BGSQD

TELL 88: Bathrooms (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, 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.
The theme of the 88th TELL is Bathrooms. Featuring storytellers Micah Brown, Glace Chase, & Fred Brown, Jr.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

DRAE CAMPBELL’s first performance was at age 5 in a nightclub opening for a punk band. Drae has a BFA in Theater from The University of Arts in Philadelphia. Some Theater credits include: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Ricochet Collective), Non-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (La MaMa), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Oph3lia(HERE). TV includes “New Amsterdam,” “Bull ” and “Dinette ” (web series, directed by Shaina Feinberg). Drae has been hosting and curating TELL for more than 9 years which is now a SILVER Signal Award-winning podcast of the same name. www.draecampbell.com

Micah Brown is a transsexual butch queen from New York City. They are a Sociologist, multi-media artist, and tragically self-aware. They tell stories loosely, and would like to remind you to take everything with several grains of salt, and also completely seriously.

Fred Brown, Jr. is a New York Emmy-nominated tv producer and Culture journalist. In his current role at BRIC TV Brooklyn, Fred has produced over 20 documentary packages with social justice and human interest themes.
Fred helped develop and supervise the packaging of over 90 minutes of original documentary content, reflecting the diverse stories and experiences of New York’s vibrant and resiliant LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, Fred’s short doc titled “WERK!: Behind The Ball”, premiered at Times Square AMC Theater during the UrbanWorld Film Festival.
In a career now spanning 30 years, Fred has held professional stints at CNN, C-Span, The Washington Post, The Smithsonian Institute, The National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters, PBS and The New York Times Advertising Group.

Glace Chase most recently starred in 3 return seasons of Nora Burn’s play The Village at Dixon Place and is a fixture of NYC & Australia’s queer comedy scene & multi-hyphenate & award-winning “trans-queen” / comedienne / performer / screenwriter / playwright / ho. Glace wrote & starred in Sydney Theatre Company/Queensland Theatre’s hit play Triple X, earning rave reviews & nightly standing Os. Triple X was shortlisted for both the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and Nick Enright Prize. While in Oz, Glace also starred in All My Friends Are Racist and ArtWorks on ABC. She’s attached to numerous tv projects that will probably go nowhere. She’s currently developing her new one-woman Outback Adventure Glace’s Big Things. It opens with group sex & closes riding a wombat, so it’s the #1 must-see of the Off-Off-Off Broadway Slutty Trans Storytelling Comedy genre and is coming to a Living Room near you. Outcalls only. #youtoo

“Eden’s Garden - A Road of Triumph and Battle”: Intimate Conversations (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The pre-promotion tour has started for the upcoming book release of Eden’s Garden – A Road of Triumph and Battle, which will be available in 2024.
Seven King’s memoir takes a vulnerable look into the experience of a young independent who went through a maze to fulfill an idea that was bestowed upon him. The idea came during one of the toughest moments in his life and came with mockery, tests, and gossip even in his own community. Being a passionate individual and fighter, he overcame all tests that would have set the average person back. However, this idea catapulted him into the seasoned and well-skilled creative director he evolved into.
This book will be a three-part manuscript: an autobiography of the experience of developing the project, an advice column for those transitioning or thinking about it, and a fictional novel. The book is a piece to give the true insight, wisdom, motivation, and creativity of the brand of Eden’s Garden and more understanding to the man behind the vision. Please join Seven for a night of pre-celebration through intimate conversation and the reading of the first 5 pages of the novel and Q&A with the director.
There will be open and honest dialogue with Seven while considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build a project from scratch? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt vs purpose? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much? Why is it important to follow your own gut when reaching for your goals? These will be some of the topics discussed at the promotional book tour stop for Eden’s Garden. Come join us for two hours of reflection, conversation, and celebration for Eden’s Garden – A Road of Triumph and Battle.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Malachi King, known as Seven, stands as the visionary force behind The Nile Creatives and Seven King Productions. With a lineage rooted in the legendary hip-hop ensemble Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five—his father’s legacy—Seven effortlessly embraces the entertainment realm. Opting to forge his distinct path to greatness, he emerged as a film director, producer, author, screenwriter, motivational speaker, and a steadfast advocate for the trans community.
Malachi’s educational journey led him to Clark Atlanta University, where he adeptly mastered various hands-on programs within Mass Media, ultimately ascending to the role of Mass Media Department President. Amidst these formative years, he lensed music videos for fellow students, igniting his creative spark and birthing engaging vlogs. This initial foray gradually evolved, culminating in the inception of his own short films and the groundbreaking web series, “Eden’s Garden.” This audacious creation garnered immense traction, amassing over 2 million YouTube views and propelling him into the spotlight—earning recognition as one of Ryan Murphy’s top emerging directors, affording him the coveted opportunity to shadow the prolific creator on set.
Presently, Malachi’s production company thrives, a crucible for diverse visual arts encompassing feature films, web series, dynamic social media content, and evocative documentaries. His unwavering mission revolves around imbuing narratives with visceral impact, transcending mere sight to evoke profound emotional resonance. Rooted in a distinct and contemporary vision, his projects beckon viewers to re engage, repeatedly immersing themselves in narratives that authentically mirror the communities and social causes that resonate deeply within him.
This burgeoning luminary has already etched an indelible mark upon his community, poised for an even more remarkable trajectory. Anticipate a wealth of forthcoming endeavors from Seven King Productions, a revitalized incarnation of his viral sensation, “Eden’s Garden,” poised for an exciting resurgence in the summer of 2022.

The Publishing Triangle OUTspoken Reading Series (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-16 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Christian Baines, Jim Berg, Mary Burns, JP Howard, Michael Klein, Sean Patrick Mulroy, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan. Join us as in-person or remotely to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Reclaiming the Past: LGBT Historical Fiction (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-12 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Authors Stephanie Cowell, Lance Ringel, and Sebastian Dureaux-Russell read from their novels, each set in a different decade of the early 20th century, and all focusing on relationships between gay male protagonists.
Copies of Cowell’s The Boy in the Rain, Ringel’s Flower of Iowa, and Dureaux-Russell’s Burning with a Blue Flame will all be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy of any of these books please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “Please reserve book for November 12 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Stephanie Cowell has been an opera singer, balladeer, founder of Strawberry Opera and other arts venues including a Renaissance festival in NYC. She is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart, Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet and The Boy in the Rain. Her work has been translated into nine languages and made into an opera. Stephanie is the recipient of an American Book Award. She has lived in NYC all her life.

