BGSQD

Shh! I’m listening… Second Edition
2020-12-05 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Online event, New York, NY, United States
New York Queer Zine Fair and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division _______ (adverb) present the second edition of
Shh! I’m listening…

Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 2 PM EST, Virtually Everywhere.

This virtual ______ (noun) brings together 3 queer zine makers to ______ (verb) their ______ (noun). Expect some ______ (adjective) visuals and ______ (adjective) text that will be ______ (adjective), ______ (adjective) and maybe even a little ______ (adjective).

*This is an actual event. Our three fabulous zine makers/readers are JB Brager, Tyler Hampton, and Anthony Malone. You are invited to fill out the above Mad Lib and send it to us at instagram.com/nyqzf.

Suggested donation to benefit NYQZF and the Bureau: $5
All are welcome to join! Donation is not required.

But registering on Eventbrite is required in order to receive the Zoom link on the day of the event!
Click here to register

TELL 67: Open Mic and Fundraiser for the Black Voters Matter!
2020-11-21 18:00 - 19:30 | NY
Join us for a special open mic TELL to give voice to where we’re at right now. Preach to your queer comrades! Give us a little sermon on working for justice, fighting for our lives, living with uncertainty, finding joy in the midst of pain, loving ourselves and each other, or whatever else is on your mind and in your heart. Let’s lift each other up as we raise funds for Black Voters Matter in the lead-up to the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5, 2021!
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.

Show up (on Zoom) at 6 PM EST and sign up for a 5 minute spot to tell a story, rant, lead a song, cry, rage, laugh or try and process 4 Seasons Total Landscaping stories…
Hosted as usual by Drae Campbell
Suggested donation of $12
Pay what you can
95% of all donations for this event will go to the 501c3 arm of Black Voters Matter.
The remaining 5% will go to TELL’s founder and host, Drae Campbell.

This is an online event. Registration is required.
Click here to register

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

Black Voters Matter‘s goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. We agree with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Greg Mania on his debut memoir BORN TO BE PUBLIC, with John Glynn
2020-11-19 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us on Thursday, November 19th at 6pm EST as Greg Mania discusses his debut memoir, Born to Be Public, with John Glynn.

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register. Thanks for supporting the Bureau’s work!
Registration is required.
Click here to register

Both Born to Be Public and Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer are available for purchase on the Bureau’s online store. Click on links below.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Greg Mania is a writer, comedian, and award-winning screenwriter based in New York City. His words have been published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, O, The Oprah Magazine, PAPER, among other international online and print platforms. His debut memoir, Born to Be Public, is out now from CLASH Books.

John Glynn is a writer and Senior Editor at Hanover Square Press. His writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Daily Beast and The Millions. His first book Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer was named a Cosmopolitan Best Book of 2019, an O, The Oprah Magazine Best LGBTQ Book of 2019, a Newsweek Best Book of Summer, and an Indie Next pick. He lives in Manhattan.

Felice Picano and Jim Provenzano on Gay Hollywood
2020-11-12 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Best-selling author Felice Picano and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Jim Provenzano will discuss gay writers, actors and directors in Hollywood framed through their two novels, Picano’s Justify My Sins: A Hollywood Novel in Three Acts (Beautiful Dreamer Press, 2019) and Provenzano’s Finding Tulsa (Palm Drive Publishing, 2020).
With two similar yet unique perspectives on the filmmaking industry told in gay fiction, the two authors will share the inspiration for their new and recent novels. Both fully explore the behind-the-scenes process of film industry success –and failure– via two very different narrators.
Along with his prolific authorship, Picano has given PowerPoint lectures about historic LGBT figures in Hollywood more than a dozen times at colleges, historical societies, religious groups, and major libraries across the U.S. and also in Canada.
In addition to being an author, Provenzano has been a photographer and journalist in LGBT media for three decades. His film experience includes production work on short films and numerous music videos in the 1980s. He also wrote and directed several plays and choreographed dozens of dance and multimedia works.
This is a free event, but donations of any amount to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration is required

Click here to register

Both Finding Tulsa and Justify My Sins are available for purchase on the Bureau’s online store! Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Felice Picano is the author of 35 books of poetry, fiction, memoirs and nonfiction. His work is translated into 15 languages; several titles were national and international bestsellers, including ‘The Lure,’ ‘Like People in History’ and ‘The Book of Lies.’ Four of Picano’s plays have been produced. He’s considered a founder of modern gay literature, along with other members of the Violet Quill. His most recent works include ‘True Stories: Portraits from My Past’ (2011), ‘Contemporary Gay Romances’ (2011), and ‘Twelve O’Clock Tales’ (2012). www.felicepicano.net
Jim Provenzano is the author of seven novels, including ‘Finding Tulsa,’ the 2012 Lambda Literary Award winner ‘Every Time I Think of You,’ its sequel, ‘Message of Love’ (a Lammy finalist), and the stage adaptation of his debut novel, ‘PINS.’ His short fiction collection, ‘Forty Wild Crushes’ was published in 2016. Degrees include a BFA in dance from Ohio State University and an MA in English from San Francisco State University. Born in New York City and raised in Ohio, he lives in San Francisco. A journalist in LGBT media for three decades, he also wrote the award-winning syndicated Sports Complex column for ten years. He is currently Culture Editor for the Bay Area Reporter. www.jimprovenzano.com

Anaïs Duplan & Joshua Escobar
2020-11-06 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Anaïs Duplan & Joshua Escobar read from their new books, Blackspace: on the Poetics of an Afrofuture and Bareback Nightfall.
This is a free event, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for this event. Thank you for supporting the Bureau!
Click here to register

Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and St. Joseph’s College. His video works have been exhibited by Flux Factory, Daata Editions, the 13th Baltic Triennial in Lithuania, Mathew Gallery, NeueHouse, the Paseo Project, and will be exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in L.A in 2021. As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One.

Joshua Escobar is the author of the chapbooks Caljforkya Voltage and xxox fm. He was a 2019 Shandaken: Storm King Fellow, the Dean’s Fellow in Writing at the MFA Program at Bard College, and a Merit Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is a Regional Chair (California) for CantoMundo, and he teaches at Santa Barbara City College.

The Kudzu Crossroads: Queer, Southern, Artist — A Panel Discussion on Identity and Aesthetics
2020-10-28 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Bronski Beat’s “Small Town Boy” is an anthem to the liberation of a young gay man as he runs away to the safety of the city. The chorus echoes the words, “run away, run away, run away.” Some say this story is counterproductive, and leaving no longer serves the queer community. At The Kudzu Crossroads, artists will share their art and personal experience on the topic of leaving and staying, and on how and why they made their choice. Additionally, the artists will discuss the possibility of a queer souther aesthetics, the responsibility of artists to represent and face down the history of the South, and what ghosts they carry with them from the region.
This is a free event, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for this event. Thank you for supporting the Bureau!
Click here to register

Moderator/Organizer: Dudgrick Bevins is a queer interdisciplinary artist who infuses poetry into all other forms of art, including film, fiber, painting, and publishing. He is an MA candidate at Kennesaw State College in American Studies and an MFA candidate in Poetry at City College of New York. He is the author of the collaborative chapbooks Georgia Dusk with luke kurtis (bd studios), Pointless Thorns with Nate DeWaele (Kintsugi Books), the books Vigil (bd studios, forthcoming) and Route 4 Box 358 (bd studios), and the solo chapbook My Feelings Are Imaginary People Who Fight for My Attention (Poet’s Haven). You can follow his endeavors at www.dudgrickbevins.com.

