues (Bar Thalia for Lamprophonic, Envoy Enterprises, Spectrum, The Bureau of General Services: Queer Division, Interstate Projects, etc.) and has written for the Bureau and Topical Cream. Previously published poems appear in the design monograph “Creating Worlds”, commissioned by Studio Edward Van Vliet in Amsterdam.

Aldrin Valdez is a Pinoy poet and visual artist. They grew up in Manila and Long Island and currently live in Brooklyn. Aldrin has been awarded fellowships from Queer/Art/Mentorship and Poets House. Their work has been published in Art21 Magazine, ArtSlant, BRIC Blog, The Cortland Review, In the Flesh Magazine, and Uncompromising Tang.

Union Square Slam presents ANGEL NAFIS w/ special guests CRYSTAL VALENTINE and GABRIELLE SMITH and USS TEAM SELECTION FINALS
2016-05-03 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam presents ANGEL NAFIS w/ special guests CRYSTAL VALENTINE and GABRIELLE SMITH and USS TEAM SELECTION FINALS
6:00pm: Free Poetry Workshop with Sara Emily Kuntz
7:00pm Sign-ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:00pm: Feature
8:25pm: Slam
$5 // All Ages

One Reading One Story, by Chavisa Woods (with special guest appearance by Erin Markey, reading as Tanya.) Featuring “Zombie,” a coming of age tale like no other.
2016-05-06 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
One Reading, One Story
By Chavisa Woods
Featuring “Zombie,”
(a coming of age tale like no other.)
While hanging out in the local cemetery, two young girls make a friend like none they ever could have imagined.
$8 suggested donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Instead of going to a movie, or watching a television show, come hear a story, in full, from beginning to end.
Have a glass of wine while you sit back and listen. Stay after for mingling and conversation.
Remember, being read to reduces stress levels and increases your attention span. Turn off your phone. Give up on the screen. Exercise your attention span, and enjoy some long-form art: LITERATURE.
“Zombie” provides a preview of the upcoming collection of short fiction, “Things To Do When You’re Goth in the Country,” by Chavisa Woods, upcoming from Seven Stories Press, January, 2017.

Chavisa Woods is the author of three books of fiction, “The Albino Album,” a novel, (550 pages) Seven Stories Press (Distributed by Random House), 2013; and Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind” full-length fiction (Fly by Night Press, 2009). The Second Edition of this book was released by Autonomedia Press under the Unbearables imprint in 2013. Her most recent work, “Things To Do When You’re Goth in the Country” will be released by Seven Stories Press in the spring of 2017.

Erin Markey is a New York based performance artist named a “magnetic diva” by the New York Times and a Time Out New York Top Ten Cabaret Performer 2013-2015. Her most recent work, A Ride On The Irish Cream, premiered at Abrons Arts Center in January 2016. Her work has been shown at BAM, Under The Radar Festival (Public Theater), New Museum, PS 122, Bard Spiegeltent, New York Comedy Festival, San Francisco Film Society, and regularly at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. She is the recipient of a 2014 Franklin Furnace Grant and a 2012 NYFA Cutting Edge Artist Award. She won an Eliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance in 2013. In development for A Ride On The Irish Cream, she has been a resident artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Mount Tremper Arts and Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is co-composing music for and performing in Half Straddle’s Ghost Rings at New York Live Arts in April 2016.

Normal Films Presents: Tiny Intersex Film Fest
2016-05-07 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
Please join us for the first ever Tiny Intersex Film Fest featuring two new documentary shorts titled, Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito/Mom and Me and My Little Rooster directed by Arisleyda Dilone (NYC), and The Son I Never Had directed by Pidgeon Pagonis (Chicago). Join both filmmakers afterwards for a discussion.

Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito/Mom and Me and My Little Rooster
Documentary Short
17 minutes/2015

Synopsis:

For the past five years, I have been pestering my mom to talk to me about my childhood, my body and past and future surgical decisions: all in front of a camera.
My mother is a hardworking immigrant, interested mainly in providing. I am the lazy offspring that asks too many questions. Parts of my identity have been shaped by a rebellion of the traditions she embraces, interlaced with a deep respect for her perseverance.
In Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito we finally sit down to talk about my body as a hermaphrodite.

