Emanuel Xavier Radiance & Sam Sax All The Rage Official Book Readings & Signings
2016-07-28 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Join us for the launch of Emanuel Xavier‘s Radiance & Sam Sax‘s All The Rage.

“Emanuel Xavier’s newest book radiates in diverse directions, back into a past of New York club kid glamour and violence, into a family history of lost connections, and into loves forfeited and found-all of which the poet illumines with steady-eyed honesty. Finally, as he confronts a health challenge to the very brain that is the root-place of these sharp and poignant poems, radiation becomes radiance, a hard-won inner light that lets us all see how ‘splendid is our survival.'” –David Groff, author of Clay

In All the Rage, Sam Sax turns the poetry of observation into weapon of prayer and resurrection. Here is the eroticism and anger of bearing witness. Here the dead walk again, sometimes right over us, sometimes right through us. Here are open wounds wet with the spit of old lovers and old versions of ourselves, raw, hungry, and unwilling to let us forget what we’ve seen.

Apogee Issue 07 Launch
2016-07-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The celebration will feature readings by JP Howard, Naomi Extra, Soraya Shalforoosh, Robert Balun, Maura Pelletteiri, Dennis Norris II, radhiyah ayobami, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Marwa Helal, Claire Schwartz, Aaron Coleman, Hadeel Salameh, and Shira Erlichman.

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

Bureau Closed on Sundays in July and August
2016-07-31, 2016-08-07, 2016-08-14, 2016-08-21, 2016-08-28 | NY
For the months of July and August the Bureau will be closed on Sundays.
The Bureau will be open Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 1 to 7 PM.

Union Square Slam presents Jasmin Nicole
2016-08-02 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We are so excited to host Jasmin Nicole‘s first ever feature!
About the Artist:
Jasmin is a Black, queer, curly-haired poet from West Philly with an afro that can only be satisfied by copious amounts of Shea Moisture products. She loves Family Guy and mint chocolate chip ice cream. She is the original creator of the idea for the reverse microwave and has yet to turn it into a profitable invention. She is the Grand Slam Champion for 2016 at the Fuze Philly Poetry Slam and will be the only poet representing a Philadelphia venue nationally at IWPS this year.
Come through for an incredible night of poetry!

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: 4th session
2016-08-03 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
A 5-Week Workshop, Wednesdays July 13, 20, 27, August 3 and 10, 6 – 8 p.m. Led by Ann Aptaker.
Is there a Queer perspective to writing crime & mystery fiction? This 5-week workshop will take students through the art and craft of crime and mystery writing, as experienced through Queer characters. Students will learn the importance of “voice,” character development, how character drives plot, and the distinctions of the genre’s various styles (cozy, hard boiled, noir, thriller, who-done-it, etc.,) through Queer experience. Students will write each week.
Cost: $50 per student for 5 week course.
Register at: QueerWriting@gmail.com
Ann Aptaker’s 2016 Lammy winning and Goldie finalist Tarnished Gold and 2015 Goldie finalist Criminal Gold have earned excellent reviews from Curve Magazine, Crimepieces, Rainbow Reads, and other print and internet venues. Her Cantor Gold crime series celebrates her favorite themes: Queer life, crime and mystery fiction, and New York City history. The third book in the series, Genuine Gold, is scheduled for release in January 2017 from Bold Strokes Books. Like her protagonist, Cantor Gold, Ann resides in her beloved hometown, New York.

Reading by Victoria Noe from her new book Friend Grief and Men: Defying Stereotypes
2016-08-04 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Author Victoria Noe returns to the Bureau to read from her new book Friend Grief and Men: Defying Stereotypes.
How do grief and friendships affect what it means to “be a man”? The final book in her series about people grieving the death of a friend examines the belief that men grieve differently than women – in fact, that their friendships are less meaningful than women’s.
Her interviews with gay and straight men will challenge that stereotype. The men profiled range in age from their 20’s to late 80’s. They include a sports reporter, writers, actor-turned-rabbi, sound editor and professional hockey player. All struggled to make sense of their grief, none more so than those in the book’s most talked-about chapter: comparing military veterans and long-term survivors in the AIDS community.
Joining Victoria is fellow ACT UP/NY member Jim Eigo, one of the men profiled in the book. You can count on a lively discussion about the challenges facing men who grieve the death of a best friend or dozens of friends, and how you can help them.