Panelists:
Jill Fredenburg is an author and filmmaker from Memphis, Tennessee. Her first book, LGBTQ+ Revolution 2.0, is a celebratory collection of narratives from queer-identifying individuals who have yet to see adequate representation in traditional media. She now runs A Sign on the Door, a digital publication by and for folks who want to share in productive cultural critique. You can find her book in stores and online and reach out to @JillFredenburg on most social media platforms

Marie Hinson is an artist cultivating care and insurrection in poetry, performance and documentary cinematography. Raised in rural Appalachia, she lived in Philadelphia for almost ten years after college. Her recent chapbook, Please Remit My Qubits (The Operating System, 2020) shakes at the lines between her trans embodiment and extractive technologies in placemaking and imagination. In 2019 she debuted her first full length, site transformative performance, Stop on the object / move on the image, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her verite documentary work focuses on portraits of artists and places. Marie’s upcoming directorial debut, Frank Bey, was supported by the 2019 IFP Documentary Lab and the 2019 Chicken and Egg Nest Knight Fellowship. Her first documentary feature as a cinematographer, Queer Genius, premiered at Frameline43.

Kyle Jackson is an educator, writer and actor currently spending the bulk of his time between New York, New York and London, England. He is an active member of both the bear and leather communities and is a proud member of the MidAtlantic Chapter of ONYX.

Jeff Mann grew up in Covington, Virginia, and Hinton, West Virginia, receiving degrees in English and forestry from West Virginia University. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Crab Orchard Review, and Appalachian Heritage. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; five full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology, A Romantic Mann, and Rebels; two collections of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; three novellas, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire,Camp Allegheny, included in History’s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall, and The Saga of Einar and Gisli, included in On the Run: Tales of Gay Pursuit and Passion; five novels, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal, which won the Pauline Réage Novel Award, Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War, which won a Rainbow Award, Cub, Country, and Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War, which won both a Lambda Literary Award and the Pauline Réage Novel Award; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and three volumes of short fiction, Desire and Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat, Consent: Bondage Tales, and A History of Barbed Wire, which won a Lambda Literary Award. In 2013, he was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Karlié Rodríguez is a writer, translator, and theorist from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Their work has appeared in American Book Review, Rogue Agent, Sabanas Magazine, and a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. It is also forthcoming in El humor es cosa seria, a Puerto Rican anthology of humorous writing. Their geographical time is split between Georgia, Florida, and Puerto Rico.

Poor Queer Studies: Matt Brim in Conversation
2020-10-23 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join Matt Brim (Professor of Queer Studies, College of Staten Island, CUNY) for a conversation about his new book, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University, with Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo (Department of Anthropology, NYU), Justin T. Brown (Executive Director of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies, CUNY Graduate Center), and Greg Newton (co-founder of the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division).
In Poor Queer Studies Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite education toward poor and working-class people, places, and pedagogies. Brim shows how queer studies also takes place beyond the halls of flagship institutions: in night school; after a three-hour commute; in overflowing classrooms at no-name colleges; with no research budget; without access to decent food; with kids in tow; in a state of homelessness. Drawing on the everyday experiences of teaching and learning queer studies at the College of Staten Island, Brim outlines the ways the field has been driven by the material and intellectual resources of those institutions that neglect and rarely serve poor and minority students. By exploring poor and working-class queer ideas and laying bare the structural and disciplinary mechanisms of inequality that suppress them, Brim jumpstarts a queer-class knowledge project committed to anti-elitist and anti-racist education. Poor Queer Studies is essential for all of those who care about the state of higher education and building a more equitable academy.
This is a free event, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are always welcome! You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Click here to register

Matt Brim is professor of queer studies at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center. He writes about queer class and race relations in the academy, as well as queer literature and culture. His most recent book, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Duke UP, 2020), reorients the field of queer studies away from exclusionary institutions of higher education and toward working-class colleges, students, theories, and pedagogies.

Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo is a medical anthropologist, experimental ethnographer, and artist who writes about Latin America and Latinx communities. Her work intersects gender and sexuality, health, justice, and art with a focus on immigrant/diasporic communities and identity. She earned her doctorate from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and currently teaches in the NYU department of anthropology and in the department of Technology, Culture, and Society (Tandon School of Engineering).

Justin T. Brown, PhD, MPH , is the executive director of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He is an associate professor of health sciences at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, as well as Program Director for the Public & Community Health Program. Brown teaches courses in public health and human services. His collaborative research focuses on addressing health inequities among persons of color, LGBTQ, and youth.

Greg Newton co-founded the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division with his partner, Donnie Jochum, in 2012. Together they have worked with volunteers to continuously operate this queer bookstore, event space, and cultural center in New York City. Prior to establishing the Bureau, Newton completed his coursework and examinations for a PhD in art history at the CUNY Graduate Center while serving as an instructor and coordinator of the first year writing course at Parsons The New School for Design.

Story Time and Conversation with Lisa Robinson and Lauren Simkin Berke
2020-10-22 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
Join us for story time with author Lisa Robinson and illustrator Lauren Simkin Berke of the new picture book Were I Not A Girl: The Inspiring and True Story of Dr. James Barry.
This unique picture book biography illuminates a lesser known 19th century figure important to LGBTQ+ history. Dr. James Barry, a transgender British military surgeon, was a tireless advocate for improving health care for marginalized individuals, performed one of the first documented cesarean sections in which both mother and child survived, and ultimately achieved the title Inspector General of Hospitals. Assigned female at birth, James chafed at the constraints of the time that prevented him from going to school, owning property, and becoming a doctor or soldier. At the age of 19 James cut his hair, changed from a dress into a suit, and left his earlier life and identity. He went on to attend medical school and made his childhood dreams come true of becoming a surgeon in the British Army.
Backmatter includes additional details about Dr. Barry’s personal and professional life as well as a brief discussion of the concept of gender as a spectrum.
This is a free event, but donations of any amount to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration on Eventbrite is required.
Click here to register

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

LISA ROBINSON is a physician and psychotherapist who lives near Boston. She is also the author of two fiction picture books, Pirates Don’t Go to Kindergarten and Pippa’s Night Parade, as well as another nonfiction picture book, Madame Saqui, Revolutionary Ropedancer. Visit her at author-lisa-robinson.com.