Lance Ringel is a two-time Lammy nominee whose novels and plays bring gay history to life through vividly realized characters and meticulously researched detail. His debut novel, Flower of Iowa, about an American soldier and a British soldier who fall in love on the Western Front in World War 1, received multiple literary accolades, including the Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award for War and Military Fiction. Floridian Nights, his second novel, is an intense, multifaceted love story that unfolds against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic of the late 1980s. In consecutive years, each of these novels was named as a Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Romance.
Ringel’s plays include In Love with the Arrow Collar Man, about famed illustrator J.C. Leyendecker and his model, muse and lover Charles Beach; and Flash/Frozen, a drama based on true events about two champion male skaters whose lives fatefully intersect around the tragic 1961 plane crash that killed the entire U.S. Figure Skating World Team. Both plays have enjoyed successful runs, to considerable acclaim, in New York.

Sebastian Dureaux-Russell was educated at Duke Ellington School of the Arts and The International Center of Photography. An award-winning photographer and speaker, his images traveled the globe in the 9/11 exhibition “Here is New York: A democracy of photographs.” He has penned for: Where Magazine, In New York, City Guide, Travel Weekly, City Info, and The New York Times. Burning with a Blue Flame is the first novel by Sebastian Dureaux-Russell. Instagram: Sebastian_Photographs.

Closed for Veterans Day
2023-11-11 | NY
Please note that in observance of Veterans Day, The Center will open from 5 PM to 9 PM on both Friday, November 10th, and Saturday, November 11th.
The Bureau will open at 5 PM on Friday, November 10th, and will remain open for our 7 PM event: Double Take Poetry Reading (in person only).
The Bureau will be closed on Saturday, November 11th.

Double Take Poetry Reading (in person only)
2023-11-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join us for a poetry reading with Paloma Yannakakis, Izzy Casey, and Amy Klein to celebrate the release of Double Take.
Between arrival and disappearance, between the longed-for and the long forgotten, what remains intact across time? Parsing the distance ‘in all directions’ and taking inventory, this collection explores states of exile and recognition. The poems move across quotidian public squares, the memory of lost homelands, and pastoral landscapes.
Copies of Paloma Yannakakis‘s Double Take will be available for purchase.
PLEASE NOTE: THE CENTER WILL NOT OPEN UNTIL 5 PM ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH, IN OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY.
THE BUREAU WILL OPEN AT 5 PM AND WILL REMAIN OPEN FOR THIS EVENT, WHICH WILL BEGIN AT 7 PM.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Paloma Yannakakis’ poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Lana Turner, Washington Square, Afternoon Visitor, and elsewhere, and are forthcoming in various anthologies. She is the author of the chapbook, Double Take. She serves on the editorial board of House Mountain Review and enjoys collaborating with artists in other media.

Izzy Casey’s poems have been published in or Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, BOAAT, Bennington Review, the Volta, the Yale Review, the Columbia Review, NY Tyrant, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was the recipient of a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

Amy Klein is a poet, writer, and songwriter. Her poetry has appeared in Prelude, Salt Hill, and the Harvard Advocate, and she is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her essays and journalism have been published in The Believer and the Best Music Writing book series and have been highlighted as essential reading by NPR. She has released three albums of original songs on the punk label Don Giovanni Records and performs regularly with her band AK & the Hallucinations.

Gen X Tropes: Dale Corvino (BONDS & BOUNDARIES) & Michael Bullock, editor, I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Launch event for BONDS & BOUNDARIES, the debut short story collection by Dale Corvino, from Rebel Satori Press. Dale is in conversation with Michael Bullock, co-editor of I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT: THE 1979 DIARIES OF SEAN DELEAR from Semiotext(e). They will discuss the queer Gen X tropes raised by each work, followed by readings of select excerpts and a Q&A. Both titles are available for sale from the Bureau.

To reserve a copy of Dale Corvino’s Bonds & Boundaries (Queer Mojo, 2023, paperback, $16.95) and/or I Could Not Believe It: The 1979 Diaries of Sean DeLear (Semiotext(e), 2023, paperback, $16.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Michael Bullock is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and political organizer. He’s the author of Roman Catholic Jacuzzi (2012) and the editor of Peter Berlin: Artist, Icon, Photosexual (2019). In 2020 he founded the political crowdfunding platform WeeklySenator.org, of which he is the director. Bullock also holds the position of associate publisher for PIN–UP magazine and contributing editor for Apartamento.

A 2021 Lambda Literary Emerging Fellow in nonfiction, Dale Corvino found his confessional voice at the East Village queer underground literary salon “Dean Johnson’s Reading for Filth,” recounting his youth as an object of longing and later interactions with sex work. In 2018, he won the Gertrude Press Fiction contest, judged by Whiting Award recipient Brontez Purnell. Recent nonfiction includes a profile of Chilean writer Pedro Lemebel for the Gay & Lesbian Review, an essay on queer longing in the digital era for Matt Keegan’s 1996, and a chapter on sex worker representation for the 2021 Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society.

Ungendering Fashion: Queer Style as Visual Activism and Self Love (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-05 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Queer style is systemically rooted in dismantling heteronormative gender binaries created by the patriarchy and systematically employed as a means of social control, both symbolically and literally, to limit freedom of expression. Queer style is a fashion revolution; a tool of our liberation and a means of self-affirmation and self-love.
Through the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, police weaponized “masquerade laws,” old codes that prohibited “costumed dress,” to punish queer and trans people wearing articles of clothing that didn’t correspond with the gender they were assigned at birth, Ryan, the author of “When Brooklyn Was Queer,” wrote in History.com.
Among LGBTQ+ people, these laws were called the “three-article rule”: an individual had to be wearing three articles of clothing of the gender they were assigned at birth or else they’d be arrested. If you were assigned female at birth but caught wearing pants and a shirt, you could be arrested for failing to wear three articles of women’s clothing.
While this rule became part of the queer lexicon, a law citing a specific number of articles didn’t actually exist on the books. According to historians, calling it the “three-article rule” may have originated as a way for queer and trans people to warn each other about the police or served as an “informal rule of thumb,” Ryan wrote.
The so-called three article-rule meant that anyone with gender variance could be punished for wearing clothing that made them feel good; a night out with friends turned political with fashion.
Given that queer and trans identities (use of restrooms, drag performances, gender affirming care) are being used by the far right to mobilize their voters and are both politicians and those who want to see us completely erased are leveraging their political power to dismantle our democracy and rollback rights for all U.S. citizens, I think this angle needs to be taken front and center for all pitches when it is pitched to an outlet that is more hard news or even for potential spots on political shows (I know that Jacob Tobia was on the Daily Show speaking about this very topic). Queer style has emancipatory potential for all members of society right now and is critical to cover and understand as it pertains to policies that matter to many people right now.
Join dapperQ: Ungendering Fashion author Anita Dolce Vita in conversation with book photographer The Street Sensei and one of the 30 book models, Cory Wade, as they explore queer style as visual activism and self-love.

Reserve a copy of dapperQ: Ungendering Fashion (Harper, 2023, hardcover, $35) by writing to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of dapperQ” in the subject line.

