We Are Here: Young Activists Talk HIV/AIDS
2015-03-07 19:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | NY
HIV/AIDS remains one of the biggest public health crises worldwide. In the United States, new infection rates continue to be high, particularly among younger Black and Latino men. Four HIV/AIDS activists under 30 have been invited to share stories of the work they’re doing, offering a deeply personal look at this health crisis through a mixture of activist successes and larger social and political challenges. Though these individuals approach activism in different ways, they are united by a deep commitment to targeted educational and community-based projects that target racially and economically diverse populations.
This event also marks the launch of events for Our Viral Lives, an on-going educational project and online digital archive of HIV/AIDS stories focusing on diverse perspectives from an under 30 crowd. By balancing historical remembrance with stories that confront structural and social problems, the project hopes to combat stigma and misinformation around HIV/AIDS. In the process, it hopes to open up opportunities for activists everywhere to create sex positive prevention solutions and strengthen treatment opportunities.

Kyle Bella is currently serving as the Office Manager at Open mHealth, an organization devoted to pursuing mobile healthcare solutions that improve patient and clinician outcomes. He is also pursuing an M.A. in Social Innovation and Sustainability through Goddard College, where he has launched the Our Viral Lives project. Previous writing on HIV/AIDS has been published in Colorlines Magazine, POZ Magazine, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed LGBT, nomorepotlucks, and Jacket2. He spent last summer in Europe researching contemporary artists including Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Isaac Julien.

Mathew Rodriguez is currently the community editor for TheBody.com, the web’s complete HIV/AIDS resource. He is an award-winning journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in Slate, The Advocate Magazine, the Huffington Post and the International Business Times. He is also a celebrated speaker who has spoken at The Apollo Theater, Times Square, the New York Public Library, the International AIDS Conference and the US Conference on AIDS. You can follow him on twitter at @mathewrodriguez.

Charlie Ferrusi is currently pursuing his MPH in Community Health at New York University. He received his BS in School and Community Health Education from SUNY Brockport. Charlie is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and holds NYS Teaching Certification in Health Education. He currently works as a Graduate Assistant at the NYU LGBTQ Student Center, and serves on the steering committee for the LGBT HealthLink. In 2014, Charlie was honored in the 2014 POZ 100, and gave a TED Talk at TEDxHudson. Charlie is interested in research and causes related to HIV prevention, transgender health, LGBTQ youth, and health education.

Martez Smith is an MSW candidate at Long Island University Brooklyn and a Research Assistant at CHEST (Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training. Holding a bachelor’s degree in social work from The Ohio State University, Martez has dedicated his life to identifying and promoting strategies that will prevent the spread of HIV and improve the lives of people living with HIV. Working with CDC-funded DEBI programs, as well as the AIDS Clinical Trials Group has provided Martez with knowledge and insight into the needs of MSM of color. In addition to his work with formal organizations and institutions, Martez is a participant and leader among the house/ball community. His insight and knowledge of the AAMSM community has lead to the creation of a community level intervention entitled Elements of Vogue, a multidisciplinary behavioral intervention for young black and latino MSM involved in house/ball culture which aims to improve coping skills and overall wellness. Martez envisions having a role in the incorporation of sexual health education into high school curriculums, and community-based programs in geographical areas heavily affected by HIV infection. Specifically, his hope is to make policy recommendations through research that would in turn lead to the implementation of sexual health education curriculums in places with the highest burden of HIV transmission.

Kia LaBeija (AKA Kia Michelle Benbow) is a multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, performance and installation. A member of the Iconic House of LaBeija, Kia’s work explores the intersections of fantasy, nightlife, community, politics and fine art. In 2014, she received the Visual AIDS Vanguard award for her work as an artist and activist, was featured in the POZ 100 list of groundbreaking public figures, won Grand Prize in Women’s Vogue Performance at the GMHC’s Latex Ball, and had her photography prominently featured in the La MaMa exhibition “Ephemera As Evidence.” As an activist and founding member of the GrenAIDS Collective, her work is focused on HIV/AIDS awareness -specifically in relation to youth- by educating and creating space for new conversations. She is frequently invited to speak and give workshops on performance, voguing and activism at various arts and academic institutions around NYC, and regularly performs in theaters, galleries and nightclubs all over the world. A native New Yorker, she is an alumni of the Juilliard School and the Ailey School, where she trained in music and dance at a young age. Currently, Kia is finishing her degree at The New School University.