The Son I Never Had
Documentary Short
27 minutes/2016

Synopsis:

My entire life I was lied to, and made to lie. I always felt different, but couldn’t quite figure out why. At 19, I discovered that I was born intersex, and whatever light was present in my life, vanished.
That discovery propelled me to uncover my past, in order to have a chance at having a future. Coincidentally, during that time I was in the habit of recording those around me.
10 years later, I collected those recordings and retrieved some of the most painful conversations I’ve ever had with my parents. The Son I Never Had is a love letter to my parents, my intersex self, and my community, as we try to survive in a world obsessed with binaries.
Suggested donation of $5. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Trigger Warning: One of the film includes memories of non-consensual genital surgery.

Arisleyda Dilone makes film work about her life and her family. Born in Santiago de Los de Caballeros, Dominican Republic, she spent her formative years in a hillside village outside of the city of Santiago. At the age of seven she was brought to New York and raised in a suburb of Long Island. Arisleyda pursued a life that would bring her immigrant parents pride while also being true to herself. She is the first in her family to attend and graduate college. Before films she worked in local NYC politics and international affairs.
As filmmaker, she was awarded a NALIP mentorship and she was a 2012 Jerome Foundation-Travel and Study Grant Fellow. Arisleyda was a 2014 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and a 2015 Queer Art/Mentorship/Program Fellow, in which she completed her short film, Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito /Mom and Me and My Little Rooster.

Arisleyda is a member of Diverse Filmmakers Alliance and Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.

Pidgeon Pagonis is an intersex filmmaker, activist and former Communications & Operations Manager and Youth Leadership Coordinator for interACT youth—the world’s first intersex youth project. They have a decade of experience researching, advocating and educating a wide range of audiences about intersex, and its respective movement for bodily autonomy and justice. They’ve recently been published in the academic journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, and were awarded by the White House as an LGBT Champion of Change. This fall, they’ll be featured on an episode of Amazon’s Transparent.

Union Square Slam presents CANDICE ILOH
2016-05-10 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is delighted to roll out our new summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a truly stellar featured artist.
This week, we welcome Candice Iloh!
Candice Iloh is a first-generation Nigerian-American writer, poet, and artist-educator residing in Brooklyn, NY whose writing has appeared in Fjords Review, The Grio, For Harriet, Blavity and elsewhere. A VONA fellowship recipient and Home School Lambda Literary Fellow, Candice also contributes to Lambda Literary. She is a MFA candidate in Writing for Young People and Poetry at Lesley University and is currently working on her first young adult novel in verse. When not writing or teaching, you can find her in a dance class in Bedstuy or follow her @becomer.
6:30-7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
7:30-8:30pm: Open Mic
8:30pm: Feature
All Ages // $5

Strange Bedfellows: A Conjugal Book Launch for Jason Schneiderman & Michael Broder
2016-05-11 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Book party for Michael Broder’s Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books) and Jason Schneiderman’s Primary Source (winner of Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Books), both of which debuted in April. Readings, signings, beer, wine, hors d’oeuvres, and go-go boys.

Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free and This Life Now, a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Assaracus, BLOOM, ColumbiaPoetry Review, Court Green, OCHO, Painted Bride Quarterly, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians 2 (Windstorm Creative, 2004), edited by Rudy Kikel; My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (Terrace Books, 2009), edited by Michael Montlack; Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS (Third World Press, 2010), edited by Kelly Norman Ellis and ML Hunter; Divining Divas: 50 Gay Men on Their Muses (Lethe Press, 2012), edited by Michael Montlack; and Multilingual Anthology: The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2015 (Artepoética Press, 2015), edited by Carlos Aguasaco and Yrene Santos. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

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

Bi Book Club discusses A Winter in Rome, by Francis Gideon
2016-05-12 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On May 12, The Bi Book Club will discuss:
A Winter in Rome, by Francis Gideon
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, give us your critique of the book: what worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had the chance to read the book, come anyway because we read passages aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

PRONOUNCING THE SCENE OF TRAUMA
2016-05-13 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A reading centered on how language is a constant healing force in dealing with trauma. Writers will read from work which explores, enacts, and/or responds to experienced traumas. The language of trauma, its silence, fragmentation, inheritance. How trauma settles on the page. How trauma settles in us.