Victoria Noe lives in Chicago but is frequently in New York for research, theatre and addiction to the chai scones at Bosie Tea Parlor. The six books in her Friend Grief series (including Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends) have won awards and fans in the US, UK and Canada. Library Journal named her their first SELF-e Ambassador, helping libraries and independent authors collaborate.

Her essay, “Long-Term Survivor” won A&U Magazine’s 2015 Christopher Hewitt Award for Creative Nonfiction, and her work has appeared on a variety of blogs as well as Positively Aware, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post and Windy City Times. A fundraiser in the AIDS community in Chicago in the early days of the epidemic, she’s now a member of ACT UP/NY. Her next book is Fag Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community (2017).

Union Square Slam presents an evening with Brooklyn Poets
2016-08-09 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is excited for our Summer reading series, featuring an extended open mic and a phenom featured artist.
We have been committed to exposing all the poetry this city has to offer. We want communities to merge and form into bigger communities. For this show we are happy to have the great literary organization Brooklyn Poets.

Brooklyn Poets is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization celebrating and cultivating the poets, poetry and literary heritage of Brooklyn, the birthplace of American poetry. Since our inception in 2012, our core program of small, intensive poetry workshops taught by award-winning poets in their own homes has served over 300 students and employed over 30 teachers, and we’ve grown to host 22 events per year attracting over 1000 attendees annually, fostering a more close-knit, homegrown, diverse community of poets and readers than what we see traditionally offered by graduate writing programs and the American literary community at large. Our community extends through The Bridge, a unique online network connecting poets and mentors throughout the world.

Click here for more about Brooklyn Poets

6;00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Brooklyn Poets
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5

About our Features:

Candace Williams is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sixth Finch, Bennington Review, Lambda Literary Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She earned her MA in Elementary Education at Stanford University and has taken workshops at Cave Canem and Brooklyn Poets. She lives with a pit bull named Madonna and tweets a little too often (@TeacherC).

Jonathan Clarence is a performance poet and actor living in Brooklyn. The Wisconsin native has appeared in Lime Hawk Journal. He recently completed his undergraduate in advertising at St. John’s University in NYC and is currently a freelance writer for thisismelo.com. With a desire to write poetry and fiction about overcoming oppression, emotional trauma and discrimination of all types from all backgrounds, he’s found his poetic voice and is developing a manuscript.

Jason Koo, named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture” by Brooklyn Magazine, Jason Koo is the author of two collections of poetry, America’s Favorite Poem and Man on Extremely Small Island. He is also the editor of Poems for Kobe, a private limited edition of poems presented as a retirement gift to Kobe Bryant by the Brooklyn Nets and Brooklyn Poets, and coeditor of the forthcoming Bettering American Poetry anthology and Brooklyn Poets Anthology. An assistant teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac University, Koo is the founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets and creator of the Bridge. He lives in Brooklyn.

Writing Queer Crime & Mystery Fiction: final session
2016-08-10 18:00 - 20:00 | NY

Bi Book Club discusses The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
2016-08-11 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)
On August 11, the Bi Book Club will discuss The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North.
Come and join the discussion, even if you haven’t read the book. We take turns reading passages aloud from the book and discuss them-anyone can participate!
Please purchase your copy of The Life and Death of Sophie Stark from the Bureau!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

TELL 26: Food
2016-08-12 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.
Food is the theme of the twenty-sixth installment of TELL. Featuring Jax Jackson, Mikéah Ernest Jennings, Lissy Navantu, and Randi Reinhold.

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

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

Jax Jackson is an agender transsexual actor and healing artist in NYC. Jax has very little experience storytelling and has no idea what to put in a bio for this event, because usually bios for actors are long boring lists of credits with no context or interesting points of fact along the way. So Jax is just kinda rambling. If you need an actor, a yoga teacher, a reiki practitioner, a tarot reader, an astrologer, or a crystal consultant, you could check out Jax’s work at jaxjackson.com or embodiedhealing.nyc. Or like, just talk to Jax or something.