Trans Poets Will Burn Your House Down
2015-03-08 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
A night of trans poetry and possible pyromania to celebrate the launch of Issue 2 of the Zine of the Trans Poets Workshop NYC. Come for the incandescent performers, stay for the cool beer served by the Bureau’s charming staff. And don’t worry about your house, as long as we’re too busy with poetry, it’ll be just fine.
Kay Ulanday Barrett
Olympia Perez
Tyler Vile
Charles Theonia
Lilith Latini
Stephen Ira
Sasha Alexander
Vivien J Ryder
Tai Maag
Suneela Mubayi
Mya Adriene Byrne
Hosted by Cat Fitzpatrick
BGSQD is wheelchair accessible via an elevator. There is no cover charge but the exciting new poetry zine will be on sale.

Queer Loves and Lusts in a Post-DOMA World
2015-03-11 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
(Painting of Jason and Michael by Hillary Broder)
Celebrating the full range of queer relationship options on the 15th Anniversary of the night Michael Broder hit on Jason Schneiderman
An evening of words and deeds honoring the raunchy outlaw roots of LGBTQ love and celebrating the full range of relationship options in the wake of same-sex marriage—hooking up, dating, living together, cheating, breaking up, open relationships, groups, polyamory, fetish, kink—anything and everything we do to express our loves, lusts, commitments, and refusals of commitment in the era of same-sex marriage. It’s more a marathon or a free-for-all than a traditional reading, but scheduled readers and speakers include:
Jeffery Berg
Thomas Dooley
Jameson Fitzpatrick
Matthew Hittinger
Michael Klein
Trace Peterson
Christina Quintana
Paul Romero
Sarah Sala
Sarah Sarai

TELL 11: Disaster!
2015-03-12 19:30 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Disaster! is the theme of the eleventh installment of TELL, featuring Michelle Brotman, Katina Douveas, Sabrina Chap, and Rachel Bookbinder.

$5-10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, 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, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. She just won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online (her reel and her website www.draecampbell.com) and around town.

Michelle Brotman is a radical social worker/community organizer, and a staffer at Bluestockings Bookstore. TELL will be her first official storytelling engagement; however, popular consensus holds that Michelle is a magnet for awkward coincidences and absurd encounters–which friends have begun referring to as “Mich-haps”–and she enjoys sharing the sagas of her tragicomedy existence with friends, the internet, and just about anyone who will listen. Michelle is also passionate about cats, knishes, and karaoke.

Katina Douveas has been scrawling writings to the world from pen and paper or napkin or the back of the hand since forever. born in detroit, the poet came to brooklyn to chase the embarkings of literal and literary adventure. katina has pounded pavement in new york city as a jack-of-many-trades for over a decade, and has kept afloat by kidsitting or working as a personal assistant to make free time for passion, spitting poetry, writing, protesting, loving, scheming and dreaming of new heights.

​Sabrina Chap is a beautiful disaster. She’s a cabaret artist and editor of Live Through This—On Creativity and Self-Destruction. sabrinachap.com

Rachel Bookbinder enjoys old records, feminism, Pomeranians, and carbs. She works in health education and is also a visual artist. Her creative work includes jewelry, millinery, photography, and more. For more information, please visit www.rachelbookbinderartist.com

DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-Edge Queer Artists: March Edition!
2015-03-13 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Sabrina Chap brings you this works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting-edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
The March edition of DEADLINE will feature:
Sara Lyons – theatre performance
Damien Luxe – performance art
Robert Hyers – essay
Jes Fang – visual art
Hans Rasch– dance

Interested in presenting your work in a future installment of Deadline? Fill out the form!
Artists of any kind are encouraged to submit.
https://goo.gl/forms/Z84O7GgVdB

Check out this article on the August edition of Deadline in Next Magazine: “BGSQD’s Deadline Gives Queer Artists Room To Create And Grow” by Chris Hernandez

Teaching to Transgression: A Film and Reading Series on Queer Logics and Radical Politics in the Classroom
2015-03-14 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
In this film and reading series we will watch and critique a selection of curated films and movies that depict decidedly queer educational relationships between individuals and institutions while drinking beer/beverages and eating snacks. Some questions we might ask ourselves: What constitutes and forms our relationships to institutions as queer relationships? Do queer people occupy classrooms differently, why, and in what ways? To what extent have queer presence and logics existed historically as a rupture in institutionalized educational logics and frameworks? In what state do queer presence and logics present themselves in those spaces now? Why can’t (insert student character) and (insert teacher character) be together and live happily ever after without the cops coming?

