BGSQD

TELL 45: Lost and Found
2018-06-09 19:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | 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.
Lost and Found is the theme for the 45th installment of TELL. Featuring Maybe Burke, Thomas Dolan, Ronnie Mae Painter, and Melissa Rocha.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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

Maybe Burke is a New York based theatre artist and trans advocate interested in telling the stories that haven’t been told. They are excited by new material that can honestly and realistically portray marginalized groups of people. They have worked with Joe’s Pub, Cherry Lane Theatre, Ars Nova, La Mama, HERE Arts Center, The Flea, The Duplex, and more. Maybe is a co-curator of the Trans Theatre Festival at The Brick and the founder of The Trans Literacy Project. Artistic Associate, Honest Accomplice Theatre. BA Directing, Pace University. maybeburke.com @believeinmaybe

Thomas Dolan is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at George Washington University, focusing on Middle Eastern diaspora and race. A recent recipient of the Calouste Gulbenkian Global Excellence Scholarship, Thomas’ research has also been supported by the Institute for Middle East Studies, Dr. Philip M. Kayal Fund for Arab American Research, Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, Bentley Historical Library Bordin-Gillette Fellowship, Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. He is an alumnus of NYU, the New School’s Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, and Yale University. Last semester, Thomas was a visiting researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and has recently published in Huffington Post, Muftah, and HowlRound. Prior to returning to graduate school, Thomas performed and produced work at Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Studio 54, among others.

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.

Melissa Rocha is a brooklyn based comic. She’s very nice and is looking forward to spending the evening with you.

Indolent Books Pride Poetry Reading
2018-06-10 15:00 - 16:30 | NY
Join Indolent Books for a celebration of Queer Pride with readings by Risa Denenberg, Kay Gabriel, Jason Schneiderman, Grey Vild, and Jayson P. Smith.

Risa Denenberg is the author of three chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, including “Whirlwind @ Lesbos” (Headmistress Press, 2016) and “slight faith” (MoonPath Press, 2018). She currently lives a quiet life on the Olympic peninsula in Washington State. A member of ACTUP NY and a volunteer at the Community Health Project from 1987-1995, she worked for many years as a nurse practitioner in HIV/AIDS and end-of-life care. She is co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press, a publisher of LBT poetry. Online at risadenenberg.weebly.com.

Kay Gabriel is the author of Elegy Department Spring (BOAAT Press, 2017), finalist for the 2016 BOAAT chapbook prize selected by Richard Siken. She is one-fifth of Negative Press, a gay Marxist poetry collective, and co-edits Vetch: A Journal of Trans Poetry and Poetics. Find her recent and forthcoming writing in Lambda Literary Poetry Spotlight, Salvage, TAGVVERK, Tripwire, The Believer and
elsewhere. Twitter: @unit01barbie.

Grey Vild is a Queer Art Mentorship & Brooklyn Poets fellow. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Them, Fault, Elderly, Vetch, and Winter Tangerine. He is beginning his MFA at Rutgers University and is working on his first collection of poems, The M4T Files.

Jason Schneiderman is the author of Primary Source (Red Hen Press 2016), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Prize; Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press 2010), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize, and Sublimation Point (Four Way Books 2004), a Stahlecker Selection. He edited the anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press 2015). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has received He fellowships from Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center, and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, as well as the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is Poetry Editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, and Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly. He is an Associate Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

Jayson P Smith is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Their work appears in publications such as West Branch, 92Y, Gulf Coast, Nepantla, Vinyl, fields magazine, & The Offing. Jayson has received previous support from The Poetry Project, The Conversation Literary Festival, Callaloo, & Millay Colony for the Arts. Jayson currently lives/works in Brooklyn as founder of NOMAD Reading Series and a Spark House teaching artist.

VIP and Press Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters
2018-06-14 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Cast of Characters
An Immersive Exhibition by Liz Collins
June 14 – September 16, 2018
Download the press release for Cast of Characters.
Donors reception
Thursday, June 14, 2018, 6-9 PM
(for donors of $85 or more to Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign—(campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st)
Press Preview
Members of the press will be admitted to the exhibition at 5 PM on Thursday, June 14th. Please contact Greg Newton at contact@bgsqd.com with the subject line “RSVP for Press Preview of Cast of Characters” and please include your affiliation.
Public opening reception:
Friday, June 15, 2018, 6-9 PM
RSVP required for Public Opening Reception.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are much appreciated!
Please RSVP here.
EXHIBITION
BUREAU OF GENERAL SERVICES—QUEER DIVISION
ROOM 210, LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER
VIP Donors Reception (June 14) and Public Reception (June 15)
ROOM 101, LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER
208 WEST 13TH STREET
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present Cast of Characters, a dramatic transformation of the Bureau by artist Liz Collins featuring a salon-style exhibition of portraits by 95 LGBTQ artists. Inspired by lavishly decorated and richly ornamented nineteenth-century libraries and salons, this immersive installation brings vibrant colors, dynamic geometric patterns, and lush textures to the Bureau’s utilitarian aesthetic of plywood and cardboard. The exhibition will transform the Bureau into a warm, bright lounge, inspiring contemplation and conversation, beckoning visitors to linger, look, and read.
Made possible by a grant from The Kors Le Pere Foundation and by individual donations to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign.
In order to attend the VIP Donors Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters please donate $85 or more to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign by the deadline of Thursday, May 31, 2018. Campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st,