Mikéah Ernest Jennings is a performer and acting educator from the Mojave Desert living and working in New York City. Mikéah has been acting and creating contemporary performance for over 15yrs and is also an adjunct faculty member in the theater departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The New School for Social Research. He is also a drinker of gin…very cheap gin.

Lissy Navantu is a Thai, femme activist. She is a social worker by day, failed romantic at night. Through collaboration with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, this past spring she toured the city with 10 LGBTQ youth, exposing the realities of homelessness in NYC (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIroT2qZ3Wo). As a true to heart masochist, Lissy finds joy in sharing her awkward social interactions with a keen audience. Lissy holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from NYU and has two self-published zines: “How to Double Your Number in Six Months” and “Mai Thai: Reflections on Consuming Thailand”.

Randi Reinhold is a Queer, Trans* masculine-of-center identified person who loves to make people laugh and feel good. His day job as a kindergarten teacher supplies him with a huge amount of storytelling fodder. As a volunteer for the Trevor Project, Randi also spends time supporting LGBTQI teens in crisis across the country. He’s dabbled in open-mic stand up and enjoys learning 80s cover songs on his acoustic guitar. His hobbies include running, bird watching, singing karaoke, geometric drawing, drinking red wine, coffee, and red wine.

Union Square Presents Our FIRST EVER NERD SLAM!
2016-08-16 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Presents Our FIRST EVER NERD SLAM!
About our Show:
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Open MIC
8:00pm: Nerd Slam
All Ages // $5
A nerd slam is when two poets are randomly selected to go head to head in a trivia battle, answering questions that are specifically chosen from a panel of nerds about the topic of the poets’ choice. Whoever wins gets to read their nerdy poem and the other poet goes back into the selection pool for the next battle. Come show off your nerd related knowledge and just have fun!
The Nerd Slam will be hosted by Justin Woo and the panel will include him as well as Khadijah Johnson, Rachel Simons, and Jaime Martin. Cosplay and nerd apparel is very much encouraged.

Butterfly Metaphor: Trans women writers write back
2016-08-17 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Trans women writers from around the world, here in NYC for the Topside Press summer workshop read their fiction and non-fiction.

Against Elizabeth! Bond Funds For Trans Girls
2016-08-18 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Great news! Alithú’s bond has been PAID and she has been released! She is back in her community and working with her lawyer on getting her asylum proceedings on-track as soon as possible. Queer Detainee Empowerment Project is proud to have been able to provide for Alithú financially during her time of need and wishes her the best in her legal battle ahead! Un abrazo!
With regards to the event, it has been re-named AGAINST ELIZABETH: Bond Funds for Trans Girls. Elizabeth Detention Center was the all-male facility in New Jersey Alithú was being held at and its our ultimate goal to have it shut down!
Money raised at the event will go towards QDEP’s ongoing bond fund specifically designated for incarcerated trans women across the country. This is an ongoing project and we want to take this opportunity to further develop the grassroots social safety nets so needed by our transgender sisters of color. Furthermore, we have changed the event date to AUGUST 18th, 2016.
As before, this event will be led and performed in by exclusively trans-feminine people of color. QDEP’s commitment to a transfeminist liberation includes making time and space for other trans women to express themselves as fully and authentically as possible.
As before, t-shirts and drinks will be available for purchase, with all proceeds going to the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project’s ongoing trans prisoner bond fund. Entrance is still a $5 – $20 suggested donation, though nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.
Any questions, requests, or volunteering interests should be directed to QDEP’s Office Manager Adelaida Shelley at adelaida@qdep.org.