“What you call sin, I call the great spirit of love, which takes a thousand forms.”

For the first installment of the series, we will be watching Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform); a 1931 German feature-length film based on the play Gestern und heute (Yesterday and Today) by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan. Optionally, I will be providing the lyrics to Le Tigre’s “Eau’ Du Bedroom Dancing” as a lens through which to consider the film. Please stay for mingling and light discussion after the film.

Synopsis of the film: When Manuela von Meinhardis (Hertha Thiele) is brought to the boarding school for officers’ daughters, she has difficulty adjusting to the rigid discipline of the institution and its authoritarian head mistress, Fraülein von Nordeck zur Nidden (Emilia Unda). Manuela is taken under the wing of Fraülein von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck), the most popular and compassionate teacher in the school. Like the other students, Manuela swoons whenever Fraülein von Bernburg gives her attention or advice. However, under the pressure and punitive environment of the boarding school, Meinhardis is driven to attempt suicide.Facilitated by Jordan Martin

Jordan Martin went to Cooper Union School of Art and is a musician, writer, and artist. She spends a lot of her time writing fan-fiction about lesbian films and making electronic music based off of that fan fiction.

Suggested donation of $3

Video invitation

Que(e)rying Theory #4: After Sex?: On Writing since Queer Theory, edited by Janet Halley & Andrew Parker
2015-03-15 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Que(e)rying Theory is a discussion group about queer theory and critical theory for thinkers from all contexts. Reading texts both vintage and new, we will ask questions such as: What is queerness? What do queer politics look like? How do we find the tools for living in a precarious world? And finally, what can theory mean in our own lives? In dialogue with one another, we will fearlessly relish in the complexities of theory, and collectively work towards richer understandings of our past, present, and future. Discussions will be moderated by Connor Spencer, and for a small donation, wine, beer, and sparkling water will be available to help lubricate our conversations.

Que(e)rying Theory #4 will address the book After Sex?: On Writing since Queer Theory, edited by Janet Halley & Andrew Parker.

Please support the Bureau by purchasing your copy from the Bureau! Thank you!

***

Is “queerness” still a politically useful identity, disposition, and/or way of theorizing? Why does queer theory encompass more than sex and sexuality, and should it? Where is queer theory going, and what new subjects has it tackled? In After Sex?, some of the most prominent writers in the field of queer studies–including Eve Sedgwick, José Muñoz, and Lee Edelman–offer their thoughts on what queer theory is, and where it might take us.
We’ll be using the book to get a sense of the conversations that have shaped queer theory, past and present. Our conversation will also touch on why queer spaces and organizations like the Bureau often facilitate conversations about seemingly “non-gay” issues, and what the work of queer theory is. Read as many of the essays in the book as you wish, and come with your questions and thoughts!

Connor Spencer is a writer living in New York City. He studied English at New York University, where he conducted bi-coastal archival research on the artists David Wojnarowicz and Gary Fisher. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship. Connor tweets about leftism, queer politics, and dog costumes @conneriks.

Book Launch of JD: A conversation with Mark Merlis and Christopher Bram about gay history and fiction
2015-03-18 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Christopher Bram talks with Mark Merlis about Merlis’s new novel JD and how fiction writers use and transform the gay past.
“JD is a chamber drama about one family, yet it’s full of windows that look out on the wider worlds of the Vietnam War, New York literary politics, and the gay revolution. Mark Merlis is a major writer and this is his best novel yet.”—Christopher Bram

Mark Merlis is the author of the novels JD, American Studies, An Arrow’s Flight, and Man About Town, which have garnered awards including a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Ferro-Grumley Award, and a Lambda Literary Award.