LAUREN SIMKIN BERKE is an award-winning illustrator, working with clients such as The New York Times, Smithsonian magazine, and Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance. Berke’s artwork has graced covers of books such as Katie Rain Hill’s Rethinking Normal, the Paris Review’s The Writer’s Chapbook, and the first edition of Susan Stryker’s Transgender History. This is their first picture book. Visit them at simkinberke.com.

TELL 66: Shiny Objects
2020-10-17 18:00 - 19:30 | NY
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.
Shiny Objects is the theme of the 66th TELL, on Saturday, October 17, 2020, 6 to 7:30 PM (EST). Featuring Caresse Fernandez, Dima Mikhayel Matta, Kate McDonough, and Zo Tipp.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers and the Bureau are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/y5vpjqcz

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

Caresse (kuh·reese) Fernandez is a storyteller currently residing on unceded Tongva territory in Long Beach, CA. She has had poetry and prose featured in publications such as MERCADO VICENTE and is currently working on telling stories through film and TV. Her experiences as a queer Filipina-American inform much of her writing around themes of identity in the diaspora and mental health.
When she isn’t writing, Caresse can be found telling stories through dance, desperately tending to the many house plants she had ambitiously accumulated in quarantine, or creating superfluous portmanteau puns (much to her partner’s dismay).

Dima Mikhayel Matta is a Beirut-based writer and actress. She received a Fulbright scholarship and completed her MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University in 2013. She has been acting for the stage since 2006. In 2014, she founded Cliffhangers, the first bilingual storytelling platform in Lebanon, and hosts monthly storytelling events along with parallel events such as storytelling workshops and performances. Cliffhangers is a non-profit initiative that aims to give a platform for marginalized voices and serves as a safe space for people to share their stories. Her first play, “This is not a memorized script, this is a well-rehearsed story,” an autobiographical play on queerness and her relationship with the city toured in London, New York, and Belfast, and premiered in Beirut in February 2020. She is currently working on her second play.

Kate McDonough is a performing artist, writer, storyteller and community organizer. Kate’s work explores generational cycles violence, healing and transformation through the documentation of family members personal stories. Kate is also currently working on sci fi series about cats.
Kate has been organizing in New York City and state for over a decade and they are currently the Director of Dignity in Schools Campaign-NY, a citywide multi stakeholder education justice coalition. Kate grew up in the Bronx and currently lives in Brooklyn.

Zo Tipp (they/them) is a jewish-japanese-american queer actor/singer. NY: INTAR: Bundle of Sticks, CSC/Oregon Shakes: Play On! festival, Rattlestick: Pride Plays. Upcoming screenings at NewFest 2020: Top and Bottom (Angela Cheng), Sideways Smile (Hang Nguyen), Dissonance (Kim Garcia). IG: @zotipp www.zotipp.com

Compassion Is Worth More! Online Book Launch with Edafe Okporo and Guest Eric Cervini
2020-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for an evening of inspiration, wisdom, and empowerment with Edafe Okporo to celebrate the release of his new book Compassion Is Worth More! Using Your Civil Power to Create Change. Edafe will be joined in conversation by Eric Cervini, author of The Deviant’s War.
Our modern-day polarized world requires civil leaders who care deeply about understanding the people they serve. If you are worried about the state of the world, you have surely wondered how we might solve today’s biggest problems, such as climate change, or the global refugee crisis. Imagine leaving your house this morning and driving to work. Your route usually takes you over a bridge, but when you get to that spot, you discover the bridge has collapsed! What would you do? Bridges are meant to connect us, to help us surmount obstacles. Great leaders use their civil power to create change by serving as bridges for others. It takes courage to do this, and I want to share with you the experiences I have had in my years of being a bridge for others to empower you to be a better civil leader.
This is a free event, but donations of any amount to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration is required. Click on the link below to register:
Click here to register

Purchase Edafe Okporo’s Compassion Is Worth More! (Xlibris, 2020, hardcover, $24.99) from the Bureau

Purchase Eric Cervini’s The Deviant’s War (FSG, 2020, hardcover, $35) from the Bureau
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from our online store!

Edafe Okporo has always been a leader in times of difficulty, migrating from Nigeria to the United States as a refugee, overcoming great obstacles, and now leading a movement of building a compassionate society. Okporo is a luminary and an advocate for the rights of marginalized people. He is passionate about building bridges and extending a hand to communities in need.

Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ history. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. The Deviant’s War is his first book.

Jarboe, Purnell, and Pratt Read New Work
2020-10-01 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Readings of new work by Julian K. Jarboe (Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel), Brontez Purnell (100 Boyfriends) and David Pratt (Two Plays: The Snow Queen, November Door).
Registration is required. Click on the link below to register:
https://tinyurl.com/y2zqq62o

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated. You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite. Thank you for your support!

Both Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel (Lethe Press, 2020, paperback, $15) and Two Plays: The Snow Queen, November Door (Hosta Press, 2020, paperback, $15) are available for purchase from the Bureau. Click on either title to purchase. (And if you’d like David to sign the book, please let us know in the order comments section when you check out. Just be sure to include the name you’d like him to use for the inscription.)
100 Boyfriends (MCD x FSG, paperback, $15) will be released February 2, 2021. To pre-order the book from the Bureau click here.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Julian K. Jarboe is the author of the collection Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel. More of their work can be found at juliankjarboe.com and on Twitter @JulianKJarboe. They live in Salem, Massachusetts.
David Pratt is the author of four novels (including a Lammy Award winner), a book of short stories, and several theater pieces. He has performed at Dixon Place, HERE and other venues in NYC, and at The Forge in Detroit. He is currently collaborating with Michigan artist Niki Williams on a series of 16 zines collectively titled The Book of Humiliation.
Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children’s book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers’ Award for Fiction, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. Born in Triana, Alabama, he’s lived in Oakland, California, for more than a decade.

Voices of LGBTQ+: Let’s Start a Positive Conversation
2020-09-26 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Why do so many people reject those who are different?
Though the mainstream acceptance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Queer community has made great improvements over the past few years, many groups within our society still respond to the LGBTQ+ community with an overwhelming reaction of “us” vs. “them.” Despite the progress that has been made, hatred, misunderstanding, aggression, animosity, and violence still affect this community on a deep level. A strong ally, Lynda Wolters knows firsthand: she has come to have a deep respect for the community through her son, who is gay.
Including highly personal anecdotes, Voices of LGBTQ+: A Conversation Starter for Understanding, Supporting, and Protecting Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer People outlines some of the most critical challenges the community faces today, with insights into:
• Homelessness
• Hate crimes
• Suicide
• Economic challenges
• Discrimination and lack of equality
• Religious and biblical conflicts
Though judgment and divisiveness still run deep, Wolters highlights the first key distinction that will help eradicate bigotry: those who are different are not choosing to be, they simply are, and it’s our differences that make us stronger. Voices of LGBTQ+ helps educate, dispel fears, and start positive conversations about what knowing, loving, or simply peacefully and positively coexisting with someone in the LGBTQ+ community truly means.
This is a free event, but the authors encourage attendees to make a donation of any amount to support the Bureau’s work. You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register
On the day of the event, Saturday, September 26, the Bureau will send an email to all who have registered with the link to the event on Zoom.
Paintings featured in the event flyer and on the book cover by Chris Taylor.
@artistchris on Instagram

Purchase Voices of LGBTQ+ from the Bureau!
Mascot Books, 2020, Hardcover, $24.95

Participants:
Lynda was born and raised in a tiny farming community of four hundred in northern Idaho, where she worked on the family farm. After high school, she traveled to New York to be a nanny for a few months before moving to Las Vegas to further her education. She moved back home to Idaho to raise her three sons while working in the legal field, a career that spanned over thirty years.
Watching her gay son navigate the LGBTQ+ community and the world in general, Lynda recognized a need to educate through a parent’s eye, what LGBTQ+ people endure that others are immune or ignorant to simply because of gender identity or sexual orientation.
Lynda lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband and long-haired dachshund, Tucker “Bug,” where she spends her days writing and volunteering.
Voices of LGBTQ+ is the second in the Voices Book Series, following the successful, Voices of Cancer.