CYNTHIA CRUZ is the author of four collections of poetry: Ruin, The Glimmering Room, and Wunderkammer. Her fourth collection, How the End Begins, was published in March of 2016. Her essays, interviews and art writing have been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, and Hyperallergic. Cruz has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony as well as a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in writing and an MFA in Art Criticism & Writing from the School of Visual Arts.

JAKE MATKOV writes poetry in Brooklyn, NY where he teaches first year writing and is the coordinator of the English graduate programs at LIU Brooklyn. He is a co-founding editor of visceral brooklyn and co-curates its reading series of the same name. A 2015-16 Queer Art Mentorship fellow, his poems have been published in fields magazine, voicemail poems, Maudlin House, thosethatthis, Downtown Brooklyn and others.

HEIDI ANDREA RESTREPO RHODES is a queer, mixed-race, second-generation Colombian immigrant, writer, scholar, artist, and activist. Her creative work and performance has been seen in numerous places, including San Francisco’s SomArts, Galería de la Raza, the 2014 National Queer Arts Festival, As/Us, Decomp, Feminist Studies Journal, Write Bloody’s We Will Be Shelter, and others. Her chapbook, ‘The Inheritance of Haunting’ is due out by Raspa Press in fall 2016. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

CHARIF SHANAHAN is the author of Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing (Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming in 2017), winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Prize. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Apogee, Boston Review, Callaloo, Literary Hub, The New Republic, Phantom Books, and Prairie Schooner. His translations from Italian and German have appeared in A Public Space, Circumference, and RHINO Poetry, among other publications, and have been performed by the Vienna Art Orchestra. Formerly Programs Director of the Poetry Society of America, he is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Cave Canem, the Fulbright Program, the Starworks Foundation, and Stanford University, where he will be a ’16-’18 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry.

PRETTY BROKEN PUNKS: Martin Belk reads & performs from his NYC Memoir and homonymous London stage play
2016-05-14 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
New York City, 1988—2004. Bohemia’s last stand … Corporania™ taking over. The city you struggled to get to is slowly disappearing. First you hide out with the Danceteria crowd, at Pyramid and BoyBar while slugging your way through the great AIDS die-off. You ActUp on the youth outreach committee. Ultimately, you find yourself a producer of Squeezebox!, running an internet startup and manage the first NYC web concert starring Deborah Harry. Then comes an all-out culture war with NYC’s most hated mayor, a post-9/11 meltdown and relentless gentrification — a story which now resonates in urban centers around the world.

“They pimped-out Lady Gotham to the masses, instead of celebrating the fine call-girl she once was. Only problem is, we survived.”

Look back, don’t stare. If you could speak to your younger self, what would say? Can you handle the reply?

PRETTY BROKEN PUNKS: lipstick, leather jeans, a death of New York is Martin Belk’s literary memoir.

Please RSVP for this event here!

“A superb memoir about coming of age in the bright haze of NYC’s demimonde.”
–Junot Diaz

“I enjoyed the book a lot … full of great memories … it brought it all back. Don’t change a word.”
–Michael Musto, Village Voice