Emerge Synonym: Trans women writers write back
2016-08-19 19:00 - 21:00 | NY

An Evening with Sibling Rivalry Press: Fundraiser and Readings
2016-08-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Nine Sibling Rivalry Press poets will read at this New York City based fund-raiser for their newly nonprofit press. Monetary donations will be collected at the event, and their will be a silent auction, including items to bid on such as a collection of signed copies of all the readers’ books and three signed copies of the out-of-print chapbook Burnings by Ocean Vuong. If you can’t make it to the reading and wish to donate to Sibling Rivalry Press, go here online: https://siblingrivalrypress.com/donate/.
Featuring readings by DARREL ALEJANDRO HOLNES, MATTHEW HITTINGER, JOANNA HOFFMAN, MICHAEL KLEIN, STEPHEN S. MILLS, SAM SAX, ROBERT SIEK, CHRISTOPHER SOTO aka Loma, and JANE SUMMER.
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit Sibling Rivalry Press–no one turned away for lack of funds.

DARREL ALEJANDRO HOLNES is a poet and playwright from Panama City, Panama. His poetry has been published in Poetry magazine, American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere. He is the co-author of PRIME: Poetry & Conversations, which was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013; the book was selected by the American Library Association for the Over the Rainbow Book List. He teaches at NYU.

MATTHEW HITTINGER is the author of The Erotic Postulate (2014) and Skin Shift (2012) both from Sibling Rivalry Press, and the chapbook Pear Slip (2007), winner of the Spire Press Chapbook Award. He received his MFA from the University of Michigan where he won a Hopwood Award. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, has been adapted into art songs, and in 2012 Poets & Writers Magazine named him a Debut Poet on their 8th annual list. Matthew lives and works in New York City.

JOANNA HOFFMAN (www.joannahoffman.com) is a poet and teaching artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has competed on 5 National Poetry Slam teams, ranked 4th at the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam and was the 2012 champion of Capturing Fire, an international LGBTQ poetry competition. Her full-length book of poetry, Running for Trap Doors (Sibling Rivalry Press), was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and featured in the American Library Association’s list of recommended LGBT reading for 2014. She was recently named a White House Champion of Change for LGBT advocacy through art. Her work has appeared on Upworthy and BuzzFeed, and in literary journals and publications including Winter Tangerine, decomP, PANK, Union Station Magazine, The Legendary, and Sinister Wisdom and in the Write Bloody Publishing anthologies We Will Be Shelter and Multiverse.

MICHAEL KLEIN is a five-time Lambda Literary Award Finalist and had won the award twice. His new book is When I Was a Twin. He teaches at Hunter College in New York, the MFA program at Goddard College, and through the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, online (24pearlst.org) and as a summer workshop faculty member.

STEPHEN S. MILLS is the author of the Lambda Award–winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012) and A History of the Unmarried (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). 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, Assaracus, 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. He lives in New York City. Website: https://www.stephensmills.com/

SAM SAX is the author of ‘bury it’ forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press 2017. He’s received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, & the Michener Center for Writers where he served as the editor-in-chief of Bat City Review. He’s the two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion & author of four chapbooks. His poems are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Guernica, Poetry magazine, + other journals + he’s the winner of the 2016 Iowa Review Award.

ROBERT SIEK is the author of the poetry collection Purpose and Devil Piss (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and the poetry chapbook Clubbed Kid (New School University, 2002). He works at a large publishing house in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn.

CHRISTOPHER SOTO aka Loma (b. 1991, Los Angeles) is a poet based in Brooklyn, New York. He was named one of “10 Up and Coming Latinx Poets You Need to Know” by Remezcla. He was named one of “30 Poets You Should Be Reading” by The Literary Hub. He was named one of “7 Trans & Gender Non-Conforming Artist Doing the Work” by The Offing. Poets & Writers honored Christopher Soto with the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award in 2016. Christopher Soto’s first chapbook Sad Girl Poems was published by Sibling Rivalry Press. His work has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese. He is currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript about police violence and mass incarceration. He founded Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color with the Lambda Literary Foundation and cofounded The Undocupoets Campaign. He interned at the Poetry Society of America and received an MFA in poetry from NYU.

JANE SUMMER’s latest book, EREBUS, is being sold by specialty bookstores associated with polar exploration. Her best work has been written under a pseudonym.