Photograph by Draper Shreeve

Christopher Bram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia (outside Norfolk), where he was a paperboy and an Eagle Scout. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English). He moved to New York City in 1978.
His nine novels range in subject matter from gay life in the 1970s to the career of a Victorian musical clairvoyant to the frantic world of theater people in contemporary New York. Fellow novelist Philip Gambone wrote of his work, “What is most impressive in Bram’s fiction is the psychological and emotional accuracy with which he portrays his characters. . . His novels are about ordinary gay people trying to be decent and good in a morally compromised world. He focuses on the often conflicting claims of friendship, family, love and desire; the ways good intentions can become confused and thwarted; and the ways we learn to be vulnerable and human.” Bram has written numerous articles and essays (a selection is included in Mapping the Territory). He has also written or co-written several screenplays, including two shorts directed by his partner, Draper Shreeve.
His novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. (Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.)
Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001. In May 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in Greenwich Village and teaches at the Gallatin School of New York University.

Book reading of Susie Day's Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power (Abingdon Square Publishing, 2014)
2015-03-19 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Prepare yourself, as Susie Day reads from Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power, a collection of satirical essays that lends a perverse morality to an increasingly amoral world. Join us for readings from the book – including a post-apocalyptic group performance of a sendup of “Sex and the City.” General discussion, impassioned speeches, vice squad raid to follow. Come and support your local queer bookstore!

Susie Day writes satire for Gay City News and various lefty publications. She also writes news stories on prison issues. She attends rad-lib demonstrations, experiences ennui, and has a day job in New York City, where she lives with her much cuter and more politically radical partner, Laura Whitehorn.

Live from the Bureau! An Open Mic Night--Hosted and Curated by Nica Buescher
2015-03-22 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
LIVE from the BUREAU! An Open Mic Night
Organized by Andrew Bell
Expect a troupe of roving artists of every persuasion moving idiosyncratically, speaking outlandishly, rapping rhapsodically and doing all sorts of shit you’re not supposed to do indoors. Bring your talent and join the fray.
Hosted and Curated by Nica Buescher
​Featuring DJ Lisa Shred ​
With Special Guests from the Love Yourself Project
and
Sara Emily Kuntz
Kait Burrier
Asha Joanna Sienkiewicz

LIVE from the BUREAU! is a program featuring the original work of fledgling, emerging, established and seasoned live-performers, poets and visual artists. Come for songs, burlesque, spoken word, diary musings, violin solos, puppetry, and other queer induced happenings, including a pop-up gallery, with the overarching theme of: Oppression and Resistance/Fear and Hope. Expect individuals and small gangs, elders and twinks, the sacred, the profane, the tragic, the hilarious and everything in between, and come ready for anything.

SIGN UP TO PERFORM AT THE EVENT
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Sara Emily Kuntz, BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh and a MFA in Creative Writing from Carlow University. She has been published in Rivet, Stone Highway Review,Cabildo Quarterly, Rust + Moth, and Cactus Heart. Sara lives in Brooklyn with a big grey cat named Miso, like the soup.

Kait Burrier MFA​ ​Creative Writing from Wilkes University writes poetry, drama, journalism, and to-do lists in New York City, where she hosts and curates a weekly reading series, Union Square Slam
​ ​
​
Asha Joanna Sienkiewicz, originally from Iowa, lives her dream in New York City as a professional Dancer, actress, Model, and dance/fitness Instructor. She has danced for numerous well known companies in New York City, New Jersey, Vegas, and tours around the country.

Unanswered Prayers—Readings from The Thousand-Petaled Lotus: Growing Up Gay in the Southern Baptist Church, by Michael Fields
2015-03-25 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
“When I was eleven years old, I gave my life to Jesus. I have no reason to think that he ever gave it back.”

Thus begins The Thousand-Petaled Lotus: Growing Up Gay in the Southern Baptist Church, Michael Fields’ hilarious and profound recollection of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, a/k/a The Protestant Vatican. What does a devout young Baptist do when he finally realizes that the gay cannot be prayed away? Michael left the church behind, only to find that leaving his religion was just the first step on a lifelong search for what Jesus called “the Kingdom of Heaven,” a search that would end many years later in a New York City gym. The Thousand-Petaled Lotus is a classic gay coming-of-age story, told from a decidedly un-classic point of view, a spiritual journey that begins on the first day of creation, and ends with the discovery that the kingdom of heaven is, indeed, “spread out on the earth, but men see it not.”

Reception at 7:00, Readings at 7:30 p.m.
Michael will read selections from his book and invite questions and discussion.