Shannon grew up in a very conservative sector of Eastern Idaho where it was not encouraged or allowed to live an authentic life if that life were different than outwardly perceived.
Shannon attended the University of Idaho where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and has worked in the STEM field for twenty years. She is a Senior Member of Technical Staff managing a team of software developers for an international company.
As a transgender woman, Shannon proudly represents her community and strives to be a positive example for other women and girls like her.

When asked to describe himself, Hunter’s initial comment is, “I am kind.” Finishing up his bachelors in molecular biology, Hunter has worked his way through school as a server and barista, working most recently as a regional trainer for a large, national coffee chain.
When not studying or working, Hunter enjoys all things outdoors and has a newfound interest in ballet, recently being cast as Beast in a Beauty and the Beast production.
Hunter is a gay man who lives comfortably out to the world. He shares his time and space with his two fur-babies.

TELL 65: Money
2020-09-19 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
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.
Money is the theme of the 65th TELL, on Saturday, September 19, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Nina Ki, E. Leifer, and TL Thompson.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers and the Bureau are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/y35upour

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

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

Coming from a background in the arts, E. Leifer started their career as a painter and scenic artist, transitioning into film production and creative direction. They expanded their skill sets by learning about marketing and business, and held positions as Product Styling Manager for Net-A-Porter, Mr. Porter and Director of Creative Production at Intermix. As a non-binary member of the trans community and veteran in the fashion industry, E. utilizes the culmination of all her experiences to learn and grow with the industry, as a brand consultant, photographer and the CDO/ Co- Owner of Play Out Apparel, a gender equal, social good enterprise that promotes diversity, inclusion and body positive marketing.

TL Thompson credits include: Broadway: Straight White Men(Person In Charge u/s),Second Stage Theater. Theater: Is This A Room?(Agent Taylor), Vineyard Theater. Waafrika 123(Aweeno), Criminal Queerness Festival. NERVOUS/SYSTEM(Pollster), BAM Next Wave. AFTER (Company)Public Theater Podcasts: Meet Cute Podcast. Adventures in New America. Welcome to Nightvale. Webseries: THESE/THEMS (TI), Dir. Jett Garrison. THE HUNTED(Nic), Dir. Crystal Arnette. Films: Flu$h (Wrex), Dir. Heather Acs. Friday Afternoon Dir. Paige Campbell. TL is also NY Neo Futurist, who performs frequently in The Infinite Wrench, an ongoing attempt to perform 30 plays in one hour. TLThompsonactor.com.

Bodies and Barriers: Editor Adrian Shanker in Conversation with Contributors
2020-09-17 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Named by NBC News as one of “10 LGBTQ Books to watch out for in 2020” and by Book Riot as one of the “six best books addressing healthcare system inequities,” Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health is the first book written by LGBT healthcare consumers to inform the healthcare system and make it work more equitably for all of us. The critically-acclaimed book is structured chronologically to take the reader on a journey through the major stages of life for LGBT people. At this special virtual event hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, book editor Adrian Shanker and contributing authors Dr. Imani Woody, Atticus Ranck, Liz Margolies, and Laura Jacobs will speak about the importance of LGBTQ people sharing our healthcare experiences and advocating for health equity for the LGBTQ patient population.
Check out this article at Gay City News about Bodies and Barriers, which includes an interview with Adrian Shanker! “A Diverse, Collaborative Look at LGBTQ Health,” by Sharon Papo, posted on September 9, 2020.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are always welcome!
If you’d like to donate to the Bureau, you can do so when you register for the event on Eventbrite. Thank you for your support!
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register

Participants:
Adrian Shanker is editor of Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health and executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, PA. A specialist in LGBT health policy, he developed leading-edge health promotion campaigns to advance health equity through behavioral, clinical, and policy changes. Adrian administered data collection for the 2015, 2018, and 2020 Pennsylvania LGBT Health Needs Assessments. Adrian serves as Commissioner and health committee co-chair on the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs.

Atticus Ranck is the Health Program Education Coordinator with the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute. He previously worked as the Health Programs and Supportive Services Manager at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania and as director of Transgender Services for SunServe, an LGBT nonprofit mental health center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Atticus has trained over one thousand individuals on various aspects LGBT cultural competency over dozens of trainings across the country. Atticus earned his MA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Florida Atlantic University and a BA in Creative Writing from Slippery Rock University. In his free time, Atticus enjoys building and restoring furniture and is a huge Harry Potter nerd.

Dr. Imani Woody is the founding director and CEO of Mary’s House for Older Adults, Inc. She has a PhD in Human Services, specializing in nonprofit management. Her thesis is titled Lift Every Voice: A Qualitative Exploration of Ageism and Heterosexism as Experienced by Older African American Lesbian Women and Gay Males When Addressing Social Services Needs. She holds an MA in Human Services from Lincoln University and is a graduate of Georgetown University’s paralegal program. Dr. Woody has been an advocate of women, people of color, and LGBT/SGL issues for more than twenty years and is a member of the National LGBT Elder Housing Initiative and the DC Mayor’s World Health Organization Age-Friendly Cities Commission. She is also the program officer for the Older Adults Advisory Council for Metropolitan Community Churches and a board member of the LGBT Technology Partnership. She lives with her wife of seventeen years in Brookland, Washington, DC.

Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R, is a trans- and genderqueer-identified psychotherapist, activist, author, and public speaker in the New York City area working with transgender and gender-nonbinary, LGBT, and alternate lifestyle communities of BDSM, non-monogamy, and sex work. They serve as chair of the board of directors for the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City, have been featured in television, radio, and print media, and have presented at countless community and healthcare conferences, professional associations, medical schools, and other organizations. Laura is the recipient of a 2018 Gay City News Impact Award, as well as the 2017 Dorothy Kartashovich Award from the Community Health Center Association of New York State. They are coauthor, with Laura Erickson-Schroth, of “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” and 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions about Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. As Lawrence Jacobs, they worked as a musician, composer, photographer, and in less glamorous corporate middle management.