Union Square Slam presents Erica Buddington
2016-08-23 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
This week, we welcome Erica Buddington to the stage, debuting her latest compilation of essays, F-Boy Literature following our open mic!!
About our Show:
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
8pm: Open Mic
9pm: Feature
All Ages // $5
About our Feature:
Erica “Rivaflowz” Buddington is an author and arts educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Buddington writes fiction and memoir that elaborates the experience of the millennial woman of color. She’s written/published three books: (Intention, Boroughs Apart, and Of Micah and Men). She’s an HBO Def Poet, poetry slam champion, and content & arts education strategist for bloggers/writers/companies.
Buddington is a career educator. She left her post as Director of TRUCE Media and Arts at Harlem Children’s Zone to design and found a creative writing & coding non-profit for young men of color that debuts Summer 2017.
(She’s also a comic book, Harry Potter obsessed, HTML/CSS coding techie, but we’ll delve into that another time.)
You can find Erica on the cusp of Brooklyn’s gentrification, in a quaint home office, spilling over with journals. She’s working on her fourth book, about her family’s homeland.

Union Square Slam presents Adam Melchor
2016-08-30 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join Union Square Slam for our inaugural MUSIC NIGHT!! Mark your calendars: the last Tuesday of every month will feature a local musical performer. And we’re beyond thrilled to open this series with the ever-talented, ever-charming … Adam Melchor!
6:00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Adam Melchor
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5
About our Feature:
Adam Melchor is a songsmith hailing from Northern New Jersey. Christine Bochicchio of the Aquarian Weekly writes “Adam Melchor’s angelic vocals and poetic lyrics make him an act that deserves to be heard” after giving him 5 out of 5 stars on his debut EP.
The singer/songwriter has gained the attention of NYU’s Songwriting Program, MTV’s “Streamed Dumplings” and The Aquarian Weekly Magazine. He is an avid performer in clubs around the Tri-State area, holding residency at The Bowery Electric in NYC and Grimaldi’s in Hoboken.
For more about Adam: adammelchor.com

Bureau Closed for Labor Day Weekend
2016-09-02 - 2016-09-04 | NY
The Bureau will be closed Friday, September 2, through Sunday, September 4, after which we will return to our regular hours:
Wednesdays – Sundays, 1 to 7 PM.

Union Square Slam presents Jeanann Verlee and WOWPS Qualifier #1
2016-09-06 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam kicks off its SLAM series with our very first Women of the World World Poetry Slam Qualifer, featuring none other than our very own punk rock goddess of grace, JEANANN VERLEE!!!
(note the new format: USS has opted to do either a poetry slam or an open mic each week, not both. This week, only people who have been assigned female at birth or are otherwise living their lives as women are eligible to slam)
6pm-7:30pm: FREE Writing workshop with I.S. Jones
7pm-8pm: sign ups and socialize
Show starts at 8pm:
SLAM: Round One (2 min round)
FEATURE: Jeanann Verlee
(brief intermission)
SLAM: Round Two (1 minute round)
SLAM: Round Three (4 minute round)
All Ages // $5 // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Jeanann Verlee is author of two books, Said the Manic to the Muse and Racing Hummingbirds, which earned the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal for poetry. She has also been awarded the Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry. Her work appears in Adroit, Rattle, The Journal, and BuzzFeed Reader, among others. Verlee served as poetry editor for Union Station Magazine, For Some Time Now, and Winter Tangerine Review: Fragments of Persephone, as well as a number of individual collections. She is former director of the Urbana Poetry Slam reading series where she served as writing and performance coach, and she performs and facilitates workshops at schools, theatres, libraries, bookstores, and dive bars across North America. Verlee wears polka dots and kisses Rottweilers. She believes in you. Find her at jeanannverlee.com.
About our Poetry Slam:
WOWPS is:
a) an acronym for Women of the World World Poetry Slam
b) one of three national poetry slam events put on annually by Poetry Slam, Inc.
c) held in Dallas, TX from March 15-18th, 2017
Union Square Slam WOWPS Qualifier rules:
Qualified competitors are poets who are female assigned or identified individuals who are 18+. This includes gender non-conforming individuals.
8 poets, 3 rounds. Cumulative Scores.
2 min (all)
1 min (all)
4 min (top 5)
cumulative score wins the slam
Top three winners of each Qualifier are in Finals (December 13th). Finals will be 4 ROUNDS — all cumulative!!!
Our WOWPS Qualifier dates are as follows:
September 6th
November 1st
November 22nd
December 13th: FINALS

Bi Book Club discusses Shakespeare's Sonnets (Folger Library edition)
2016-09-08 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.)