Exhibiting artists

Paula Allen
Lani Asuncion
Aziz + Cucher
Shimon Attie
Hannah Barrett
Nayland Blake
Marissa Bluestone
Chris Bogia
Justin Vivian Bond
Deborah Bright
Nancy Brooks Brody
Dietmar Busse
Nao Bustamante
Jai Carrillo
Anna Campbell
Cassils
Geoffrey Chadsey
Caroline Wells Chandler
Kyle Coniglio
Marco DaSilva
Niko Darling
Leah DeVun
Katrina del Mar
KD Diamond
Vincent Dilio
Angela Dufresne
Nicole Eisenman
Scott Ewalt
Alesia Exum
Avram Finkelstein
C. Finley
Daphne Fitzpatrick
Lola Flash
Chitra Ganesh
Andrea Geyer
Gary Graham
Stephanie Gudra
Martine Gutierrez
Barbara Hammer
Michelle Handelman
Jesse Harrod
Clarity Haynes
Karen Heagle
Mars Hobrecker
Elizabeth Insogna
Rindon Johnson
John Kelly
Amanda Kirkhuff
Carmelle La Sirena
Kia LaBeija
Doron Langberg
Rebecca Levi
Myles Loftin
Shelley Marlow
Rodolfo Marron III
Aaron McIntosh
Eric McNatt
Bobbi Menuez
Lucas Michael
Troy Michie
Midori
Rodrigo Moreira
Carlos Motta
Zanele Muholi
Em North
Samantha Nye
Sig Olson
Alice O’Malley
Allison Michael Orenstein
Maia Cruz Palileo
Anna Parisi
Vick Quezada
LJ Roberts
Jason Rodgers
Gabriel García Román
JD Samson
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
M. Sharkey
Lauryn Siegel & Virgil B/G Taylor
Charan Singh
SKOTE (Alex P White & Jill Pangallo)
Buzz Slutzky
Tuesday Smillie
Allison Smith
Pamela Sneed
Alexander Stadler
A.K. Summers
Aarav Sundaresh
Corinne Teed
Gail Thacker
Mickalene Thomas
Vincent Tiley
Boris Torres
Nicola Tyson
Conrad Ventur
Mickey Vered
Courtney Webster & Meg Turner
Ketch Wehr
Matthew Weinstein

Liz Collins is an artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, NY, and in her work surrounds the viewer in vibrating color and pattern fields to explore the boundaries between painting, fiber arts and installation. The cacophonic play of optics, texture, color and scale recreates her wavering experience of the world as a place of stupendous wonder and cosmic energy.
Collins has had solo exhibitions at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Heller Gallery, NY; AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee to name a few. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions including at the ICA/Boston; Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; the Museum of FIT; the New Museum; the Museum of Arts and Design and MoMA, and numerous group shows at galleries around the world. Collins’ awards include a USA Fellowship, a MacColl Johnson Fellowship, and residencies at AIR Alaska, Haystack, MacDowell, the Siena Art Institute, Stoneleaf, Yaddo, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She is a Queer Art Mentor, serves on the board of the Fire Island Art Residency, is a new member of the Exhibitions Committee at the Leslie Lohman Museum, and is one of the artists in the 2018-2020 Open Sessions program at the Drawing Center.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space that opened in New York City in 2012 and has been hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center since 2014. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting a wide variety of cultural events, including readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing.

Established in 1983, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center empowers people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center celebrates diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity. Each year, The Center welcomes more than 300,000 visits to our building in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan from people who engage in our life-changing and life-saving activities. To learn more about our work, please visit gaycenter.org.
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
@The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 210
NY, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesdays—Sundays, 1-7 PM. Closed Mondays.
Summer hours (July & August): Wednesdays—Saturdays, 1-7 PM.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, & Sundays.
Image credit:
Wallpaper designed by Liz Collins, produced by 4Spaces
Portraits by:
top row: Shelley Marlow, Cassils, Lani Asuncion
middle row: Dietmar Busse, Martine Gutierrez, Zanele Muholi
Bottom row: Nao Bustamante, Hannah Barrett, Paula Allen

Public Opening Reception for Cast of Characters
2018-06-15 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Cast of Characters
An Immersive Exhibition by Liz Collins
June 14 – September 16, 2018
Download the press release for Cast of Characters.
Donors reception
Thursday, June 14, 2018, 6-9 PM
(for donors of $85 or more to Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign)
Kickstarter campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st. Thanks to all who donated!!!
Public opening reception:
Friday, June 15, 2018, 6-9 PM
RSVP required for Public Opening Reception.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are much appreciated!
Please RSVP here.

Exhibition
Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Room 210, LGBT Community Center
VIP Donors Reception (June 14) and Public Reception (June 15)
Room 101, LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center are proud to present Cast of Characters, a dramatic transformation of the Bureau by artist Liz Collins featuring a salon-style exhibition of portraits by 95 LGBTQ artists. Inspired by lavishly decorated and richly ornamented nineteenth-century libraries and salons, this immersive installation brings vibrant colors, dynamic geometric patterns, and lush textures to the Bureau’s utilitarian aesthetic of plywood and cardboard. The exhibition will transform the Bureau into a warm, bright lounge, inspiring contemplation and conversation, beckoning visitors to linger, look, and read.
Made possible by a grant from The Kors Le Pere Foundation and by individual donations to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign.
In order to attend the VIP Donors Preview and Opening Reception for Cast of Characters please donate $85 or more to the Cast of Characters Kickstarter campaign by the deadline of Thursday, May 31, 2018. Please select the appropriate reward in order to attend. Thank you for your support! Kickstarter campaign ended–successfully!!!–on May 31st. Thanks to all who donated!!!
Exhibiting artists

Paula Allen
Lani Asuncion
Aziz + Cucher
Shimon Attie
Hannah Barrett
Nayland Blake
Marissa Bluestone
Chris Bogia
Justin Vivian Bond
Deborah Bright
Nancy Brooks Brody
Dietmar Busse
Nao Bustamante
Jai Carrillo
Anna Campbell
Cassils
Geoffrey Chadsey
Caroline Wells Chandler
Kyle Coniglio
Marco DaSilva
Niko Darling
Leah DeVun
Katrina del Mar
KD Diamond
Vincent Dilio
Angela Dufresne
Nicole Eisenman
Scott Ewalt
Alesia Exum
Avram Finkelstein
C. Finley
Daphne Fitzpatrick
Lola Flash
Chitra Ganesh
Andrea Geyer
Gary Graham
Stephanie Gudra
Martine Gutierrez
Barbara Hammer
Michelle Handelman
Jesse Harrod
Clarity Haynes
Karen Heagle
Mars Hobrecker
Elizabeth Insogna
Rindon Johnson
John Kelly
Amanda Kirkhuff
Carmelle La Sirena
Kia LaBeija
Doron Langberg
Rebecca Levi
Myles Loftin
Shelley Marlow
Rodolfo Marron III
Aaron McIntosh
Eric McNatt
Bobbi Menuez
Lucas Michael
Troy Michie
Midori
Rodrigo Moreira
Carlos Motta
Zanele Muholi
Em North
Samantha Nye
Sig Olson
Alice O’Malley
Allison Michael Orenstein
Maia Cruz Palileo
Anna Parisi
Vick Quezada
LJ Roberts
Jason Rodgers
Gabriel García Román
JD Samson
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
M. Sharkey
Lauryn Siegel & Virgil B/G Taylor
Charan Singh
SKOTE (Alex P White & Jill Pangallo)
Buzz Slutzky
Tuesday Smillie
Allison Smith
Pamela Sneed
Alexander Stadler
A.K. Summers
Aarav Sundaresh
Corinne Teed
Gail Thacker
Mickalene Thomas
Vincent Tiley
Boris Torres
Nicola Tyson
Conrad Ventur
Mickey Vered
Courtney Webster & Meg Turner
Ketch Wehr
Matthew Weinstein