Liz Margolies, LCSW, founder and former executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, has served the LGBT community for over 40 years as a psychotherapist and political activist. Liz is a psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in trauma, loss, health disparities and sexuality. Margolies is a co-author on multiple peer-reviewed articles and chapters, several based on the Network’s original research on LGBT cancer survivors. As a result of her work for this underserved community, Margolies was chosen as one of the OUT100 in 2014.

Shani Mootoo in Conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi
2020-09-15 19:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Shani Mootoo presents her latest novel Polar Vortex, in conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi (Vanishing Monuments, Arsenal Pulp Press) in this virtual event hosted by the Bureau.
This is a free event, but the authors encourage attendees to make a donation of any amount to the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register
On the day of the event, Tuesday, September 15, the Bureau will send an email to all who have registered with the link to the event on Zoom.
Purchase Polar Vortex from the Bureau!

Akashic Books, 2020, paperback, $16.95

Purchase Vanishing Monuments from the Bureau!Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020, paperback, $17.95

John Elizabeth Stintzi is a non-binary novelist and poet. They were the recipient of the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and their work has appeared in Kenyon Review, The Malahat Review, and Ploughshares. They are the author of the novel Vanishing Monuments as well as the poetry collection Junebat.
Shani Mootoo is a novelist, poet, and visual artist. Her novels include Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award; Valmiki’s Daughter, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the Dublin Impac Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night, short-listed for several prizes including the Giller Prize, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She is also a recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize.

TELL 64: My Queerantine
2020-08-15 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
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.
My Queerantine is the theme of the 64th TELL, on Saturday, August 15, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Mariel Reyes, Substantia Jones, and Bianca Dagga.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/yyqak6op

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

An art photographer since the ’80s, and a radio producer and host for the better part of 25 years, Substantia Jones became a photo-activist in 2007, launching the Body Politics campaign the Adipositivity Project, featuring her photos of those with non-conforming bodies (fat people, disabled folks, trans and genderqueer), always with the overwhelming focus on fat people. The website, adipositivity.com, hosts approximately 800 of her photographs of unapologetic naked fat people, and has been visited over 11 million times. She describes the project as “equal parts feminism, fuckyouism, and fat.” Her photography has been featured internationally in books, magazines, and news outlets, and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the globe. She lectures about her Fat Liberation work in schools, universities, museums, and conferences, but storytelling kind of scares her, so please be gentle.

Mariel Reyes is an Queer Afrolatinx performance artist & producer, with works based out of some of your favorite experimental theater spaces in NYC (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange) She has also appeared on screen in the film “Appropriate Behaviour” which premiered at Sundance in 2014 and the award winning web series “The Feels” currently in its third season.

Bianca Dagga is a fierce, queer multi-cultural burlesque performer based in NYC. Since stepping into the spotlight in 2009, Bianca has toured the country gracing stages all over the U.S. map. In February 2016 she made her international debut in Macau, China with Brown Girls Burlesque. In September 2019 Bianca was featured in the Taormina Burlesque Festival, in Taormina, Italy. In 2014 she was crowned Princess Of Latin Burlesque at the inaugural Latin Burlesque Festival in Dallas, TX. She was awarded “sexiest burlesque performer”at GO! magazine’s lesbian nightlife awards in 2010.
All of Bianca’s acts speak true to who she is at her core. The Nuyorican Warrior Woman comes out in every hip roll, thrust, and twirl! When she is not on the burlesque stage, she is also a gogo and pole dancer. Aside from dance, Bianca is a professional art model, and a fine jeweler. Bianca stripteases for the sake of humanity, because at the end of the day when we take off our clothes, what is left is our minds, hearts, and souls.

Genevieve Hudson & Alden Jones: A Virtual Reading with the Bureau
2020-07-25 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join the Bureau online for a reading with Genevieve Hudson (Boys of Alabama) and Alden Jones (The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir) on Saturday, July 25th, 6 to 7 PM EST.
Registration on Eventbrite is required. Register below:
https://tinyurl.com/y9k2ty4f
Genevieve Hudson will read from her new novel, Boys of Alabama. Melissa Febos says of Boys of Alabama: “This novel is a love song to outsiders of all kinds, a queer love story about the ways we find to heal ourselves and each other, and proof that there can be magic amid the burdens of masculinity. Hudson’s prose is perfect and I will remember her Boys of Alabama for a long, long time.”

Genevieve Hudson’s previous books are the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone, and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a 2019 Lambda Literary Award finalist. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, The MacDowell Colony, Caldera Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Portland, OR. genevievehudsonwriter.com
Alden Jones will read from her new bibliomemoir, The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich says of The Wanting Was a Wilderness: “Alden Jones intended to write a reckoning with a contemporary literary classic — but she has written far more than that. To carefully dissect Wild, she finds she must consider her own quests: her own time in the wild; her self-discoveries as a queer woman; and how she can both live and tell an authentic story. This is a beautiful, lyric, unexpected book about the power of memoir and how desire both leads us into the wilderness and makes for us a map. The Wanting Was a Wilderness is a book for readers, true readers, to treasure.”

Alden Jones’s previous books are The Blind Masseuse, a finalist for the PEN Diamonstein-Spielvogal Award, and Unaccompanied Minors, winner of the New American Fiction Prize and a finalist for a Lambda and a Publishing Triangle Award. She teaches at Emerson College and is core faculty in the Newport MFA. aldenjones.com

This event is free, but the authors and the Bureau ask attendees to make a donation of $10 or more to NYC’s LGBT Community Center if you have the means to do so.
RSVP on Eventbrite in order to receive the link to the Zoom meeting (required).
Order Hudson’s Boys of Alabama (Liveright Publishing, May 19, 2020, hardcover, $26.95) from the Bureau. Send us an email with “Order Hudson’s Boys of Alabama” in the subject line at contact@bgsqd.com. Please include:
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)

Order Jones’s The Wanting Was a Wilderness (Fiction Advocate, May 12, 2020, paperback, $19.95) directly from the publisher:
https://fictionadvocate.com/afterwords/the-wanting-was-a-wilderness/

Author Matthew Burgess Discusses Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring
2020-07-24 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Join the Bureau online for a conversation about Keith Haring’s life, art, and lasting cultural influence with author of Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring, Matthew Burgess, and special guest, author Tom Eubanks (Ghosts of St. Vincent’s).
This event is free, but registration on Eventbrite is required. We will send out the link to the event on the day of the event.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/yc5zcdxk

About the book:
Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring
Matthew Burgess, Author
Josh Cochran, Illustrator
Enchanted Lion Books, May 19, 2020, Hardcover, $18.95
Target Age Group: 5 to 13
Purchase Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring from Enchanted Lion Books

From the publisher:
“Truly devoted to the idea of public art, Haring created murals wherever he went.
“From Matthew Burgess, the much-acclaimed author of Enormous Smallness, comes Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring. Often seen drawing in white chalk on the matte black paper of unused advertising space in the subway, Haring’s iconic pop art and graffiti-like style transformed the New York City underground in the 1980s. A member of the LGBTQ community, Haring died tragically at the age of thirty-one from AIDS-related complications. Illustrated in paint by Josh Cochran, himself a specialist in bright, dense, conceptual drawings, this honest, celebratory book honors Haring’s life and art, along with his very special connection with kids.”