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

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Anita Dolce Vita is the owner of dapperQ – one of the world’s most widely read digital queer style magazines and preeminent voices in queer fashion – and the author of dapperQ Style: Ungendering Fashion. She is the executive producer behind some of the world’s largest celebrations of queer style, including the annual New York Fashion Week queer runway show at Brooklyn Museum, the annual Target Youth Pride fashion show for NYC Pride, and queer fashion shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts/Boston. Anita also produced the first queer fashion panel to be featured at South by Southwest and has been a keynote speaker for DEI events for global retails brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and Out Magazine, to name a few.

Kim, aka The Street Sensei, is a photographer and videographer known for their streetstyle work with celebrities and their advertorial work with several high fashion brands and is the official photographer of dapperQ’s debut print book dapperQ Style: Ungendering Fashion published by HarperCollins.

Cory Wade is a multi-medium entertainer and activist, most well known for competing and placing third on cycle 20 of America’s Next Top Model. Cory has used the social platform garnered through their reality TV stint to help facilitate conversations around queer inclusion and LGBTQPIA+ equality across America. He has toured the US to speak at multiple colleges & universities on effective allyship, inclusion, equality and human understanding. Cory is also a fiercely talented musician. Their debut album, “UNIFY” (independently released in 2017) was produced by Alan Glass who has produced iconic records from the likes of Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Jennifer Holiday and more!

trans liberation history gathering (in person workshop)
2023-11-04 11:00 - 13:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In this workshop we will discuss and share stories, materials, and memories with one another to expand the hirstory of trans, Two-Spirit, non-binary, and gender diverse communities and individuals in North America during the 20th century.
This project is based on the belief that our hirstory is key to healing our communities from the scars of transphobia. We heal when we connect with ancestors and learn more about ourselves through them. We heal when we receive testament to our continued existence in this world. We heal when given the opportunity to repair the scars of past conflicts. Finally, we heal when we are able to grow from the wisdom of passing time. Gathering around oral histories and physical materials offers us the opportunity to engage with all these modes of healing.
In this workshop, we will work collectively against our erasure from society’s memory. We will reflect on the progress that has been won over the last fifty years and the many challenges that remain. During the first hour we will share stories of trans* and queer individuals, movements, and moments that hold power for us. After a break we will discuss our shared hirstory, focusing on where we have each found or not found community or conflict.
Trans communities have always taken care of ourselves when others would not. We have formed houses and families, birthed movements, underwritten research, built learning networks, and shaped culture. This workshop continues this legacy by helping us narrate a trans hirstory in which our movements are powerful, autonomous, and coalitional, so that we can continue the work to build a liveable trans present and future.
Space is limited to 20 participants
Register here
Facilitator Bios
Sky Syzygy is a white queer trans femme filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, a racial and gender justice facilitator, and a data scientist. In 2021, Sky launched gender.network, an archive of flyers, photos, artwork, cartoons, letters, poems, and other media by trans*, Two-spirit, nonbinary, and trans-adjacent activists, organizers, and artists.
Malcolm Shanks is an activist, political educator, and consultant who works to gather people and power among marginalized groups. Malcolm has created and led hundreds of trainings with thousands of students, activists, non-profit workers, and artists. Malcolm is a co-creator of the zine Decolonizing Gender: A Curriculum, an interactive workbook that examines the relationship between transphobia, white supremacy, and European colonialism from a personal-political perspective.

F.O. Matthiessen in Fact and Fiction: A Conversation with Scott Bane and Patrick E. Horrigan (in person & live-streaming)
2023-11-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
F. O. Matthiessen is one of the most famous people you’ve never heard of. A literature and history professor at Harvard from 1929 to 1950, he was also a gay man involved in a 20-year relationship with painter Russell Cheney, and a socialist activist often in association with organized labor. Suffering from depression, Matthiessen took his own life in April 1950 by jumping from a 12th floor window of a Boston hotel. Patrick E. Horrigan’s novel, American Scholar, uses Matthiessen’s scholarship and life as touchstones in his book, while Scott Bane’s double biography, A Union Like Ours: The Love Story of F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney, traces the arc of Matthiessen and Cheney’s relationship from their meeting in 1924 aboard the ocean liner Paris up until their respective deaths. Given the far-reaching influence of Matthiessen’s scholarship, his principled stands for greater socio-economic fairness, and his personal story that upheld love at the center of his life, Matthiessen continues to speak to us nearly 75 years after his death.
To reserve a copy of Scott Bane’s A Union Like Ours: The Love Story of F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney (Bright Leaf, 2022, paperback, $24.95) and/or Patrick E. Horrigan’s American Scholar (Lethe Press, 2023, paperback, $20) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Scott Bane’s stories have appeared in Into the Void and Christopher Street. The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post and Poets & Writers, among others, have published his journalism. Down East Magazine, The New England Journal of History, and The Gay and Lesbian Review have published his essays. Scott lives in New York City with his husband, David W. Dunlap.

Patrick E. Horrigan is the author of the novels Pennsylvania Station and Portraits at an Exhibition; the memoir Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies; the play Messages for Gary; and the solo show You Are Confused!, which he co-authored with his husband, Eduardo Leanez. His latest novel, American Scholar, won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Best LGBTQ+ Fiction.

Poly Movie Night: Tove
2023-11-01 18:30 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be in person at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Tove (2020), directed by Zaida Bergroth and starring Alma Pöysti, Krista Kosonen, and Shanti Roney.

Wednesday, November 1 – 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
208 W 13th St, Rm 210
New York, NY 10011

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

Synopsis: In Finland, following WWII, Tove Jansson, the creator of the Moomins, struggled to find balance in her relationships and fulfillment in her artistic life. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In Swedish with English subtitles.

Hear, Here Reading Series - Halloween Edition
2023-10-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Hear, Here is a reading series where people read funny stories. Laugh until you cry. Cry until you laugh. Drink a pumpkin beer. Then do it all again.
We’re thrilled to present a star-studded Halloween and scary story extravaganza featuring:
Chloe Caldwell
I’ll Tell You in Person, WOMEN, The Red Zone: A Love Story
Josh Gondelman
Desus & Mero, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Chris Owens
Human Parts, The Memoirist
Amy Shearn
New York Times Modern Love, Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn

Hosted by Harris Sockel and Jay Ludlow Martin, two verified human beings who are definitely not AI. Come hang out with us, and laugh in the face of fears.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

James Pauley Jr and Louis Flint Ceci In Conversation (online only)
2023-10-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
James Pauley, Jr. surely keeps you turning the pages in Bumpy Rides and Soft Landings stories of coming out, flying high, and not learning how to play the piano. As someone whose innate filter doesn’t always work, Pauley says it exactly as he sees it. Written in his uniquely humorous, poignant, sarcastic, self-deprecating, honest, and mildly outrageous style, he recounts stories of growing up different, while learning important lessons from even the most unlikely of sources: a chili dog, a nasty queen, a cursing coworker, a Porta-Potty, a stranger’s judgment, a sore butt, a new piano, a tiny scar, a grieving widow, and a hateful bully.
Louis Flint Ceci introduce us to Jake, Joanie, and Randy who must navigate the minefield of their parents’ mistakes while building their own lives in Croy, a small Oklahoma town. Jake’s high school nemesis, Red, returns from Viet Nam harboring secrets that could make him an ally or a more dangerous foe. Joanie discovers a lost piece of town history, but a charismatic pastor immediately sets out to destroy it. Randy’s criminal father tries to reconcile with his wife and son, but risks losing everything in the effort. Past and present collide as old prejudices and new ideas vie for control of Croy’s future. Amid it all, two boys fall in love in a time and place that threatens not just their dreams but their very lives.
Both authors will read short excerpts from their books and discuss.