Liz Collins is an artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn, NY, and in her work surrounds the viewer in vibrating color and pattern fields to explore the boundaries between painting, fiber arts and installation. The cacophonic play of optics, texture, color and scale recreates her wavering experience of the world as a place of stupendous wonder and cosmic energy.
Collins has had solo exhibitions at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Heller Gallery, NY; AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee to name a few. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions including at the ICA/Boston; Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; the Museum of FIT; the New Museum; the Museum of Arts and Design and MoMA, and numerous group shows at galleries around the world. Collins’ awards include a USA Fellowship, a MacColl Johnson Fellowship, and residencies at AIR Alaska, Haystack, MacDowell, the Siena Art Institute, Stoneleaf, Yaddo, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She is a Queer Art Mentor, serves on the board of the Fire Island Art Residency, is a new member of the Exhibitions Committee at the Leslie Lohman Museum, and is one of the artists in the 2018-2020 Open Sessions program at the Drawing Center.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space that opened in New York City in 2012 and has been hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center since 2014. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting a wide variety of cultural events, including readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing.

Established in 1983, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center empowers people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center celebrates diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity. Each year, The Center welcomes more than 300,000 visits to our building in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan from people who engage in our life-changing and life-saving activities. To learn more about our work, please visit gaycenter.org.

Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
@The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 210
NY, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesdays—Sundays, 1-7 PM. Closed Mondays.
Summer hours (July & August): Wednesdays—Saturdays, 1-7 PM.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, & Sundays.
Image credit:
Wallpaper designed by Liz Collins, produced by 4Spaces
Portraits by:
top row: Shelley Marlow, Cassils, Lani Asuncion
middle row: Dietmar Busse, Martine Gutierrez, Zanele Muholi
Bottom row: Nao Bustamante, Hannah Barrett, Paula Allen

Bold Strokes Books Pride Reading
2018-06-19 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
To celebrate Pride in NYC Bold Strokes Books is proud to present an array of talented, queer writers reading from across genres at the Bureau!

Ann Aptaker will read from Criminal Gold
Tom Cardamone will read from The Lurid Sea
Nora Olsen will read from Frenemy of the People
Andrew J. Peters will read from The Sim Ru Prophecy
Alexa Black will read from The Outcasts
Nell Stark will read from The Princess Deception

Aural Fixation: A Post-Pride Fiction Extravaganza
2018-06-26 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Ready for summer? We know we are. Please join us for an evening of sultry tales and sizzling yarns as authors VIET DINH (After Disasters), DENNIS NORRIS (“Food 4 THOT”), ERIC SASSON (Admissions, Margins of Tolerance), and JONATHAN VATNER (Carnegie Hill) provide the aural delights. Your ears will never be the same.

Photograph by Martirene Alcantara

Eric Sasson is the author of the short story collection Margins of Tolerance and the novel Admissions. His stories have been nominated for the Robert Olen Butler prize, the Pushcart prize, and one is in The Best Gay Stories 2013. For three years, he wrote “Ctrl-Alt,” a column on LGBT culture for the Wall Street Journal, and he is now a regular contributor to Vice, The New Republic and GOOD magazine. His articles have been featured on “Meet the Press” and “Morning Joe Scarborough,” and in February 2017, he was part of the team that was awarded the National Magazine award “Ellie” for Personal Service. Other publication credits include pieces in them., Salon, Five Points, William and Mary Review, The Puritan, BLOOM and Nashville Review. He received his MA in Creative Writing from NYU and has taught fiction writing for the Sackett Street Writers Workshop in Brooklyn, where he was born, bred, and still resides.

Jonathan Vatner is the author of Carnegie Hill, a novel about life and death in a luxe Upper East Side co-op building, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press in 2019. His stories have been published in Confrontation, Jonathan, Chelsea Station, and the Best Gay Stories anthology. A journalist for the past 16 years, he works as the staff writer for Hue, the magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology. He has an MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Harvard University in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Viet Dinh was born in Vietnam and grew up in Colorado. He attended Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston and currently teaches at the University of Delaware. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Delaware Division of the Arts, as well as an O. Henry Prize and the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction. His stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Witness, Fence, Five Points, Chicago Review, the Threepenny Review, and Best American Non-Required Reading 2017, and his debut novel, After Disasters, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, was released in 2016.

Dennis Norris II is a 2017 MacDowell Colony Fellow, a 2016 Tin House Scholar, and a 2015 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. They are the author of Awst Collection—Dennis Norris II a chapbook published by Awst Press, and other writing appears in Apogee Journal andSmokeLong Quarterly. Their story, “Where Every Boy is Known and Loved” was recently named as a Finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Anthology, forthcoming from Braddock Avenue Books, and their story “Last Rites” appears in the collection “Everyday People: The Color of Life”, forthcoming in August 2018 from the Atria Books imprint of Simon and Schuster. They currently serve as Fiction Editor at Apogee Journal, Assistant Fiction Editor at The Rumpus, and co-host of the popular podcast Food 4 Thot. You can find more information at their website: www.dennisnorrisii.com.

BESPOKE: Post-Pride Edition
2018-06-28 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
BESPOKE: Post-Pride Edition. Get your rainbow raiments ready! (Be sure to roll those r’s while doing so.) It’s time, as Gwendolyn Brooks wrote, to “jazz June!” On Thursday, June 28 the Bureau will feature Dreya St. Clair, Alejandro Morales, and Thomas March at Bespoke, a bimonthly queer series where featured readers dress fun, fancy, or flirtatious, while supporting the Bureau and resisting fascism. Our sinfully sartorial series presents fashionable femmes, dapper dykes, chic twinks, trendy trans* folk, & frothy FTMs. Featured writers are encouraged to suit up or dress down : readers’ choice.

Open mic readers: whose name shall be drawn from the rainbow top hat this month? General attendees: which incredible edibles from Dylan’s Candy Bar will find their way to the insatiate maws of our deviant demimonde?