“Thirty years after Keith Haring’s death of AIDS-related complications, this vibrant picture book brings the iconic pop artist’s work and story to the hearts of a new generation. Often featuring a bold black line, Cochran’s painterly illustrations drive the narrative–bursting with movement and color–utilizing a wide variety of perspectives and both spot and full-bleed illustrations to dance around the text in a suitably neo-expressionist tribute to the subject. Stylized and simplified figures fill the pages with smiling faces in a broad spectrum of skin tones and body types, opening the door on Haring’s passionately held belief that ‘Art is for everybody.’ Without erasing or dwelling on any particular aspect of Haring’s personal life, author Burgess outlines Haring’s relationships with art, with children, and with his partner, Juan DuBose, in straightforward, accessible language–from his childhood in Pennsylvania to his ‘final mark’ in Pisa, Italy (five months before his death)–with the same bold honesty and vibrance visible in his subject’s art career. Biographical, author’s, and illustrator’s notes back up the book, supplementing the broad strokes of the text with finer detail and more individual perspectives on Haring’s personal, political, and artistic legacies. An inspired, and inspiring, continuation of Haring’s intention.” –Kirkus

Matthew Burgess is an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College. He is the author of a poetry collection, Slippers for Elsewhere (UpSet Press, 2014), and three children’s books: Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings (Enchanted Lion Books, 2015), The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon (Knopf, 2019), and the newly released Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring (ELB, 2020). He has edited an anthology of visual art and writing titled Dream Closet: Meditations on Childhood Space (Secretary Press, 2016), as well as a recent collection titled Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2019). More books are forthcoming, including The Bear and The Moon (Chronicle, 2020), Make Meatballs Sing: The Life & Art of Corita Kent (ELB, 2021), and Bird Boy (Knopf, 2021). A poet-in-residence in New York City public schools since 2001, Matthew also serves as a contributing editor of Teachers & Writers Magazine.

TELL 63: My Body
2020-07-18 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
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.
My Body is the theme of the 63rd TELL, on Saturday, July 18, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Carla Gaskins-Nathan, Vie Paula, and Brian Belovitch.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/yadq4fm6
Photograph by Grace Chu

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

Carla Gaskins-Nathan (pronouns she/they) is the Brooklyn and now resides in Harlem. Carla is the founder and CEO of Zelah LLC, which includes their private massage practice, Rooted Bodywork. Carla is a consultant, educator and healing artist that believes true holistic wellness must be rooted in healing, social and racial justice.
Carla preformed and curated while living in Minneapolis in the 90s and 2000s. Their performance work includes spoken word, drag, DJ, VJ and performance art. Carla has preformed at Twin Cities Black Pride, the main stage of Twin Cities Pride, Intermedia Arts, Patrick’s Cabaret and other LGBTQIA events.
Carla’s work is open to all that see the importance of holistic wellness with a focus on loving Blackness and working with LGBTQIA+ communities of color.

South Bronx bred, performance fed, Vie Paula is a Caretaker, Thing Maker, Singer/Songwriter, and Licensed Massage Therapist striving to learn how to tell the whole truth and spend as much time as possible with their roommate’s cat. With night life entertainment in the far away past and a recent foray into all things extra, Vie wants to see you and be seen by you. They are currently working on staying connected and engaged, figuring out what fun is, and creating a life worth staying awake for.

Brian Belovitch, author, activist and longtime resident of NYC also has a storied career as a writer and gender outlier. He’s appeared on New York stages for more than three decades. Recently he was featured on The Moth Storytelling hour on NPR relating a story from his recently published memoir, Trans Figured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man. In 2019, Brian was a recipient of the Acker award for writing that is given annually to East Village, NY avant-garde artists. As a playwright, his Off-Broadway play, Boys Don’t Wear Lipstick, was honored with a 2000 GLAAD nomination. This June, Brian was named one of the 50 most influential LGBTQ authors of all time by Barnes and Noble and invited to participate in the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Gay Pride Parade in New York City. In November 2019, Brian was the subject of a documentary film debuting its world premiere at DOC NYC titled I’m Gonna Make You Love Me directed by Karen Bernstein. As a long- term survivor of HIV Brian lives proudly as a beloved gay man, advocating on behalf of the LGBTQ community in all its wondrous expressions.

Join the Bureau at the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality
2020-06-28 13:00 - 17:00 | NY
Please join the Bureau at this important march on Pride Sunday!
From Reclaim Pride Coalition‘s website:
On Sunday, June 28th, at 1pm, the Reclaim Pride Coalition will be in the streets of Manhattan for its second annual Queer Liberation March — the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality. Marchers will gather at 12:45pm at Foley Square on Centre St and step off at 1pm sharp.
Marchers are asked to wear face masks to protect against COVID-19 and to maintain safe distancing. Reclaim Pride can provide a limited number of masks, hand sanitizer and water to those who need them. And Reclaim Pride will livestream the March online at @queermarch on FB and Twitter/Periscope and via Youtube live on reclaimpridenyc.org for those who can’t attend in person. This March, like all current protest Marches, does not have a City/NYPD permit.
“We’re horrified by the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Layleen Polanco, Rayshard Brooks and untold numbers of others,” said Reclaim Pride’s Francesca Barjon, “and we’re mourning the endless violent deaths of Black trans women and men like Dominique ‘Rem’mie’ Fells and Riah Milton. So, inspired by the historic, Black-led protest movement that has taken to the streets here in NYC and across the world, Reclaim Pride supports demands for immediate defunding, disarming, dismantling, and reimagining of police forces.”
Reclaim Pride joins with abolitionists such as Mariambe Kaba and others in several cities in demanding a fifty percent reduction in the NYPD budget with a fifty percent reduction in the police force. Those funds must be dedicated to support and services including housing, healthcare, education and reparative and transformative justice for Black communities. New York City must prioritize reparations for those who’ve been oppressed and murdered for hundreds of years.
While all Black people are at constant risk of police brutality and murder, Reclaim Pride, as queer and trans activists , recognizes that Black Trans, Gender Non-Conforming, and Non Binary people, especially Black Trans Women, are faced with the intersection of vicious state and societal racism, transphobia, misogyny, and classism. This must stop now.
For the complete statement of purpose, see below or download the PDF
The March will be wheelchair accessible. For other questions about accessibility, contact access@reclaimpridenyc.org.
Website: www.reclaimpridenyc.org
Facebook: @QueerMarch
Twitter: @QueerMarch
Instagram: @QueerMarch
Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) is a New York City-based group comprised of LGBTQ+ activists in alliance with dozens of grassroots community groups, nationally and internationally. In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, RPC mobilized more than 45,000 people to recreate the original 1970 Gay Pride march route uptown from Stonewall to Central Park. This March, the Queer Liberation March, was a people’s protest march without corporate funding, corporate floats, or a police contingent.