This event will take place online only.
In order to join the event on Zoom, please register on the event page on Eventbrite:
Click here to register
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite.
Thank you for your support!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

James Pauley, Jr. grew up in Edwardsburg, Michigan, a small farming community located in the southwestern part of the state, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Albion College in 1978. With a double major in German and Spanish, he was fortunate to have studied in both Mexico and Germany during his junior year. This opened his mind to all things foreign and piqued his interest in travel. Pursuing a lifelong dream of seeing the world, he became a flight attendant shortly after graduating from college. He continued to love the job for almost forty-five years. In June 2023, he permanently hung up his wings to focus on writing and spending more time with Rich, his partner of four decades, at their home in Indiana.

Louis Flint Ceci was a high school teacher of English and speech in Benton, Illinois; an assistant professor and chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley; a commercial actor and freelance science journalist in the Denver-Boulder area; and a software engineer for several companies, including Skype, where he helped design and implement a user interface for the blind and visually impaired.
His poetry is published in The Colorado-North Review and Impossible Archetype. His scholarly articles on linguistics and poetics have appeared in College English, Language and Style, and Literature in Performance.
His short stories have appeared in Diseased Pariah News, Jonathan, and Trikone Magazine, and in the anthologies Queer and Catholic, and Gay City Volume 4: At Second Glance. He has twice been a finalist in the Saints+Sinners: New Stories from the Festival short fiction contest, and was inducted into the Saints+Sinners Hall of Fame in 2017.
He is an avid U.S. Masters swimmer and won two gold and three silver medals at the 2020 International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. He won the Gold Medal in the Poetic Justice Poetry Slam at the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney, Australia.
He lives in Nevada City, California.

Emanuel Xavier Love(ly) Child Book Launch/Interview with Hugh Ryan (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Love(ly) Child is a thought-provoking collection of poetry that delves into themes of identity, love, and self-discovery. Each poem is a journey into the complexities of the human experience navigating sensitive topics with honesty and vulnerability. With a unique blend of personal anecdotes and social commentary, Love(ly) Child offers a captivating exploration of life’s highs and lows, leaving a lasting impact on those who immerse themselves in its pages.
Join poet Emanuel Xavier as he reads from the poetry collection followed by an interview with Hugh Ryan and a book signing.

To reserve a copy of Emanuel Xavier’s Love(ly) Child (Queer Mojo, 2023, paperback, $14.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Without so much as passion and perseverance, a former homeless hustler from the Paris is Burning ball/House community became an LGBTQ+ Icon, as proclaimed by The Equality Forum. Emanuel Xavier has given voice to his unique experiences and tackled politics, sexuality, and religion with poetry books like Pier Queen, Americano, If Jesus Were Gay, Nefarious, Radiance, Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier and his new poetry collection, Love(ly) Child.

Hugh Ryan is an award-winning historian, curator, and author. He wrote The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison and When Brooklyn Was Queer. Support him on Patreon!

What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic - Book Launch (IN PERSON)
2023-10-22 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Grieving a friend is hard.
Grieving a friend during a pandemic is even harder.
Join writer, speaker and activist Victoria Noe and writer/performer Charles Sanchez, openly living with HIV, for a conversation about her new book, What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic. We’ll talk about the challenges we faced during COVID as we struggled to nourish our friendships, and adapt to new ways of grieving. Has your appreciation of friendship changed since 2020? What lessons have we learned from HIV long-term survivors in their second pandemic about resilience and loving our friends? And how do we find new ways to cherish those friendships?
Copies of What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve a copy of What Our Friends Left Behind” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd

Deep into her fourth career, St. Louis native Victoria Noe is a Chicago-based award-winning author, speaker and activist with two degrees in theater. Her Friend Grief series – the result of a promise she made to a dying friend – recognizes the importance of friendships in shaping our lives and illuminates an often disrespected form of grief. Noe’s long-time HIV/AIDS activism then led her to write F*g Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community, the groundbreaking book that honors the women who changed the course of the epidemic. An accomplished public speaker, she has presented to a wide variety of organizations and events, including ACT UP/London, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Muse and the Marketplace, BookExpo America, and Open Hand/San Francisco, as well as libraries and bookstores around New York state and the Midwest. During COVID, she led workshops for Let’s Reimagine and Global Grief Network, and led writing groups online for Honoring Our Experience. Noe’s newest book, What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic, shares the challenges faced by people who grieved a friend during COVID. Try to keep up with her at victorianoe.com.

Charles Sanchez is very busy being good at a lot of things, especially being gay. A writer openly living with HIV, he is a contributing editor for TheBody.com, and his work has been featured in leading publications like POZ Magazine, HuffPost’s Queer Voices, PositivelyAware.com, Them.us, and more. Charles’ ground-breaking web series, Merce – a musical comedy about a person who is living with HIV and isn’t sick, sad, or dying – garnered him several awards including Best Actor in a Web Series at the Official Latino Short Film Festival. He also created the hilarious HIV public service campaign, “The More You Can Ho.” His lifelong dedication to the arts and activism has been recognized on Healthline.com‘s List of HIV Honors: The Most Influential Voices and POZ Magazine‘s POZ 100. When he’s not busy writing, performing, baking, or generally making the world a better place, Charles can be seen charming audiences and his guests on “At Home With,” his popular Instagram Live talk show featuring prominent members of the HIV and LGBTQ+ community.