Your hosts are the sinfully sartorial trio Christina “CQ” Quintana (writer/ playwright/ dyke about town), Tim Murphy (longtime LGBTQ journalist, activist and author of the novel Christodora), Jerome Ellison Murphy (poet, critic and NYU Creative Writing Program administrator) who invite you to turn out in your Thursday best (dressing up is welcome & encouraged, not mandatory) every other month for drinks and chat before & after our reading.

Dréya St. Clair is an interdisciplinary, Jamaican-born, transgender woman actor, artist, writer, activist and nonprofit fundraising professional. She holds an Honors B.A. in Sexuality and Society from Brown University, an MA and MFA, respectively in Performance Studies from New York Univeristy/Tisch School of the Arts and in Acting from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Her visual art has been seen in museums, NYC galleries and in permanent exhibits and collections.
St. Clair has performed on regional and off-Broadway stages, in film and video and is SAG-AFTRA eligible.
She is based in New York, NY. Reach her on Twitter and Instagram @DreyaStClair

Originally from Springfield, IL, Thomas March is a poet, teacher and critic based in New York City. His poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Good Men Project, Pleiades, and Public Pool, among others. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Believer, The Huffington Post, and New Letters. Appearing regularly in Lambda Literary Review, his poetry column, “Appreciations,” offers appreciative close readings of excellent poems from recent collections by LGBTQ poets. A past recipient of the Norma Millay Ellis Fellowship in Poetry, from the Millay Colony for the Arts, he has also received an Artist/Writer grant from The Vermont Studio Center. In recent years, he has written and performed monologues at a number of venues in New York City, including Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, The Peoples Improv Theater, and Sid Gold’s Request Room. Aftermath, his first poetry collection, was selected by Joan Larkin for The Word Works Hilary Tham Capital Collection.

A former playwright, Alejandro Morales’s plays have been presented and developed at theaters such as INTAR, South Coast Repertory, HERE Arts Center, Mabou Mines and The Public Theater, where he was a 2008 Emerging Writer. He is the recipient of a Van Lier Fellowship, the Whitfield Cook Award and an Overall Achievement Award from the New York International Fringe Festival for his play expat/inferno. His plays have been published by NoPassport Press and excerpts from his first novel The Furies of Hialeah have been published in ImageOut Write and Callisto. He was also a runner up for litrejections.com’s Story Prize. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a former Co-Artistic Director of Packawallop Productions, an independent theater company he cofounded and helped run for 20 years. He is currently at work on his second novel.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Monogamish
2018-07-18 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please note that the first Wednesday (our regularly scheduled night) is the 4th of July so we are meeting on July 18th.
Please join us for Monogamish (2014), directed by Tao Ruspoli and featuring interviews with Dan Savage, Stephanie Coontz, and Christopher Ryan.
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: After going through a difficult divorce, director Tao Ruspoli examines monogamy and relationships through interviews with relationship experts, his family, and his neighbors. Running time: 1 hour 13 minutes.

We're Still Here East Coast Launch Party!
2018-08-18 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
Stacked Deck Press takes Manhattan! Come to the East Coast Launch Party for We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division! Join Jeanne Thornton and Tara Madison Avery for trans comics and adult refreshments! Get your copy of this groundbreaking anthology at the Bureau!
To reserve a copy of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology please email the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com. Thank you!

Hot August Night: Readings in Lust and Desire
2018-08-22 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Christopher Stoddard, Philip F. Clark, and Tom Cardamone share recent work exploring the darker side of gay life and New York City in all it’s sweaty allure.

Christopher Stoddard’s new novel At Night Only from Itna Press released this June, which has been praised by Kirkus, Lambda Literary, and authors Edmund White and Gary Indiana. Featured in OUT Magazine’s “Tastemakers” issue in 2015 for his contributions to LGBT literature and publishing, he’s written two other novels: Limiters (Itna Press, 2014), and White, Christian (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Philip F. Clark, a native New Yorker, received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry at City College, New York, in 2016, where he is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in English. He was the graduate editor of The Promethean Literary Journal. His poetry has been published in Assaracus Journal of Gay Poetry, The Good Men Project, “Between: New Gay Poetry, published by Chelsea Station Editions, The HIV HERE AND NOW Project, and most recently, Transition: Poems In the Aftermath, published by Indolent Press. His poetry reviews and interviews have been published in Lambda Literary. His blog The Poet’s Grin can be seen at https://philipfclark.wordpress.com His current debut volume of poetry The Carnival of Affection, is published by Sibling Rivalry Press. It was a winner of the Jerome Lowell De Jur Award for Poetry in 2016.

Tom Cardamone is the author of the erotic fantasy novel The Lurid Sea and the Lambda Literary Award-winning speculative novella Green Thumb as well as other works of fiction. Additionally, he has edited The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered and The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy! You can read more about him and his writings at www.pumpkinteeth.net.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Her
2018-09-05 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please join us for Her (2013), written and directed by Spike Jonze, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlet Johansson.

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 the near future, a lonely man going through a divorce falls in love with an operating system.
Running time: 2 hour 6 minutes.

Stephen S. Mills's and Robert Siek's Books Launch Party
2018-09-07 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join Stephen S. Mills and Robert Siek to celebrate the release of their new poetry collections, Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution and We Go Seasonal, both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. Mills and Siek will each read poems from their new books, and then folks are welcome to hang out, meet the poets, buy books, have fun.

Stephen S. Mills is the author of the Lambda Award–winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices and A History of the Unmarried, both from Sibling Rivalry Press. He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Knockout, 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. His third poetry collection Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution releases September 4, 2018, from Sibling Rivalry Press. He lives in New York City with his partner and two schnauzers. Website: https://www.stephensmills.com/

Robert Siek is the author of the poetry collections Purpose and Devil Piss (2013) and We Go Seasonal (2018), both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. His chapbook Clubbed Kid was published by New School University in 2002. His poetry has most recently appeared in Yes Poetry, The Columbia Poetry Review, Impossible Archetype, Court Green, The Good Men Project, Bushwick Daily, visceral brooklyn, and NANCY, as well as the Brooklyn Poets Anthology. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan.

Seeing Ourselves: Cast of Characters
2018-09-08 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Featuring portraits by over 100 queer artists, Cast of Characters celebrates and honors queer people. Liz Collins conceived of this exhibition as a kind of family portrait, a “family of queers.” As we approach the end of the exhibition, Collins and the Bureau bring together a few of the participating artists to discuss how we look, individually and collectively.