TELL 62: Queer Black Lives Matter
2020-06-27 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
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.
Queer Black Lives Matter is the theme of the 62nd TELL, on Saturday, June 27, 2020, 6 to 8 PM (EST). Co-hosted by Drae Campbell & Shannon Matesky. Featuring stories by ehag the seahag, Sebastian J. Flowers, Heather Lynn Johnson, and Ronnie Mae Painter.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register for the event on eventbrite.
https://tinyurl.com/ydbrvagk

Photograph by Grace Chu

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

ehag the sea hag is a media maker and professor and underwater creature who thinks a lot about race and freedom.

Sebastian J. Flowers aka Alkaline Sunboi is a 1st generation immigrant and Brooklyn native, model, actor, and vegan in NYC. With indigenous roots in Belize and Honduras, Central America, practicing a life of peace, love, physical health and spiritual wellness has been a natural catalyst for his 15 years of activism in the LGBTQ and POC communities across the country. Despite incestuous sexual abuse as young as 7 years old, poverty, nearly dying twice due to gender affirming surgery, this female to male transgender has no sight of slowing down. Sebastian, 31 years old, has a large following on social media for his dance moves and positive messages and aspires to use it as a platform for his acting and modeling career. Sebastian dreams of being an international actor, successful philanthropist and investor. His most recent acting roles are on several episodes of POSE on FX (season 2), Law & Order: SVU on NBC, Blue Bloods on CBS, and independent short film Chasing Love. Feel free to check out Sebastian’s reality documentary series on YouTube, “LEGENDARY,” highlighting his life as an Afro Latino female to male transgender, dating, discussing mental health & wellness, cooking vegan on a low income, student financial advice, Vogue & Mua tips, traveling while Queer, and interviewing prominent Queer youth & Queer people of color in NYC and the world.
Instagram: @BelizeanVegan
Facebook: Facebook.com/BelizeanVegan
YouTube: Belizean Vegan

Heather Lynn Johnson is a poet, artist and a performer living in Brooklyn. She is currently a fellow at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, author of The Survival Guide For Queer Black Youth (Inpatient Press, 2017), and the 2017 literary fellow for the Queer|Art|Mentorship program. Johnson’s work is characterized by its lyricism and cultural critique. Her formal approach to the narrative, whether visual or poetic, is distinguished by her willingness to lay bare her own existence. She is working on her next book of poetry I Owe You Nothing: How to be Black and Free. Johnson received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Shannon Matesky is an actress, writer, director, producer and an organizer from Berkeley, California. She is creator and curator of Queer Abstract, a monthly performance series in Brooklyn. As an actress Shannon has performed with a range of theater companies including The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, and The Inconvenience. She has been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and elsewhere. Shannon has produced campaigns and festivals across the United States, including the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, Life is Living, and The Fly Honey Show. Shannon currently works with Urban Word NYC. For more information visit www.shannonmatesky.com

A native New Yorker born and raised in Astoria, Queens, Ronnie Mae Painter is a Brooklyn-based artist who’s primary media are painting on canvas and works on paper. She is also a published author and poet. Her literary works can be found in the anthology “Are Italians White”, edited by Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno. Painter’s experiences growing up as a woman of African-American and Italian-American biracial descent during the 1970s are transcended through both her visual and literary works in energetic movements and a shouting tone.

United Queerdom: Virtual Book Launch with Dan Glass & Panel of Activists
2020-06-25 18:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The LGBT Community Center host a virtual book launch for United Queerdom: From the Legends of the Gay Liberation Front to the Queers of Tomorrow on Thursday, June 25th, at 6 PM NYC time. Join us for a special event celebrating the radical roots of Pride and our ongoing journey for ‘Absolute Freedom for All’ an evening of discussion, readings, agitations, and celebrations on the current and future movements for queer liberation.
Dan Glass will be joined by Stuart Feather, Sunitha Dwarakanath, Sarah Schulman, and Jason Lamar Walker.
This event is free, but we encourage attendees to make donations that we will collect on behalf of Black Lives Matter.

Please register for this event here (required)

Pre-order United Queerdom (Zed Books, July 15, 2020, paperback, $22.95) from the Bureau! Write to us at contact@bgsqd.comwith your
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)

Dan Glass is a sex-positive, queer, healthcare and human rights award-winning activist, performer, presenter and writer. Reforming ‘Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) London chapter in 2013 has catalysed healthcare and sex-positive programmes including campaigning for PREP, protecting the National Health Service through presenting “Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Great NHS Sell-Off” which won “Award of Excellence” at the DOCS Without Borders Film Festival, producing ‘HIV / HEP Blind Date’ a theatre dating- show for people living with HIV / HEP to share the realities of life, love and struggle as well as enabling ‘HIV anti-stigma classes as part of the anti-fascist ‘Beyond UKIP Cabaret’ in Nigel Farage’s boozer. Dan has won Attitude Magazine’s campaigning role models for LGBTQI youth + a Guardian ‘UK youth climate leader’, 2017 ‘Activist of the Year’ with the ‘Sexual Freedom Awards’ and was announced a ‘BBC Greater Londoner’ in 2019 for founding ‘Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time’ and is part of the global In Place of War artist movement. An agitator from the Training for Transformation educational programme born out of the Anti-Apartheid movement, the core of dan’s work is the development of critical consciousness and creativity to spur people ‘to read their reality and write their own history’. Dans recent programmes involve catalysing ‘Queer Night Pride’ and ‘Bender Defenders’ to confront rising LGBT+ hate crime, facilitating the Gay Liberation Front 50th anniversary Pride celebrations and presenting ‘Never Again – Fighting the Polish far-right’ and ‘Weaponising Anti-semitism’. During the COVID-19 epidemic dan was part of the Coronavirus cabaret: the online show combating social isolation’. Contact dan at www.theglassishalffull.co.uk and at alright@theglassishalffull.co.uk – Twitter #danglassisfull

Stuart Feather is a GLF activist and took part in the first public demonstration of homosexuals in the UK in 1970. His political autobiography Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens was published in 2016. Feather was also a member 1977 – 1993 of the gay theatre group Bloolips, winners of a New York OBIE award in 1981. See Stuarts TED Talks here:
TEDxHultLondon – The LGBTQ+ and the Gay Liberation Front
Neil Bartlett: “Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens is invaluable as well as entertaining first hand radical testimony from the period, essential for anyone who wants to understand how this country has changed and who wants to think about how it could be changed more.”

Sunitha Dwarakanath is a Queer South Asian from London, UK. Sunitha organises with the QTIPOC and LGBTQIA+ black and people of colour bloc with ‘Queer Night Pride’ – a movement challenging the recent rise in LGBT+ hate crime. Sunitha grew up around her mum’s family where politics about Sri Lanka were constantly being discussed and was recently prompted to campaign for Labour in the last election because of her difficult experiences as an Asian person in queer spaces and wider society. Sunitha is also part of the ‘Riposte’ nightclub collective – one of London’s leading queer techno art movements.