TELL 87: SMUT (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is back! After a bit of a break, we’re thrilled to welcome this fabulous event back to the Bureau!
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.
The theme of the 87th TELL is SMUT! Featuring storytellers Diana Lobontiu, Rudy Ramirez, & Renée Imperato

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

DRAE CAMPBELL’s first performance was at age 5 in a nightclub opening for a punk band. Drae has a BFA in Theater from The University of Arts in Philadelphia. Some Theater credits include: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Ricochet Collective), Non-Consensual Relationships with Ghosts (La MaMa), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Oph3lia(HERE). TV includes “New Amsterdam,” “Bull ” and “Dinette ” (web series, directed by Shaina Feinberg). Drae has been hosting and curating TELL for more than 9 years which is now a SILVER Signal Award-winning podcast of the same name. www.draecampbell.com
Diana Lobontiu is a Romanian American playwright, actor, administrator, and educator based in Brooklyn. Diana holds a Playwriting MFA from Brooklyn College, graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Theatre Studies and Psychology. In addition, they are an Adjunct Professor in creative writing and playwriting at Brooklyn College and NJIT, respectively. They are interested in exploring the intersections of masculinity, power, failure, oppression, absurdity, and an ongoing fixture of the human condition: loneliness. Diana was named a 2023-24 MacDowell Fellow, a 2023 Jane Hoppen Resident with Paragraph Workspace for Writers, and received the 2023 Puffin Grant for My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay. Recent writing includes My Cousin Nelu Is Not Gay (The Brick Theater 2023, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2022), and Rentabutch(Bushwick Starr Reading Series Finalist 2023). Diana has performed their solo show Sfânta: Hell Bent on Heaven, about a teenage wannabe Russian Orthodox saint, at the Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Kalamazoo, Oregon, and Orlando Fringe Festivals.
Rudy Ramirez is a director, writer and teaching artist specializing in the development of new work and new artists. They have directed and developed work for a number of organizations around the country, including the Contemporary American Theater Festival, The Lark, Latino Theater Company, National Queer Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, New York University, Octopus Theatricals, The Playwrights’ Center, Signature Theatre, and the University of Texas at Austin. They are the Associate Artistic Director of The VORTEX in Austin, TX, where they were named Best Director of 2017 in the Austin Chronicle Readers Poll. They have written and performed two autobiographical shows, Promised Land: A Radical Queer Revival and Footnotes for People Who Don’t Speak Spanish. They have an MA in Performance Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in Directing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are currently the Benedetti Resident Artist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts where they will be working on their musical about the life of Emma Goldman, Emma When You Need Her.
Renée Imperato is a Stonewall Era Veteran, a Chairperson of the SAGE Advisory Council, and a member of the People’s Power Assembly.

Fear and Loathing in London: New Writing from British Gay Authors (virtual event)
2023-10-19 18:00 - 19:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Meet contemporary UK authors Barry Stewart Hunter and William Jackson reading from Republic of North London: 3 Novellas and Satan’s Lamp, respectively. Q&A follows.
This event will take place ONLINE ONLY
Register on Eventbrite to join on Zoom
Click here to register.
Or visit the Bureau’s YouTube channel to watch the livestream (typically starts a few minutes after scheduled time, so please be patient):
YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite. Thank you for your support!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

Born in Aden, Barry Stewart Hunter grew up in the Middle East and Scotland. A novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, he lives in London.

William Jackson is a British author of gay horror fiction. He cites his influences as Richard Laymon, Dennis Wheatley and Fred Mustard Stewart. His fiction has been described as “Hammer horror for the 21st Century.”

The Gay Liberation Front: Making History (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-15 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Many myths have been spawned about Stonewall and the rise of the modern LGBTQ movement. This afternoon a few of the surviving founders of the Gay Liberation Front, first and most radical LGBTQ organization directly after Stonewall, will present a true history as they witnessed it. First Martha Shelley will read from her memoir, WE SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. She’ll talk about the pre-Stonewall days, when she was one of a handful of lesbians out in public, then about the Gay Liberation Front where she and others of her sisters and brothers worked and succeeded in changing US society and the world. A panel discussion will follow, after which the audience will be invited to participate.
Martha Shelley will be joined in conversation by fellow Gay Liberation Front Founders Perry Brass, Mark Segal, Dr. Flavia Rando, Mark Horn, & John Knoebel.

To reserve a copy of Martha Shelley’s We Set the Night on Fire: Igniting the Gay Revolution (Chicago Review Press, 2023, hardcover, $28.99) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Martha Shelley organized the first gay protest march after Stonewall and was a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front. In addition to her work on radical newspapers and feminist presses, she produced the world’s first lesbian radio program at WBAI-FM. She is the author of four books of poetry, three novels and, most recently, the memoir We Set the Night on Fire.
Perry Brass joined the Gay Liberation Front in 1969 and co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic. He is the author of 13 books as well as a journalist, playwright, poet, and essayist.
Mark Segal was a participant at Stonewall and one of the founding members of the Gay Liberation Front. He is the author of And Then I Danced, and the publisher of the award-winning newspaper, Philadelphia Gay News.
Dr. Flavia Rando joined the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. She is an art historian and editor, teaches Lesbian, Women’s and Gender Studies, and serves as a curator of the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
Mark Horn joined both the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance in 1970. A lifelong gay activist, he is author of Tarot and the Gates of Light and has taught at both the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Readers’ Studio International Tarot Conference.
John Knoebel participated in GLF men’s living collectives, the Weinstein Hall sit-in, the 1970 Village Riot, GLF’s outreach to the Black Panthers and many other GLF actions. He subsequently pursued a 35-year career as a senior executive with The Advocate and OUT magazines.

TRANSPOETHICALBODY: A Sensory Invitation (hybrid in-person & virtual event)
2023-10-14 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Welcome to an extraordinary literary gathering, TRANSPOETHICALBODY: A Sensory Invitation. This remarkable event offers an immersive experience where literature, translation, and LGBTQ+ issues converge. Prepare to embark on a captivating journey as you connect with the esteemed author and publisher, delve into the intricacies of translation politics, and indulge in a mesmerizing recitation of tantalizing poetry in both English and Portuguese.
Immerse yourself in profound conversations with the author, exploring the poetic realm while gaining insights into their lived experience as a Transman in Brazil. Engage in thought-provoking discussions that shed light on the current political and cultural climate surrounding trans* and LGBTQ+ issues in Brazil, expanding your awareness and fostering empathy.
At this event, you will bear witness to the unveiling of a groundbreaking literary work—the first, if not one of the few, books of translated Trans* erotic poetry, and translated Black erotic poetry. Discover the delicate dance of translation politics and celebrate the power of artistic expression across borders.
TRANSPOETHICALBODY: A Sensory Invitation beckons you to an evening of intellectual stimulation, cultural exploration, and a celebration of diverse voices. Join us on this unforgettable odyssey that will ignite your senses and provoke profound contemplation.
Join us in person for this event at the Bureau,
room 210 of The LGBT Community Center,
OR
watch the live-stream at youtube.com/@bgsqd
Tiely, the author of TRANSPOETHICALBODY, will join us virtually.
Dr. Tanya L. Saunders, the founder and editor-in-chief of Améfrica Press, will join us in person at the Bureau.
Copies of TRANSPOETHICALBODY (Améfrica Press, 2023, paperback, $14.99) are available for purchase at the Bureau and can be purchased at the event.
To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve a copy of TRANSPOETHICALBODY” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Tiely is a pioneering Transman rapper, writer, and activist from São Paulo, Brazil. With a career spanning over three decades, he has made significant contributions to the arts and LGBTQIAP+ advocacy, challenging societal norms through his work. Tiely’s thought-provoking poetry and unwavering commitment to social justice continue to inspire and empower audiences worldwide.
Tiely is a multi-talented artist and activist from São Paulo, Brazil, with a career spanning over 38 years. He began his artistic journey as an actor, dancer, and photographer, eventually venturing into music as a rapper in renowned rap groups. Tiely has made significant contributions to Brazilian rap as the country’s first Transman rapper. In addition to his achievements in music, Tiely has also explored various artistic disciplines, including literature, filmmaking, theater, and television.
Throughout his career, Tiely has been actively involved in cultural, social, and sports projects, advocating for LGBTQIAP+ rights, women’s rights, and diverse identities. He uses his artistic platform to address and raise awareness about societal issues and promote inclusivity. Tiely’s commitment to creating meaningful change extends beyond his solo work, as he collaborates with other artists and organizations to amplify his message and fight for respect and acceptance of differences.
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Tiely has continued to engage with audiences through virtual and hybrid performances, participating in festivals, seminars, and debates. In 2021, he published his collection of Trans Black erotic poetry, titled “TransCorpoÉtico,” showcasing his literary talents. Tiely’s recent accomplishments also include coordinating the “Território Hip Hop” program and working on his upcoming novel, “Deusa Pagã.” Through his artistic endeavors and activism, Tiely remains dedicated to creating a more inclusive and accepting society.