What do the portraits in Cast of Characters reveal about queer people and queer communities? How do we picture and present ourselves and the queer communities to which we belong? What does it mean to see ourselves as queer people, and how do our identities as queer people inform our ways of living in the world?
What can we learn from the inviting, playful, and colorful environment that Collins created for the portraits in Cast of Characters? How do we make space for ourselves in contexts that are hostile to our very existence? Nearly 50 years after the Stonewall rebellion, what can we learn from our history and what futures do we envision?
Join us for a lively discussion about the exhibition, the portraits, and queer utopian visions!

Liz Collins and Greg Newton, co-founder of the Bureau, will be joined in conversation by the following artists:
Nayland Blake
Deborah Bright
Barbara Hammer
John Kelly
Myles Loftin

This event will take place in room 301 of The LGBT Community Center. ADA Accessible.

Reception 5 to 6
Panel Discussion followed by Q&A 6 to 7:30
Celebration 7:30 to 9

Installation view: Regan Wood Studio

Sophie Labelle in NYC - US tour 2018 - Assigned Male comics
2018-09-09 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Sophie Labelle, the pink-haired French Canadian cartoonist of Assigned Male comics, will launch her new comic book Trans-Lucid and her American tour at the Bureau! Come and get your books signed. The event is kid friendly!

Red Hen Press at the Bureau
2018-09-12 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
We are sorry to report that Amber Flora Thomas will not be able to join the Red Hen Press reading tonight, but two poets have joined the line-up. So please join us for a poetry reading featuring Corrina Bain, Michael Broder, Jason Schneiderman, and tammy lynne stoner.

Corrina Bain is a gender-liminal writer and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. He has a long history in poetry slam, has been a featured reader on finals stage in 2004, and is a member and coach of multiple slam teams. He has shared stages with Jim Carroll, Patricia Smith, Dorothy Allison, and Saul Williams. He is the author of the full-length poetry collection Debridement (Great Weather for Media 2015,) and has also published work in journals and anthologies such as PANK, decomP, Muzzle Magazine, BOOTH, and the Everyman’s Library book Villanelles. Bain has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Michael Broder is the author of Drug and Disease Free (Indolent Books, 2016) and This Life Now (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He holds a BA from Columbia University, an MFA from New York University, and a PhD in Classics from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Michael is the founding publisher of Indolent Books, the founding director of the Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, and the founding director of the HIV Here & Now project. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and a backyard colony of stray and feral cats.

Jason Schneiderman is Associate Editor of Painted Bride Quarterly and Poetry Editor of Bellevue Literary Review. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn.

tammy lynne stoner’s work has been selected for more than a dozen anthologies and literary journals. Stemming from what her grandmother calls her “gypsy blood,” tammy has lived in 15 cities, working as a biscuit maker, a medical experimentee, a forklift operator, a gas station attendant, and a college instructor—among other odd jobs. She is also the creator of Dottie’s Magic Pockets, and the publisher of Gertrude, and wrangle of the GERTIE book club, based in Portland, OR, where she lives with her lady-friend, Karena, and their three kids. You can find her at TammyLynneStoner.com.

Affirmative Laughter
2018-09-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe brings some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.

The September 13th edition will feature:
Chewy May
Camille Theobald
Sarah Kennedy
Yedoye Travis
Venessa Peruda

Nurse Jackie, Therapies and Histories: Book Launch Party
2018-09-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
UK academic Christopher Pullen, Queens College academic Noah Tsika and TV historian Steven Capsuto, invite you to their book launch party.
At the event, Chris will launch his new book Heroism, Celebrity and Therapy in Nurse Jackie exploring the potential of the TV series to offer therapy, whilst framing the significance of its leading actor Edie Falco. Noah is launching his new book Traumatic Imprints: Cinema, Military Psychiatry, and the Aftermath of War, which explores the historical significance of film to rehabilitate soldiers and civilians during and after World War II. Steven shares his new work in updating his landmark book (originally released in 2000) Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television: 1930’s to the Present.

Presentation 1 by Christopher Pullen
The Irresistible addiction of TV’s Nurse Jackie, and the Transcendent Potential of Edie Falco
Chris’s presentation explores his research process in developing his new book: Heroism, Celebrity and Therapy in Nurse Jackie. He examines key storylines within Nurse Jackie, while relating the significance of heroism, the context of celebrity culture and the significance of therapy, and social action.
Chris has chosen to launch this book at the Bureau, not only for its New York setting (where Nurse Jackie takes place), but also due to the proximity of the now sadly lost Saint Vincent’s Hospital. Chris argues not only that the hospital may have been the inspiration for the series, but also that its star Edie Falco, and its main screenwriters Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem, relate their own experiences of addiction in producing such an engaging television event
Nurse Jackie’s exploration of prescription drug addiction, relating both the challenge to healthcare workers who become addicted often in trying to meet the demands of the job, and the interaction with family and community members who often are unable to comprehend the addict’s life, reveals the rich complexity of the series and its continuing value. For queer and ‘not so queer’ audiences, Edie Falco’s performance as Nurse Jackie speaks directly to the human condition and the context of the outsider and the ‘other’, revealing both our vulnerability, but also our inherent connectedness. Nurse Jackie reveals a need for society, and for individuals, to take action.
Through exploring how Chris researched the story of Nurse Jackie relating his own identification with the series, this book event offers something for existing fans of the series, and those who may never have heard of Nurse Jackie, possibly not realising that TV could be so immersive and meaningful.
Discounted copies of the book will be available at BGSQD.

Christopher Pullen is widely published on queer identity in the media, including a number of authored books such as Documenting Gay Men: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and Documentary Film (2007), Gay Identity, New Storytelling and the Media (2012), Straight Girls and Queer Guys: The Hetero Media Gaze in Film and Television (2016) and Pedro Zamora, Sexuality, and AIDS Education: The Autobiographical Self, Activism and The Real World (2016). Also he has also produced a number of edited collections: LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media (2012), Queer Youth and Media Cultures (2014), LGBT Identity and Online New Media – with Margaret Cooper (2010) and Queer Love in Film and Television – with Pamela Demory (2013).