Shakespeare’s Sonnets tell the story of a bisexual love triangle, which scholars think was an episode from Shakespeare’s own life. Think bisexuality is new? Let’s read this and discover a piece of our bisexual heritage from more than four centuries ago: the 1590’s. (The Folger Library edition provides an explanation of each sonnet in modern English.)

Come and join the discussion, even if you haven’t read the book. We take turns reading passages aloud from the book and discuss them-anyone can participate!
Please purchase your copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Folger Library edition) from the Bureau!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on meetup.com (not required)

PERSONS OF INTEREST: LEGACIES ON THE WALL
2016-09-09 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
For the closing program in conjunction with Visual AIDS‘ summer exhibition PERSONS OF INTEREST, Visual AIDS presents a conversational panel on the legacy and lineage of an important group of under-recognized artists: Chloe Dzubilo, Tim Greathouse, Arnold Fern, Hudson, and Affrekka Jefferson.
PERSONS OF INTEREST: LEGACIES ON THE WALL will bring together diverse presenters close to or influenced by each artist: Andrew Durbin on Arnold Fern; Nancy Shaver on Hudson; Viva Ruiz on Chloe Dzubilo; Frederick Weston on Affrekka Jefferson; and Sur Rodney (Sur) on Tim Greathouse. Each presenter will share anecdotes and images about the artwork and lives of these artists, all of whom were deeply impacted by HIV/ AIDS. Consistently throughout our 28 year history, Visual AIDS has been steadfast in our commitment to supporting the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and preserving the legacy of the cultural contributions of the AIDS movement.
Featured artwork in event image: Affrekka Jefferson, Power of Performance, 1997, linoleum, 14 x 11.5.

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES
Andrew Durbin is the author of Mature Themes and the forthcoming novel Blonde Summer, both from Nightboat Books. He is writing about the work of the painter Arnold Fern and lives in New York.
Viva Ruiz is a community-educated multi-hyphenated artist and organizer born and raised in Jamaica Queens, the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants. Viva was mentored and mothered by Chloe Dzubilo, a life changing relationship that began in 1996 and continues to this day.
Nancy Shaver has been showing eclectic, object-based work in New York City since 1974. Hudson of Feature Inc. in Chicago presented her work in 1987. From 2000 to 2014 she showed work at Feature Inc. in New York City.
Frederick Weston is a visual artist working to find his place through various mediums including collage, mood boarding, story boarding, mail-art, copy-art, and happenings. He was friends with Paula “Affrekka” Jefferson, who was a gifted and remarkable artist as comfortable working with pencil and paper as with wood-working tools and printmaking.

PERSONS OF INTEREST, curated by Sam Gordon for Visual AIDS, features a wide cross section of Visual AIDS artist members and friends. The term, “person of interest” often identifies someone in an investigation that possesses characteristics that merit further attention. The investigation presented here is a collection of drawing, painting, photography, performance, video, and sculpture.
PERSONS OF INTEREST, presented by Visual AIDS at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division features the trained and self taught, long term survivors and the prematurely lost, and individuals who live for us very much in the present, some only in our hearts and minds. On view through Sunday, September 18, 2016.

The exhibition includes work by Raynes Birkbeck, Mark Carter, Ben Cuevas, Chloe Dzubilo, Arnold Fern, Tim Greathouse, Keith Haring, Hudson, Affrekka Jefferson, Jerry the Marble Faun, Joyce McDonald, Lucas Michael, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luna Luis Ortiz, Hugh Steers, Hunter Reynolds, Tseng Kwong Chi, Muna Tseng, and Frederick Weston.