Martin Belk is an expat New Yorker, author and playwright. After burning out as an art director & tech geek, he went back to night school at SUNY Empire State College and got his B.A. In 2004 he sold everything, including his rent-controlled lease, and left the Big Apple for Scotland, where he earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Edinburgh, and wrote the first draft of Pretty Broken Punks.
From 2007-2015, Belk ran a prison writing workshop for the young men at Polmont Young Offender’s Institution — recognized by Her Majesty the Queen and First Minister Alex Salmond. He also published One Magazine & developed new work as a protégé of John Calder – Samuel Beckett’s publisher, and co-hosted the Prague Writers’ Festival.
Belk recently became archivist for Jim Haynes – co-founder of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Traverse Theatre; and edited Paris with Consequence, an historical memoir by Varda Ducovny, ‘wicked stepmother’ of actor David Duchovny, 1950s opening singer for Bob Dylan, and young cohort of Allen Ginsberg & Charlie Van Doren.
Currently, Belk is co-writing the memoirs of Marcus Leatherdale, photographer and former partner of Robert Mappelthorpe; writing a doctorate at Napier University and completing the stage adaptation of Pretty Broken Punks for the forthcoming London stage premiere.
He spends his time between London, Paris and Edinburgh. This BGSQD Big Apple event is a long-overdue homecoming.

Kaitlyn Greenidge and Sarah Schulman
2016-05-15 17:00 - 19:00 | NY
Kaitlyn Greenidge and Sarah Schulman will share their new novels and talk about the meaning of life, art, and whatever the audience wants to discuss.

Kaitlyn Greenidge’s first novel We Love You, Charlie Freeman was just published by Algonquin. Sarah Schulman’s latest novel, The Cosmopolitans is a new release from Feminist Press.

Union Square Slam presents Michael Lee
2016-05-17 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is delighted to roll out our new summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a truly stellar featured artist.
This week, we welcome Michael Lee!
Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer and author of the chapbook, “Secondly. Finally”, which won the 2014 David Blair Memorial Prize (Organic Weapon Arts). Having received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, Phoebe, Copper Nickel, Poetry Northwest, and The Carolina Quarterly among others. Remaining active on the stage, he is a Rust Belt Regional Poetry Slam Champion, a National Poetry Slam semi-finalist and an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, and was voted “Best Poet” and the 2012 College Unions Poetry Slam. Michael has worked as a dish washer, a farm hand, a traveling performer, a youth counselor and arts programming director. Currently, he attends the Harvard Graduate School of Education and lives with many books and a coffee pot.

All Ages // $5

Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity: A Conversation with The Reverend Elizabeth M Edman
2016-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
LGBTQ people are a gift to the Church and have the potential to revitalize Christianity. Frustrated by the notion that “Christian love = tolerance,” the Reverend Elizabeth M. Edman argues that Christianity, at its scriptural core, is not a tradition that is hostile to queer people but is, in fact, itself inherently queer. Edman reveals how “queering” Christianity—that is, disrupting simplistic ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and more broadly about self and other—can illuminate contemporary Christian faith and shows why queer Christians are gifts to the Church.
Eliel Cruz, founder of Faithfully LGBT, will join the Reverend Elizabeth M. Edman in conversation.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Photograph by Keryn Lowry
The Reverend Elizabeth M. Edman is an Episcopal priest and a political strategist who has been illuminating people’s understanding of Christianity and queer life for more than twenty-five years. She has worked on some of the most pressing contemporary issues in the intersection of religion and sexuality, serving as an inner-city hospital chaplain to people with HIV/AIDS, from 1989 to 1995; helping craft political strategy for marriage-equality efforts; and persevering for almost two decades to become an openly queer priest in the Episcopal Church. (New York, NY)

Eliel Cruz is the Executive Director of Faith In America, an organization dedicated to ending religious based bigotry towards LGBT people. He has worked on the intersections of faith, sexuality, and gender for five years. Cruz is a prolific speaker and writer on religion, (bi)sexuality, media, and culture as seen in the Huffington Post, Upworthy, Mic, Daily Dot, Everyday Feminism, Washington Post, Sojourners, DETAILS Magazine, Quartz, Rolling Stone. He’s the co-founder and former president of Intercollegiate Adventist Gay-Straight Alliance Coalition, an organization that advocates for safe spaces for LGBT students at Seventh-day Adventist colleges. He has a BBA & BA in International Business and French Studies from Andrews University.