Presentation 2 by Noah Tsika
Traumatic Imprints: Cinema, Military Psychiatry, and the Aftermath of War
‪Forced to contend with unprecedented levels of psychological trauma during World War II, the United States military began sponsoring a series of nontheatrical films designed to educate and even rehabilitate soldiers and civilians alike. Traumatic Imprints traces the development of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic approaches to wartime trauma by the United States military, along with links to formal and narrative developments in military and civilian filmmaking. Offering close readings of a series of films alongside analysis of period scholarship in psychiatry and bolstered by research in trauma theory and documentary studies, Noah Tsika argues that trauma was foundational in postwar American culture. Examining wartime and postwar debates about the use of cinema as a vehicle for studying, publicizing, and even what has been termed “working through” war trauma, this book is an original contribution to scholarship on the military-industrial complex.

Noah Tsika is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. Among his books are Nollywood Stars and Pink 2.0.

Presentation 3 by Steven Capsuto
Revisiting Alternate Channels
Steven Capsuto is now preparing a revised edition of his acclaimed book Alternate Channels: an activist history of lesbian and gay images in 20th-century broadcasting. The book also documents prime-time bisexual and transgender characters, though these were exceedingly scarce in that era.

Alternate Channels draws on the author’s interviews with TV producers, script writers, show runners, and pioneering lesbian and gay activists, as well as network censors’ notes, and documentation of Religious Right crusades against queer visibility. While preparing the book, Steven also collected notes on more than 4,000 relevant broadcasts dating from 1930 to 2000. He contextualizes the on-air depictions within the changing status of sexual minorities in American culture over those 70 years.

Steven Capsuto is an independent scholar who presents video-illustrated lectures about American television’s portrayal of LGBT lives. His book on that subject, Alternate Channels, was a semi-finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in 2001. He began researching queer television images in the 1980s while volunteering at a crisis hotline. Many of the callers were suicidal gay teens who had built their self-image on the grim depictions seen on television at that time. Steven has contributed media-history articles to periodicals and reference books, has presented papers at academic conferences in several countries, and served on the research teams for documentaries seen on PBS and Bravo cable. He was the head archivist of the GLBT Archives of Philadelphia from 1997 to 2003. In his day job, he is a translator. He recently translated Manuel Ángel Soriano’s book Homophobia in 1970s Spain into English for the Egales publishing company.

TELL 46: The Time of Your Life
2018-09-15 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.
The Time of Your Life is the theme for the 46th installment of TELL. Featuring Vie Paula, Lorena Russi, and Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li.

$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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

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.

Lorena Russi is a comedian-actor-videographer centaur whose experience ranges from 8 years in improv/sketch comedy to head writer for Spotify’s web series to a career as a pro soccer player.

Originally from Taiwan, Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li earned his Master’s degree in Performance Studies at New York University. He works as director, playwright, performer, and performance artist, having created projects addressed upon sexuality, philosophy, and politics, to give his unique perspectives on time, space, and power relations. His thesis performance piece “Kiss Me, so I am Queer”, curated by Chashama, talks about the temporality of queerness and the social construction of queer identity. Currently, he is the Associate Artistic Director of the Living Theatre, and the New York Directing fellow of Drama League.

Here Nor There–Online Fantasies/Offline Reality Photo Book Launch Party
2018-09-21 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join image-based artist, Sam Rosenthal, for the of launch his newest photo book, Here Nor There, published by bd-studios.com. Rosenthal presents a selection of images appropriated from “netcams” and talks social alienation and the refuge he found on the Internet.
Reception at 7pm, artist presentation at 7:30pm followed by Q&A and mingling! Please email samrosenthalphoto@gmail.com to reserve a copy of Here Nor There.

Sam Rosenthal (b. 1994) is an image-based artist examining Queerness in context of the digital age. He uses electronics, both modern and obsolete, to define the mutability of an image by employing unconventional, and often, experimental modes of processing. These methods include the exploitation of internet camera networks, data and signal manipulation, and scanography to represent his Queer experience.

Written on the Body/Queer*Sex*Life
2018-09-22 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Celebrate the publication of two new books: Don Shewey‘s THE PARADOX OF PORN: Notes on Gay Male Sexual Culture and Ishmael Houston-Jones‘s FAT AND OTHER STORIES: some writing about sex. The authors will read from their work, answer deeply personal questions, and give away vintage porn.

Ishmael Houston‐Jones is an author, performer, teacher, curator as well as a three-time New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award-winning choreographer. His essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in numerous anthologies, including Writers Who Love Too Much (Nightboat Books, 2017); Aroused, A Collection of Erotic Writing (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001); Best Gay Erotica 2000 (Cleis Press, 2000); Best American Gay Fiction, volume 2 (Little Brown, 1997); and Out of Character: Rants, Raves and Monologues from Today’s Top Performance Artists (Bantam, 1996). His work has also appeared in Performing Arts Journal, Movement Research Journal, Contact Quarterly, Porn Free, and other publications.

Don Shewey is a writer, therapist, and pleasure activist in New York City. As a journalist and critic, he has published three books about theater and written hundreds of articles for the New York Times, the Village Voice, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He has chronicled his psycho-sexual-spiritual adventures in essays that have been included in numerous anthologies, including The Politics of Manhood, Best of the Best Gay Erotica, The Queerest Art: Essays on Gay and Lesbian Theater, and Men Like Us: the GMHC Guide to Gay Men’s Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Well-Being. An archive of his writing is available online at donshewey.com. His psychotherapy practice specializes in sex and intimacy coaching.

A Better World: the Queer Comics of L. Nichols and Kevin Czap
2018-09-23 15:00 - 16:30 | NY
Artists L. Nichols and Kevin Czap read from their latest comics about finding your way home and making a better world.
L Nichols, now a celebrated multi-disciplinary artist, engineer and father of two, was born in small town, rural Louisiana, assigned female and raised by conservative Christians. Flocks is his memoir of that childhood, and of the expectations of his family, friends and community, the flocks of Flocks, that shaped and re-shaped him as a child.
Romantic friendships, überchic culture, magical solutions, kid think-tanks, and more make up Kevin Czap’s vision of not-so-distant America. What if the future began in a small, queer, punk music show in the basement of a Cleveland, Ohio, house? Fütchi Perf might not depict a perfect future, but its slice-of-life vignettes, drawn in a glorious, kaleidoscopic two-color palette, visualize a utopian dream that seems almost real, but perpetually out of reach.