Check out Holland Cotter’s review of Persons of Interest (and related exhibitions) that appeared in The New York Times on July 29, 2016.

Red Hen Press at the Bureau
2016-09-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Enjoy a night of poetry with authors Julie Marie Wade, Corrina Bain, and t’ai freedom ford as they read from their latest at the Bureau!

Julie Marie Wade is the author of four collections of poetry, including When I Was Straight (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014) and Postage Due (White Pine Press, 2010), and four collections of lyric nonfiction, including Catechism: A Love Story(Noctuary Press, 2016) and Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Bywater Books, 2014; Colgate University Press, 2010). She has received an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir. She teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami.

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 collectionDebridement (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.

t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee. She received her MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Ivy, The Brooklyn Review, Bronx Biannual and Kweli, and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Tupelo Quarterly, Winter Tangerine, and others. In 2012 and 2013, she completed two multi-city tours as a part of a queer women of color literary salon, The Revival. In 2014, she was the winner of The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest judged by Evie Shocklee. She is a 2015 Center for Fiction Fellow and a 2015-16 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow sponsored by The Poetry Project. She lives in Brooklyn.

Union Square Slam presents the PETTY SLAM
2016-09-13 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
What is a petty slam?
Waiting to Exhale meets Poetic Justice. Eating all the chicken skin off everyone else’s meal. Hoping your ex goes bald from the forehead back. Putting a roach in your sister’s show.
In the climate of subtweets from Snapchat to Instagram, Union Square Slam wants to have a playful night of your most pettiest work. What is defined as petty can be loosely interpreted.
Bring up to three of your pettiest poems!! The winner receives a cash prize!!
Sign-ups start at 7pm
Draw at 7:45pm
Show starts at 8pm

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-09-14 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors A Slide Lecture by Photographer Mark I. Chester
2016-09-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Mark I. Chester is a San Francisco gay radical sex photographer who has documented his life in San Francisco’s gay sexual underground since the late 1970s. In a wide-ranging and visually explosive slide show presentation, Mark photographically traces his own personal and sexual evolution, which at the same time documents the men, women and community with whom he shared these politically, socially and sexually tumultuous years. Mark will have copies of his self-published photographic monograph, City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors – a dark explicit diary from San Francisco’s gay sexual underground, 1977-2015, for sale. It has been almost 20 years since Mark last gave lectures on his photographic work in New York City.
Doors open at 7pm and presentation starts at 7:30pm.
This is a ticketed event. Tickets are $10 per seat.
A total of 5 pay-what-you-wish tickets are available to the first 5 customers who claim them. If you select this ticket type you will have the option to make a donation to the Bureau, but this is not required.
Purchase tickets
If tickets remain available on the night of the event they can be purchased at the door.

Mark I. Chester is a San Francisco gay radical sex photographer who has used the photographic image to record, document and comment on his own life and the life of his community for nearly 4 decades. His work is politically provocative, socially aware and artistically taboo. His fine art photographs have been seen in shows in San Francisco, nationally and internationally. His photographs of Robert Chesley with ks lesions can now be seen in the traveling groundbreaking exhibition, Art AIDS America, which is on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts from July 13 to October 23, 2016.
In addition to exhibiting his own work, Mark has shown the work of other gay, radical and sexually underground artists in his guerilla gallery. Mark has also hosted a drawing group for gay men in his studio for the last 29 years.
City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors is a 132 page hard cover book with 89 images in both black and white and color. A self-published book produced digital on demand to avoid censorship, will be sold for the special price of $125 at the event (normally $150). The book may be purchased in advance with a pre-order sale for $115, with $5 from each sale going to the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division.
More examples of Mark’s work can be found at:
https://markichester.com
facebook.com/sfphotou
instagram.com/sfphotou

Reading with Steven Gaines
2016-09-16 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for a reading with Steven Gaines, followed by an open mic Q&A.

Steven Gaines is the author of One of These Things First.
One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics.

To reserve a copy of One of These Things First, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