Dr. Tanya L. Saunders is a sociologist interested in the ways in which the African Diaspora throughout the Americas uses the arts as a tool for social change. As a 2011-2012 Fulbright scholar in Brazil, Dr. Saunders began work on their current project about Black Queer Artivism in Brazil. Dr. Saunders is the founder and editor-in-chief of Améfrica Press.

AiOP 2023: DRESS "Walk & Talk" (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
“Walk & Talk” is an intimate runway presentation of six projects from Art in Odd Places (AiOP) 2023: DRESS festival curated by Gretchen Vitamvas. The selected artists will walk the runway and discuss their work.
AiOP 2023: DRESS is the eighteenth edition of the iconic public visual and performance art festival taking place along 14th Street in Manhattan, October 13-15. The 35 participating artists’ projects explore the many facets of ‘dress’ with projects examining clothing production and colonialism, fast fashion and waste, transformation and gender identity (and intolerance), cultural identity, work and labor, censorship, the passage of time and its traces, beauty, disability, status, armor, joy and grief.
Featured artists:
Vanessa Fairfax Woods presenting The F Word
Molly Jae Vaughan presenting Project 42
Reid Arowood presenting NeXXXa
Clare Charnley & Farah Naz Moon presenting Ever Given Neelkuthi
Daniela Fabrizi presenting Garbagia
Juliet Johnson presenting Styling Sick
Photo credit: Gretchen Vitamvas, Camouflage Promenade, AiOP 2008: Pedestrian (photo by Jonathan Bumble)
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
This event is free and open to all!
But donations to support the Bureau’s work are welcome!

AiOP is an annual festival that presents visual and performance art in public spaces along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC from Avenue C to the Hudson River each October. Active in New York City since 2005, founded and led by NYC artist Ed Woodham, AiOP aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. Using 14th Street as a laboratory, this project continues AiOP’s work to locate cracks in public space policies and to inspire the popular imagination for new possibilities and engagement with civic space.

The Publishing Triangle OUTspoken Reading Series
2023-10-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle launches its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series at the Bureau!
OUTspoken was presented last June as a joint program with the East Midtown Partnership as part of that organization’s Pride celebration, but now we’re making it monthly and moving it to the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
This edition will feature:
Jeffery Berg
‘Nathan Burgoine (joining us remotely from Ottawa, Ontario)
Dale Corvino
Allen Ellenzweig
Michael Thomas Ford (joining us remotely from Ohio)
Robyn Gigl (joining us remotely from New Jersey)
Nina Kennedy
William Christy Smith

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Notes: Past, Present and Time (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-08 15:00 - 16:30 | NY
Writers Quenton Baker (Ballast), Anastacia-Renee (Side Notes From The Archivist) and Marcus Scott (Damn Near Might Still Be Is What It Is) share a night of onion peeling notes from the past, present and time as they use poetry and prose to be in conversation with moderator Naa Akua, each other and the audience.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Books by Quenton Baker (Ballast), Anastacia-Renee (Side Notes From The Archivist) and Marcus Scott (Damn Near Might Still Be Is What It Is) will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com

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

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their current focus is black interiority and the afterlife of slavery. Their work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus and elsewhere. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. They were a 2019 Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. They are the author of we pilot the blood (The 3rd Thing, 2021) and ballast (Haymarket Books, 2023).

Anastacia-Renee is an award-winning multi-genre writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, playwright and Speaker. Renee’ is the author of Side Notes from the Archivist, (v.), and Forget It. Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere forthcoming from HarperCollins Amistad March 2024.
https://www.anastacia-renee.com/home

Marcus Scott Williams is a writer and artist whose other works includes Sparse Black Whimsy: A Memoir (2fast2house 2017). He loves and appreciates you.

Naa Akua, is a New York born poet, actor, educator, and sound-word practitioner who is Ghanaian/Bajan and queer. Akua uses the vibratory energy of sound and the intent of word as a vehicle towards healing.

QUEER FIGURE DRAWING WITH DOABLE GUYS: A New York Queer Zine Fair Program (in person only)
2023-10-07 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Kyle Anderson of Doable Guys as he leads a one hour figure drawing session with nude models in conjunction with the New York Queer Zine Fair.
This event is open to experienced artists as well as beginners. Please bring your own art supplies. Chairs will be provided.
Facilitator – Kyle Anderson
Please note: space is limited to 20 participants
First come, first served!

QUEER COLLAGE WORKSHOP: A New York Queer Zine Fair Program (in person only)
2023-10-07 12:00 - 14:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for another queer collage workshop with Charlie Welch in conjunction with the New York Queer Zine Fair. All participants will create one collage that will be turned into a zine, and everyone will receive a copy. No experience necessary! All are welcome to join! Some materials (magazines, printed matter, glue, cardboard) and tools (scissors) available, but we encourage you to bring materials and tools to share. Thank you!
Facilitator – Charlie Welch
Please note:
Space is limited to the first 16 people