L. Nichols’ illustrations and comics have appeared in the Village Voice, Gilt Taste, the Atlantic, BEA Rock Fest, Verve Magazine, the Zinester’s Guide to NYC, Smoke Signal, SMITH Magazine, the Nib, and the anthologies QU33R (Northwest Press) and Warmer: A Collection of Comics about Climate Change for the Fearful & Hopeful. He is the co-publisher (as Grindstone Comics) of the award-winning comics quarterly, Ley Lines, with Czap Books. He lives, and works as an illustrator, comic artist, graphic designer, educator and sometime blacksmith, with his wife and their two children in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Kevin Czap (pronounced “chap”) was raised in Northern Virginia, studied art in Cleveland, OH, and is now based in Providence, RI. They run the micropress Czap Books, endearingly referred to as “Comics Mom.” In 2016, Czap received the second annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) Emerging Talent Award for their work and involvement in the comics community.

Shinjuku Story: Exhibition and Book Signing
2018-09-28 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Please join Brooklyn based photographer, Kaz Senju, for his first solo show and book signing with his project Shinjuku Story, interviews and photography of Tokyo gay and lesbian bar owners.
The exhibition is on view at the Bureau from September 25-30, 1-7 pm.

Book signing special event on Friday, Sept 28th, 7 pm, hosted by Chris Bogia.

For more information about Kaz Senju, please visit his website: kazsenju.com

Chris Bogia is the Co-Founder and Director of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), the first LGBTQ artist residency in the world, located in Cherry Grove, on Fire Island, NY. A visual artist and instructor of sculpture at New York University, Bogia shares his personal work and describes the inspiration behind founding the Fire Island Artist Residency.

The Legendary Mermaid Mysteries Book Release Party & Reading
2018-09-29 14:00 - 16:00 | NY
Join us in celebrating new author, Bettylou Neill, as she launches her first novel, The Legendary Mermaid Mysteries Volume 1: Emma Pearl.
When Emma Pearl and her best friend, Mia, who have dreamt of being mermaids their entire lives, get an old book from a mysterious man with a top hat and patch, it leads them through a series of unimaginable events and they find themselves swept up in the current of a magical world under the sea! The two best friends discover themselves on a journey to save the Kingdom of Oceanna from destruction and unlock the mystery of its missing royal family. Dive in to the twisty, salty tail of two girls uncovering who they are, finding their true purpose and working together with others’ diverse purposes to help restore harmony to the sea and the island where they live.
Can Emma and Mia overcome the obstacles in front of them, find the eight Legendary Mermaids, and restore the missing royal family in order to save Oceanna?
Engage your Pearl Spirit and see what is in store. Meet the author, hear a reading and enjoy refreshments and activities befitting a young mermaid! This event will be fun for the whole family!
To reserve a copy of The Legendary Mermaid Mysteries Volume 1: Emma Pearl, please write to the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com.

New author and eight-year-old, Bettylou Neill lives in Portland, Oregon with her parents and enjoys reading, art, swimming, Drag Queens and Broadway Musicals. Her love of books began when she read her first book, “I Am A Bunny” by Richard Scary at the age of three and it has only grown from there. She discovered her love of writing and telling stories as her imagination and dreams continued to grow along with her. Bettylou fell in love with mermaids after watching Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and watching YouTube star, Traci Hines’ “Life Lessons of a Hipster Mermaid”. In the Spring of 2018, she came out of her bedroom and announced to her parents she wanted to write a fourteen-chapter novel about mermaids and over the course of the following months, wrote “The Legendary Mermaid Mysteries Volume 1: Emma Pearl.” Bettylou is looking forward to continuing her Legendary Mermaid Mystery series and is currently writing Volume 2!

BUFFALO TRACE: A Threefold Vibration
2018-09-30 16:00 - 18:00 | NY
Book launch, reading and discussion with authors Mary Cappello, James Morrison, and Jean Walton.
Set in 1980s Buffalo, three intricate, interrelated essays, meditate on the limits of expression, on the gender of ambition, on secrecy, eroticism, academic time, and snow. Combining the narrative-exegetical with the lyric-intellectual, they evoke the process of coming-into-queerness in a time and place not always conducive to it.

To reserve a copy of Buffalo Trace, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

“Smart, honest, and beautifully written, these three tales of grad school life in the 1980s could be called Love in the Time of Deconstruction. A hothouse world of brains, bodies, books, and doubt (in Buffalo, no less), it’s all a bit mad, but in the exciting, necessary way of life in your twenties. Buffalo Trace is a strange, original, wonderful book.”
–Christopher Bram

“By following the tenderly intertwined intellectual and sexual awakenings of three friends, Buffalo Trace eroticizes academia…. This trilogy can also be read as an ode to Buffalo, the deeply American town that provided cover and even salvation for these three writers. Who can resist the assertion that ‘Buffalo was itself a kind of Paris of the rust belt?’ Ultimately, this is a love story, among friends, lovers, literature, and even Buffalo.”
–Lucy Jane Bledsoe

OLNY Poly Movie Night: The Witches of Eastwick
2018-10-03 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
On October 3rd, please join us for The Witches of Eastwick (1987), based on the novel by John Updike, starring Susan Sarandon, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jack Nicholson.

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: Three friends living in a small town in New England all become involved with a wealthy stranger and have big hair. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes.

Print Edition Launch by Artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya
2018-10-04 18:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join The Robert Giard Foundation on Thursday, October 4th, for the launch of a limited print edition by artist and Foundation board member Paul Mpagi Sepuya, to benefit the Robert Giard Foundation Fellowship Program for photographers and filmmakers.

The FREE event will include a raffle ($20/ticket) for one of the prints. Purchase raffle tickets in advance or in person at the event. Raffle to be drawn at 7:30 p.m. at the October 4th event.

Prints from the edition can be purchased for $1000 each at the event or online at

https://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?etid=10827

All proceeds go to support the future of the Robert Giard Foundation Fellowship for photographers and filmmakers.

Please join the Board of the Robert Giard Foundation and our host, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, from 6 – 8 p.m. for drinks and an introduction to the history and importance of Giard’s work, the exceptional Giard Fellowship, and the impact of the fellowship on the LGBTQ community.

Where:
Bureau of General Services-Queer Division

The Bureau is located in room 210 of
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street.
NY, NY 10011

When: 6 – 8:30 p.m, raffle at 7:30 pm.

Tickets:

1) Free RSVP
2) $20 tickets include one raffle for the benefit print, unlimited amount can be purchased per person.