Sarah Schulman’s work as a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter and AIDS historian is devoted to social change and to the making of more liveable-socially, economically, politically-lives. Her most famous works include ‘The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination’ and ‘Israel/Palestine and the Queer International’, both of which foreground the relevance of gender/sexual politics in understanding- and challenging- violent socio-political systems; the former through a history of AIDS and gentrification in New York, the latter through an exploration of the role of ‘pinkwashing’ and ‘homonationalism’ in the continued occupation of Palestinian Territories.
Schulman is and has always been a passionate activist and campaigner. Member of the international direct action group ACT-UP, founder of the ACT UP Oral History Project, and co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers, she blends her intellectual and political endeavours in a way which provides as much space for an interrogation of multiple systems of oppression as it does for their ultimate destitution.

Jason Lamar Walker is a nationally recognized activist, organizing within the center of Black Queer Liberation. Formerly from VOCAL New York, Jason gained his notoriety by bringing together thousands of New Yorkers living with HIV to pass city and state laws and to influence federal policies. In 2015, he helped win an eight-year battle ensuring that formerly homeless New Yorkers living with HIV could maintain their housing by passage of the 30% Rent Cap. Thanks to this work, more than 11,000 members of his community have been able to remain in their homes. In 2016, Jason helped to score a second major victory that expanded those policies and lifesaving benefits to all New York City residents living with HIV in a campaign that is commonly referred to as “HASA for All”.
Jason’s devotion to social justice work extends prior to joining VOCAL’s team. He began organizing as a student at the University of Louisville serving as President of the NAACP, Co-Chair of the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Co-founder of BlkOut – the first LGBTQ recognized student organization for People of Color in the state of Kentucky. In 2012, following the murder of Trayvon Martin, Jason was leading organizer in a citywide solidarity rally, which lead to the creation of #Louisville4Trayvon, now the Louisville Chapter of Black Lives Matter.
Having his roots in organizing as a youth, Jason supported the growth and development of Queerocracy, a youth organizing and leadership development program. Queerocracy works with homeless and street involved queer youth to develop and execute policy advocacy strategies and direct actions to ensure Black and Brown LGBTQ youth have access to equality and equity.
Jason has served on New York State’s Ending the Epidemic advisory groups for Black Men who have Sex with Men and Young Adults to assist in the development of specific implementation strategies to optimize the Blueprint to End the HIV/AIDS Epidemic’s impact on Black men and young adults.
He has been recognized by POZ Magazine’s 2014 Top 100 List, the National Black Justice Coalition as a Black LGBTQ/SGL Emerging Leaders to Watch, is 2016 recipient of the People for the American Way Foundation’s Norman Lear Award and the NYC Black Gay Pride’s Joseph Jefferson Award, and was acknowledged by City & State New York in 2018 as one of the 10 LGBT Leaders on the Rise list. Most recently, Jason became the 2019 recipient of the Ali Forney Centers Luminary Award and Jason has been featured on Capital Tonight, MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes, and NY1’s Inside City Hall.

Reclaiming Queer Childhoods: Dual Book Release - Online Event
2020-06-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Hosted and moderated by Chicago’s own Leanna Burton! Join Marina Labarthe del Solar and Lexie Bean to celebrate their new works celebrating adult queer and trans reclamation of childhood mediums. Marina, co-founder of Enby Spoken Histories, with The Trans Coloring Book! And Lexie Bean, curator of Lambda Finalist Written on the Body, with their debut middle grade novel The Ship We Built.
They will share from their books and be in dialogue with the one and only Peppermint! The three will share on questions of who gets to have full and representational childhoods, ways art serves as reclamation, and how reforming “child-like” mediums can create new futures and new understandings of love.
There will also be a special performance by queer pop artist, Be Steadwell! Who may also be a part of the panel discussion 🙂
Purchase a copy of The Ship We Built (Dial Books, 2020, hardcover, $16.99) from the Bureau. Write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with the subject line “Order The Ship We Built” and the following included in the body of the email:
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)
Marina’s Trans Coloring Book (paperback, $10) can be purchased on their site:
https://okdood.bigcartel.com/
REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE LINK TO THE ZOOM MEETING (REQUIRED)
This event is free, but the authors encourage donations to support Emergency Relief Fund* and to make their books as accessible as possible. 75% of all donations will go towards Emergency Relief Fund and the remaining 25% towards sending free copies of their books to low-income members of our communities. Suggested donation of $5 to $10, but whatever you are able to give is much appreciated!
*The mission of the Emergency Release Fund is to ensure that no trans person at risk in New York City jails remains in detention before trial. If cash bail is set for a trans person in New York City and no bars to release are in place, bail will be paid by the Emergency Release Fund.
Trans people experience constant injustice. Behind bars it can be fatal. It’s on us to make sure no one – not one person – falls through the cracks. We can and we will.

Screening of Confederitis, A Film by Rbt. Sps. & Jillian McManemin
2020-05-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us on Saturday, May 30, 7 PM EST for an online screening of Confederitis, a collaborative film by Rbt. Sps. & Jillian McManemin, followed by a brief Q&A with both artists,
Confederitis is a collaborative experimental film by Robert Spees and Jillian McManemin that melds documentary footage of rural Kentucky and Tennessee with narrative, karaoke, poetry and slapstick puppetry. The film follows Phocian and Faith (played by the filmmakers), as they form a queer love cult and distort Confederate symbology. Confederitis was shot on multiple formats and film stocks including Super 8mm, 16mm, Hi-8, Betamax, VHS, & HD. Confederitis is a diaristic dream state that meditates on the impotence of escapism in our current political climate.
Confederitis has been presented by Anthology Film Archives, The Istanbul Experimental Film Festival, The Slipper Room, Spalding University (Louisville, Kentucky), Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño (Santiago, Cuba), and received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to be screened at Circe Theater (Tbilisi, Georgia) in January 2019. “A Prelude to a Film”, a performance that incorporated early Confederitis footage, was presented by Rbt. & Jillian at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in 2015.
Run time: 70 minutes
This event is free, but the artists and the Bureau ask attendees to make a donation of $10 or more to NYC’s LGBT Community Center if you have the means to do so.
RSVP ON EVENTBRITE IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE LINK TO THE ZOOM MEETING (REQUIRED).

TELL 61: 2020 / A Virtual Event
2020-05-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
2020 is the theme of the 61st TELL, on Saturday, May 9, 2020, 6 to 8 PM (EST). Featuring stories by Christy DeGallerie, David Reyes, Buzz Slutzky, and Renair Amin.

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

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

Photograph by Grace Chu

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presenters include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The event is free and open to the public.

Find the NYC Queer Comic Fair on Instagram and Facebook.

Contact: Bubba – wabisabizinez@gmail.com

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

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

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

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

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

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