Assotto Saint Sacred Spells Collected Works Publication Party (in person & livestreaming)
2023-10-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
ALL SEATS FOR THIS EVENT HAVE ALREADY BEEN RESERVED. PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO THE WAITLIST BY CLICKING ON “GET TICKETS” ON THE EVENTBRITE PAGE FOR THIS EVENT.
Click on “Get Tickets” and you’ll see the option to “join waitlist” at bottom right.
AT 7 PM ON THE NIGHT OF THE EVENT, ANY UNCLAIMED SEATS WILL BE OFFERED TO PEOPLE ON THE WAITLIST IN THE ORDER THEY WERE RECEIVED.
Join Walter Holland, Michele Karlsberg, Jewelle Gomez, Reginald Harris, Pamela Sneed, Gary Paul Wright, Allen Luther Wright and Guy Mark Foster in an evening of poetry, essays, video, plays and music as we celebrate the collected life-work of the interdisciplinary writer, performer, and central figure in the Black Gay cultural arts and AIDS movements.
In this timely collection of poetry, plays, fiction, and performance texts, Assotto Saint draws upon music and incantation, his Haitian heritage and a politics of liberation, to weave together a tapestry of literature that celebrates life in the face of death. Influential to contemporary writers such as Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, and Melvin Dixon, Sacred Spells is Saint’s crucial legacy–five hundred incandescent pages of painful, lyric writing that exemplifies the visceral, spiritual dimensions of an artistic practice that’s integral to Black and LGBTQ activist movements worldwide, both historic and present.
This event is co-sponsored by Other Countries
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED TO ATTEND IN PERSON (ALL SEATS HAVE BEEN RESERVED)
CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE WAITLIST ON EVENTBRITE.
Click on “Get Tickets” and you’ll see the option to “join waitlist” at bottom right.
RESERVED SPOTS MUST BE CLAIMED BY 7 PM–AT THAT POINT WE WILL OPEN UNCLAIMED SPOTS TO THOSE ON THE WAITLIST.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd
PLEASE ALLOW A FEW MINUTES FOR THE LIVESTREAM TO START ON YOUTUBE. WE USUALLY BEGIN ABOUT 10 MINUTES AFTER THE LISTED TIME.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Copies of Assotto Saint’s Sacred Spells: Collected Works, edited by Michele Karlsberg (Nightboat Books, 2023, paperback, $22.95), are available at the Bureau.
To reserve a copy to be purchased at the event, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve a copy of Sacred Spells” in the subject line.
To have a copy shipped to you, see below:

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

Yves François Lubin (aka Assotto Saint) was a Haitian-born American writer, performer, publisher, and AIDS activist. He heavily contributed to increasing the visibility of contemporary Black queerness in the cultural arts movement of the ’80s and early ’90s. Saint drew upon his Haitian heritage, music, incantations, and radical politics to weave together a tapestry of literature that celebrates life in the face of death, and embraces politics as a way to change the world. He served as a mentor to an entire generation of up-and-coming gay Black community members. As publisher of Galiens Press, Saint published two volumes of his own poetry, Stations and Wishing For Wings, and edited two seminal anthologies of gay Black writing: the 1991 Lambda Literary Award–winning The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets and Here To Dare: 10 Gay Black Poets. His chapbook Triple Trouble was published in Tongues Untied (GMP, London). He was also the author of such plays as Risin’ To The Love We Need, New Love Song, Black Fag, and Nuclear Lovers. In 1990, he was awarded both the Fellowship in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the James Baldwin Award from the Black Gay Leadership Forum. He lived in New York City with Jan Urban Holmgren, his life partner and co-founder of Metamorphosis Theater and the techno-pop band Xotika. Lubin died June 29, 1994 of AIDS-related complications.

Office Hours presents: Virtual Craft Class & Reading with Omotara James
2023-10-05 18:30 - 20:30 | online class
Postponed to Thursday, October 5, 2023

Join us for a Virtual Craft Class & Reading with Omotara James on Thursday, October 5, 2023. Craft Class will run from 6:30PM-8:30 PM EST. Followed by a reading from 8:30 PM-8:45 PM.

DESPERATELY SEEKING EROS: Edna St. Vincent Millay famously wrote “life is a quest and love is a quarrel.” What are your poems arguing against or toward? This workshop will eschew the traditional examinations of love and desire for poems that insist on exploring the existence of love in the less conventional or expected places. We will delve into the intractable relationship between eros and pathos (love and suffering). How can you shape the container of the poem to best articulate experience? What poetry forms most effectively carry the poetics of joy and despair? What does the modern discourse on desire leave out? Come ready to write yourself into the cannon. This experience will be more of a writing lab than a workshop, so arrive ready to connect, experiment, and play!

Registration on Eventbrite is required in order to access the Zoom link for the class. All donations go to the instructor.
Office Hours Poetry Workshop is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. The workshop fellowship culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are womxn-identified. Our Craft Classes are free and open to the public with RSVP. All “tip jar” donations go directly to the author.

This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Exploring the New Frontier: Author and Activist Dennis Altman Arriving from Australia Live in NYC (in person & live-streaming)
2023-10-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The LGBTQ History Project for a dialogue between Dennis Altman, the pioneering gay liberationist and author who played a vital role in the first wave of the Gay Liberation movement, and August Bernadicou (Executive Director, The LGBTQ History Project). Dennis was a member of the Gay Liberation Front, the revolutionary activist group that kick-started gay liberation around the world, and his insightful contributions to the cause will be at the heart of our discussion, focusing on the pressing issue of eroding gay rights and the necessity of drawing lessons from our past to prepare for the future.
This one-time-only and urgent dialogue aims to highlight the significance of preserving the legacy of the first wave of gay liberationists and providing a platform for their radical perspectives. Understanding struggles and achievements is crucial as we confront the challenges that threaten to undermine the progress made in LGBTQ+ rights. Together, we can forge a stronger path ahead and foster an environment where diverse voices can freely express their viewpoints, shaping a more inclusive and empowered future for the LGBTQ+ community. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to engage in an enlightening dialogue that will inspire and empower us all.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation to benefit the Bureau AND The LGBTQ History Project: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

Since he wrote Homosexual:Oppression and Liberation in 1972, Dennis Altman has written 15 books including Global Sex, Unrequited Love: Diary of an Accidental Activist, and Death in the Sauna. He was President of the AIDS society of Asia and the Pacific (2001-4) and is a Professorial Fellow at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

August Bernadicou is the Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ activists from the first wave of gay liberation. His career began in 2008 at the age of 13 when he started interviewing alternative counterculture figures for various online and in-print publications. His work primarily appeared in the punk music magazine Punk Globe. At 18, August began publishing his own “zines” (Teenage News #1, Teenage News #2, and August Nation). In 2020, he co-founded The LGBTQ History Project to archive and share his thousands of recorded interviews and conversations. Through The LGBTQ History Project, August produces a podcast featuring archival interviews, hosts LGBTQ history events, and publishes excerpts from his archive online, in newsletters, and on social media. August is driven by his mission to counteract the erasure of history and provide a platform for individuals seeking to reclaim their legacies, firmly believing that the lessons of the past can pave the way for a better-informed future.