For questions and information on purchasing an edition, email robertgiardfoundtion@gmail.com.

About the Robert Giard Foundation Fellowship:
The Robert Giard Foundation established the Robert Giard Fellowship in cooperation with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2008. The award of $7,500, given annually, supports an emerging, early- or mid-career artist from any country working in photography, photo-based media, video, or moving image, including short-form film or video.. This award supports a directed project, one that is new or continuing and that addresses issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ identity. For information on guidelines, application procedures, and the next deadline, see How To Apply

About the artist:
Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in photography. His work emerged within the queer zine scene of the 2000s, and was most recently shown in “Being: New Photography 2018” at the Museum of Modern Art. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museums, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, among others. Sepuya is currently visiting artist faculty at California Institute of the Arts and has been on the board of the Robert Giard Foundation since 2009.

Title of work: Mirror Study, 2017, archival pigment print, 11 x 13 inches (paper size 19 x 21), Edition of 20 with 2 APs.

We Will Be Known Forever by the Tracks We Leave
2018-10-05 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A special evening celebrating the legacy of actor, director, producer, mentor, muse and original member of The Cockettes, Rumi Missabu.

Rumi Missabu the subject of the new documentary RUMINATIONS has been in everything from Disney (Blackbeard’s Ghost) to soft-core porn (Elevator Girls in Bondage).

Physique Pictorial Volume 46 Release Party
2018-10-06 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Come celebrate the release of Physique Pictorial, photographer Bob Mizer’s art journal that fought censorship laws back in the day — and freed up the nude male physique throughout American culture.

The new Physique Pictorial relaunched last year and you can help us celebrate the release of the latest volume with The Bob Mizer Foundation and the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division.

Come and meet Physique Pictorial’s spokesperson, Ross Collab, who is hosting the event in the incredible space that is the Bureau. Enjoy queer art, conversation, drinks, music, vintage Bob Mizer films, and even a chance to win a copy of the new Physique Pictorial V46!

From Self-Harm to Self-Discovery: A Workshop
2018-10-07 15:00 - 16:00 | NY
In this workshop, lesbian twins Marissa LaRocca (bestselling author of Starving in Search of Me: A Coming-of-Age Story of Overcoming an Eating Disorder and Finding Self-Acceptance) and Kristy LaRocca, LGBTQ+ therapist and founder of Live Your Truth Counseling, share about their own personal experiences with self-harm, and how they transformed those experiences into self-awareness and healing others.

The twins will discuss some of the unique challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, as well as some tips for managing anxiety, overcoming denial, and living authentically.

We ask that participants bring a pen and a journal to the event, as we will be doing a few optional writing exercises in addition to a group share.

Please arrive by 2:45 PM at latest, so that we can close the door and begin the workshop promptly at 3 PM. Thank you!

The Bureau will be closed during the workshop: 3 to 4 PM.

Marissa LaRocca is the bestselling author of Starving in Search of Me: A Coming-of-Age Story of Overcoming an Eating Disorder and Finding Self-Acceptance (Mango, 2018). She is an award-winning writer, speaker, LGBTQ activist, and YouTube personality. Additionally, Marissa is an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, having received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and she’s a contributing educator for The Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s upcoming Emotional Eating Course. Marissa’s work has been featured in Go Magazine, on Glam.com, and on Topic.com. To find out more, visit marissalarocca.com.

Kristy LaRocca, MA, LMHC is an integrative therapist and founder of Live Your Truth Counseling located in New York City. She completed her internship at the Institute for Human Identity, one of NYC’s leading training programs for LGBTQ-affirmative psychotherapy, and has served the queer community as a Staff Therapist and Coordinator of the Intern Training Program there for several years. Kristy received her Masters in Mental Health Counseling from Brooklyn College and has taught psychology courses as an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn College.

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Bespoke: Fall Fanfare Edition
2018-10-11 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
BESPOKE: It’s ostentatious October! Join us for the resurrection of our most garish garments and frighteningly fashionable attire as Thursday, October 11 the Bureau features Sarah Schulman, Heather Lynn Johnson, and Yanyi at Bespoke, a bimonthly queer series where featured readers dress fun, fancy, or flirtatious, while supporting the Bureau and resisting fascism. This sinfully sartorial series presents fashionable femmes, dapper dykes, chic twinks, trendy trans* folk, & frothy FTMs. Featured writers are encouraged to suit up or dress down : readers’ choice.

Open mic readers (2 minutes each): whose name shall be drawn from the rainbow top hat this month? General attendees: which incredible edibles from Dylan’s Candy Bar will find their way to the insatiate maws of our deviant demimonde?

Your hosts are the trio Christina “CQ” Quintana (writer/ playwright/ dyke about town), Tim Murphy (longtime LGBTQ journalist, activist and author of the novel Christodora), Jerome Ellison Murphy (poet, critic and NYU Creative Writing Program administrator) who invite you to turn out in your Thursday best (dressing up is welcome & encouraged, not mandatory) every other month for drinks and chat before & after our reading.

Sarah Schulman is the 2018 recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, for her renown as a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, and AIDS historian. Among her novels are The Cosmopolitans, The Child, and Rat Bohemia (winner of the 1996 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction). Her works of nonfiction include Conflict Is Not Abuse (winner of last year’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction), The Gentrification of the Mind, and Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. Schulman’s nineteenth book, the novel Maggie Terry, will be published in September 2018 by the Feminist Press. She serves on a number of advisory boards including Jewish Voice for Peace, Research on the Israeli/American Alliance, and Claudia Rankine’s Racial Imaginary Institute. Schulman has received Guggenheim in playwriting, a Fulbright in Judaic studies, and two American Library Association Stonewall Awards. A fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, she is distinguished professor of the humanities at CUNY/College of Staten Island.

Heather Lynn Johnson is a poet, photographer and a performance artist living in Brooklyn. She is the 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. Johnson received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BA from Columbia College Chicago both in Photography.

Yanyi is a poet and critic. In 2018, he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, awarded by Carl Phillips, for his first book, The Year of Blue Water (Yale University Press 2019). Currently, he is an associate editor at Foundry and an MFA candidate at New York University. He formerly served as Director of Technology and Design at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, senior editor at Nat. Brut, and curatorial assistant at The Poetry Project. He is the recipient of fellowships from Asian American Writers Workshop and Poets House. Find his recent work in VIDA, Reservoir, and Memorious.