Michael Fields was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. His early life and struggles with God and everybody else are chronicled in his moving and piquant memoir, The Thousand-Petaled Lotus: Growing Up Gay in the Southern Baptist Church. Michael is a graduate of Columbia University and earned his master’s degree in social work at Fordham. These days, he works as a program director for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Michael lives in New York City with his partner, now husband, of thirty-five years.

Bi Book Club: Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men
2015-03-26 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets once a month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise. People of all orientations and genders welcome! Dinner after nearby.
Our current book is Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men edited by Robyn Ochs & H. Sharif Williams (Dr. Herukhuti.) For March, we’ll be reading the last four pieces of the section on Institutions. Plus the sections on Anger Angst & Critique and maybe a bit of Bodies & Embodiment. We plan to continue reading 2 sections per month of Recognize until we’re done with the book. Pick out some phrases or paragraphs that you’d like to discuss, that inspired you, or that struck you because of their elegant turn of phrase or the meaning behind it. If you havent had time to finish the readings, come anyway because we read passages from the book aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Getting Books: We urge you to purchase your print copy at BGSQD and support the only LGBT bookstore in New York City. Especially since they are hosting us in their space! If you prefer e-books, just get them your usual way.
Deciding Books: The group votes on what book to read next.
The Bi Book Club meets at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division on the last Thursday of each month.

JIRAIYA: GAY MANGA AND ART ICON: Signing and Talk
2015-03-27 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Jiraiya is known the world over for his iconic muscular pin-up style photoreal illustrations of Asian men, as well as for his bestselling Japanese manga. He makes his first ever public appearance in New York at the Bureau to talk a bit about his craft and to sign copies of Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, as well as “Caveman Guu” comic books and an assortment of merchandise.

*NOTE: Jiraiya is an anonymous figure and while he appreciates meeting fans, has a strict “no facial photography” rule. We ask that attendants respect his privacy.

Live from the Bureau! An Open Mic Night--Curated by Christopher Atamian
2015-03-28 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
LIVE from the BUREAU! An Open Mic Night
Organized by Andrew Bell
LGBTQ 2015 : Top, Bottom, Versatile; This, That, Whatever is the theme of the March 28th installment of LIVE from the BUREAU!
Curated by Christopher Atamian
with a special performance by Music Bear Tony Banks
Featuring:
Nancy Agabian
Christopher Atamian
Christopher Bram
Alex Ossola
Lousine Shamamian
With Swiss-style chocolates by The Lost Sense and port wine tasting.
LIVE from the BUREAU! is a program featuring the original work of fledgling, emerging, established and seasoned live-performers, poets and visual artists. Come for songs, burlesque, spoken word, diary musings, violin solos, puppetry, and other queer induced happenings, including a pop-up gallery, with the overarching theme of: Oppression and Resistance/Fear and Hope. Expect individuals and small gangs, elders and twinks, the sacred, the profane, the tragic, the hilarious and everything in between, and come ready for anything.

SIGN UP TO PERFORM AT THE EVENT
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Nancy Agabian is the author of Princess Freak (Beyond Baroque Books, 2000), a mixed genre collection of poems, short prose, and performance texts on young women’s sexuality and rage, and Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter (Aunt Lute Books, 2008) a memoir about the influence of her Armenian family’s history on her coming-of-age. Me as her again was honored as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize. Her essays have been published in Ararat, The Brooklyn Rail, Women Studies Quarterly (The Feminist Press) and the anthologies Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place and Time (Seal Press) andForgotten Bread: First Generation Armenian American Writers (Heyday Books). Collections of her poems appear in the anthologies Birthmark (Open Letter Press) and Deviation (Inknagir). Nancy has also written and performed several one-woman shows, which have been presented internationally — in Geneva, Milan and Yerevan. With Ann Perich, she formed the folk-punk duo Guitar Boy and released a CD, Freaks Like Me. A Fulbright scholar to Armenia for 2006-07, she is currently working on “The Fear of Large and Small Nations” a novel on the influences of nationalism, corruption, and family on personal freedom in post-Soviet Armenia. As a community writing workshop leader, she has worked with multicultural groups in Los Angeles, women writers in Yerevan, and immigrants & first-generation writers in Queens, New York, where she lives. Nancy has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She teaches creative writing at Queens College, where she was awarded for excellence in teaching in 2012, and in the Writing Program at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. In 2012, she founded Heightening Stories, a series of community-based writing workshops for the personally brave and socially conscious, online and in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Christopher Atamian is a native New Yorker who writes about different topics of interest in the arts and current events. He has produced and directed videos, films and plays internationally including the 2006 OBIE Award winning play Trouble in Paradise and was included in the 2009 Venice Biennale for his video “Sarafian’s Desire.” he has written one novel and translated six books.