Author Donald Mengay reading and in conversation with photographer Hrvoje Slovenc (in person & livestreaming)
2023-09-30 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join author Donald Mengay and photographer Hrvoje Slovenc for a reading and conversation about Mengay’s debut novel, The Lede to Our Undoing. The work explores the challenges of being queer in the American Midwest or Rust Belt––so-called flyover America. The narrative is set in the 1970s, but it speaks to the broad retrenchment of rights occurring today: It presents the challenges for queer people in MAGA America, though before it got the name. It also explores the stifling effects of evangelical religion on queer identity, relationships, and culture. After a short reading, conversation, and Q&A, the author will sign copies for purchase at the event.
Copies of The Lede to Our Undoing (Saddle Road Press, 2023, paperback, $25) will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve a copy of The Lede to Our Undoing” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Donald Mengay grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in a factory for a time and managed a bookstore. He began writing fiction in his early twenties while pursuing a degree in Psychology at Metropolitan State University in Denver. He earned a Masters in English Lit at the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in Comparative Lit from NYU. He taught Queer and Post-Humanist Lit at the City University of New York for over thirty years, as well as English at the University of Paris, Nanterre. During his years teaching he published several articles of queer criticism in academic journals that include among others Genders, Genre, and Minnesota University Press. He has also published a book entitled Dis/Inheritance: New Croatian Photography, from Ikon Press. The Lede to Our Undoing is his debut novel, the first in a trilogy. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hrvoje Slovenc (b. Zagreb, Croatia, 1976) is a Croatian/American photographer based in New York. He holds MFA in Photography from Yale University School of Art (2010) and MS in Biochemistry from University of Zagreb, Croatia (2000). Selected exhibitions include Traversing the Past, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago; Biennial, the Bronx Museum of the Arts; Past is Now, Munchner Stadtmuseum in Munich, Germany; Marble Hill, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia; New Media, Sex, and Culture in the 21st Century, Museum of New Art in Detroit; New Acquisitions 2003-2013, Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, Croatia; and Young Artists’ Biennial in Bucharest, Romania. His work is in the permanent collections of Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, as well as Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, Croatia.

My Purpose For Dying / A Reading with Author Clyde Jeanette Shore (in person & live-streaming)
2023-09-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
North Carolina author, Clyde Jeanette Shore, has published My Purpose For Dying. Her work of non-fiction has been years in completing and much awaited by many in the LGBTQ+ community, friends, and family. The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division will host a book reading on Thursday, September 21, 2023, beginning at 7:30 pm. The evening will include a meet-and-greet with Clyde Jeanette Shore at 7 PM, a reading at 7:30 PM, Q&A to follow, with a book signing.
In My Purpose For Dying, Jeanette opens a heart-felt door by honoring a promise made to her youngest brother, Ricky Frederick Shore, to write his life story. A LGBTQ work of non-fiction, it’s the story of Ricky’s fierce life spirit since birth, his journey coming to terms with being gay, and eventually contracting AIDS during the height of the 1980’s pandemic.
Jeanette found inner peace, forgiveness, and the strength to write Ricky’s story by penning an unedited manuscript titled, Chicken Bridge Road. Here, she focused on her mother’s tragic story taking place in the early to mid-twentieth century. Her first attempt at writing proved a powerful cathartic journey for Jeanette in-light-of disclosing her mother’s battle with lifelong hardships brought on by domestic abuse, and the society steeped for centuries in rampant misogyny. It also brought to the forefront the complete lack of justice for Women’s Rights. Chicken Bridge Road is soon to be Jeanette’s second book.
It can be said that Jeanette has spent over twenty-five years on the production in writing these two, prominent family stories, and is thrilled to finally share her achievements. She credits her family, who have been instrumental in supporting her healing and writing over the past years.
“I couldn’t have accomplished My Purpose For Dying without the tremendous love and support from my daughter, Angela, and friends,” Shore said. Also, to Anthony Dronchi for signing on as my creative editor. “I value the good work of GMHC, that they continue to provide those living with HIV/AIDS today in the community.”
The event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the independent, all-volunteer queer bookstore and cultural center located in room 210 of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St. New York City. Reading begins at 7:30 PM.
Also live-streaming at 7:30 PM on the Bureau’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau is open Wed-Sat, 1pm-7pm. You may purchase My Purpose For Dying directly from the Bureau, and we will have plenty of copies available at this event.
To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve My Purpose for Dying” in the subject line. Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
The Bureau is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Please consider donating online. For more information, please visit: bgsqd.com/donate.

More About the Author
Clyde Jeanette Shore, named after her father and paternal grandmother, grew up on a tobacco farm situated on Chicken Bridge Road, located in Chatham County, Pittsboro, N.C. Jeanette is well traveled, appreciates innovative cuisine, enjoys rock n’ roll, gospel, folk and blues music. You can find Jeanette writing in the early morning hours. Shore, a native of North Carolina, resides in Greensboro, N.C.
Media Contact:
Angela Shore
(646) 298-7234 angela@clydejeanetteshore.com

It's All A Mystery To Me: H.N. Hirsch in conversation with J.M. Redman (virtual event)
2023-09-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join author H.N. Hirsch discussing Fault Line, the sequel to Shade, of his Bob and Marcus Mystery series along with award-winning author J.M. Redmann, who is celebrating the release of her eleventh Mickey Knight mystery, Transitory. They will each read from their books, discuss their lives as mystery writers and what it is like to write a mystery series.
This event will take place online only.
In order to join the event on Zoom, please register on the event page on Eventbrite:
Click here to register
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau.
You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite.
Thank you for your support!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

H.N. Hirsch grew up in Chicago and graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan in 1974. He received a PhD in politics from Princeton in 1978 and then was appointed an assistant professor at Harvard, where he published his first book, The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter, which the New York Times called “brilliant” and which received widespread critical attention. In 1986 he moved to a tenured appointment at the University of California at San Diego, where he served a board member of the ACLU and a board member and president of Diversionary Theatre, one of the oldest and most highly acclaimed LGBT theaters in the country.
In 2000, he moved to an endowed chair at Macalester College in Minnesota, and in 2005 was appointed Dean of the Faculty at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he continued to teach until his retirement in 2021. In 2016, he published a memoir about his academic life and his life as a gay men, Office Hours, which one critic called “wistful and well crafted.”
A voracious reader of fiction, he realized a life-long ambition to publish his own mystery novel, Shade, in 2022, and then his current work, Fault Line, both featuring a gay couple as the main characters.

J.M. Redmann has published ten novels featuring New Orleans PI Micky Knight. Her first book was published in 1990, one of the early hard-boiled lesbian detectives. Her books have won three Lambda Literary awards. THE INTERSECTION OF LAW & DESIRE was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle and a recommended book by Maureen Corrigan of NPR’s Fresh Air. Two books were selected for the American Library Association GLBT Roundtable’s Over the Rainbow list and WATER MARK won a ForeWord Gold First Place mystery award. She is the co-editor with Greg Herren of three anthologies, one of which, NIGHT SHADOWS: QUEER HORROR, was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson award. Her books have been translated into German, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew and Norwegian. She lives in New Orleans.