Drew Bell is a full-time painter and Bureau volunteer happy to be making his contribution as an event organizer.

Christopher Bram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia (outside Norfolk), where he was a paperboy and an Eagle Scout. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English). He moved to New York City in 1978.
His nine novels range in subject matter from gay life in the 1970s to the career of a Victorian musical clairvoyant to the frantic world of theater people in contemporary New York. Fellow novelist Philip Gambone wrote of his work, “What is most impressive in Bram’s fiction is the psychological and emotional accuracy with which he portrays his characters. . . His novels are about ordinary gay people trying to be decent and good in a morally compromised world. He focuses on the often conflicting claims of friendship, family, love and desire; the ways good intentions can become confused and thwarted; and the ways we learn to be vulnerable and human.” Bram has written numerous articles and essays (a selection is included in Mapping the Territory). He has also written or co-written several screenplays, including two shorts directed by his partner, Draper Shreeve.
His novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. (Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.)
Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2001. In May 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in Greenwich Village and teaches at the Gallatin School of New York University.

Alexandra (Alex) Ossola is a freelance science journalist based in New York City. She writes about a lot of things, but lately she’s into biology, tech, animals and education. Tweet at her with jokes or story ideas at @alexandraossola. Yeah, she’s holding a frog in that picture.

Lousine Shamamian‘s professional career started in post-production where she’s been working as a television editor for over 9 years. But, way before that, back in the second grade her true love was acting. After being bypassed for the lead role in Pirates of Penzance and getting the role of Ruth, the older half-blind nursemaid, Lousine realized she would never get the coveted lead role. Being a plump little girl, she made note then that the big girls usually didn’t get to be the lead. Almost 30 years later, Lousine has emerged as a comedian and actor, producing and writing her own material. Finally, she’s taken her creative curiosity into her own hands, performing in comedy clubs in NY as well as making bold webisodes for her series, Lousine: Lesbian Matchmaker To The Straights. She also recently had her adult acting debut on MTV’s Inside Joke.

Final Day of David Lavine: Collage
2015-03-29 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
Image: Detail of David Lavine, Varoom! Thwroummmm Aieeeee! Bwash Khzzt, hand-cut paper collage, 10 panels, 5 1/4” x 5 1/4” each

Sunday, March 29, is your final chance to view these beautiful collages by David Lavine. For more information about the exhibition, click here.

A Buried Past, Forgotten Stories: The Sexual Underground of the Meatpacking District before Gentrification—The Photographs of Efrain John Gonzalez
2015-04-02 18:00 - 22:00 | NY
A Buried Past, Forgotten Stories: The Sexual Underground of the Meatpacking District before Gentrification—The Photographs of Efrain John Gonzalez is a photographic retrospective of the cultures and people who lived and played in the Meatpacking District from the late 70’s till the turn of the century. The photographs are records of the trans, gay, bisexual, and fetish clubs, gatherings and events that populated this neighborhood until market forces, big money and real estate interests washed them all away. The exhibition draws on the film archives of Efrain John Gonzalez, a photographer who has carefully preserved images of the people and clubs of these neighborhoods and who continues to work to save their unique stories and their precious culture.
6 PM: Reception
7 PM: Slide Show and Talk
A Buried Past, Forgotten Stories: The Sexual Underground of the Meatpacking District before Gentrification—The Photographs of Efrain John Gonzalez will be on view at the Bureau from April 2 through May 31, 2015.

DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-Edge Queer Artists: April Edition!
2015-04-03 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Sabrina Chap brings you this works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting-edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
The April edition of DEADLINE will feature:
Bevin Brandlandingham – personal essay/fiction
Caleb D Kruzel – performance art
Candy Feit – documentary photography
Sarah Kilborne – musical reading

Interested in presenting your work in a future installment of Deadline? Fill out the form!
Artists of any kind are encouraged to submit.
https://goo.gl/forms/Z84O7GgVdB

Check out this article on the August edition of Deadline in Next Magazine: “BGSQD’s Deadline Gives Queer Artists Room To Create And Grow” by Chris Hernandez

TELL 12: QUEENDOM
2015-04-10 19:30 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Queendom is the theme of the twelfth installment of TELL, guest-hosted by Lady Quesa’Dilla! Featuring Rumi Misabu, Donna Personna, Trangela Lansbury, Elle Emenopé, and Boy Doña.

$5-10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Lady Quesa’Dilla

Rumi Misabu

Donna Personna

Trangela Lansbury

Elle Emenopé

Boy Doña

I Wonder What Became of Me
2015-04-11 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
A fun-filled evening of music, performance art, spoken word & film with actor, director, producer, mentor, drag pioneer & original Cockette RUMI MISSABU featuring a gaggle of special guests & surprises from San Francisco & New York to benefit the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Featuring:
Donna Personna
Lady Quesa’Dilla
Piranha Stasia
Trangela Lansbury
Jarvis Earnshaw
Mark Galamco
Stephen Boyer
Koy

Immediately following the Bureau event Rumi Missabu will present the world premiere of his new theater & dance attraction: THE QUESTIONING OF JOHN RYKENER @ 8:30 pm in Room 101 based on a true tale of a cross-dressing male prostitute in 1395 medieval England dedicated to the memory of trans activist Marsha P. Johnson.
More info here.
more info: cocketterumi@gmail.com

Vague Wednesday/Mäßiger Mittwoch
2015-04-15 20:00 - 22:00 | NY
A queer art potpourri featuring Alex Alvina Chamberland, Beck Heiberg, & Sara Parkman.
Hosted by the Bureau’s intern from Leipzig, Mio Proepper!

Alexander Alvina Chamberland is a Swedish-American performance artist and writer who is now residing in New York working on their masters thesis on transfeminine sisterhood. Their intense inner life monologues come out/dance out/vomit out in the form of maximalist prose with constant climactic waves both warmandcold as they merge with emotions and thought-feelings and anti-capitalist queer femme politics amongst black swans, panthers and lionesses. 100 percent vulnerable, but certainly not fragile. They will be reading from forthcoming litterary projects and purr-haps singing a song or two.

Photograph by Mathias Casado Castro
Beck Heiberg, b. 1987 in Copenhagen, is a choreographer and dancer trained in Copenhagen, Paris and New York, where he is currently living.
Beck’s most discussed themes circle around the identity search in gender. He searches the space that lies outside the boxes. He uses an experimental mix of styles to show androgynous, feminine and masculine sides in his pieces. He has worked a lot in the commercial field of music videos and concerts, but his heart lies in performance and theater. Most recently he choreographed “Boy or Girl” from the dance theater “Basic emotions” – from which he received great reviews – and dance theater “In Between”, which toured Europe summer 2013.
With his new solo performance “WhoUwantMe2B” he wants to show the strength in submission and discuss gender roles in sensuality.

Sara Parkman is a folk musician, and a lover of traditions. She adores old ladies, polskas, words, trains, old songs and the radio. She plays the violin and does it wow super mega good. She believes in the revolutionary power of kitchen tables as well as in the power of folk music to spread the word about anti-nationalism and queerfeminism. She will give you the best swedish folk music hits and mix it up with the devils roar and music that is real.

Poetry Reading with Brent Armendinger, Julia Bloch, Maxe Crandall, and Brian Teare
2015-04-16 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join us for a poetry reading with Brent Armendinger, Julia Bloch, Maxe Crandall, and Brian Teare

Brent Armendinger is the author of The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying, newly released by Noemi Press, as well as two chapbooks, Undetectable and Archipelago. His work has recently appeared in Aufgabe, Bloom, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, and Web Conjunctions. Brent is a recipient of fellowships from Headlands Center for the Arts and Squaw Valley Community of Writers. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at Pitzer College, where he is an Associate Professor of English and World Literature.

Julia Bloch grew up in Northern California and Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Letters to Kelly Clarkson, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and Valley Fever, both from Sidebrow Books, and the manuscript in progress Contract Method, portions of which are forthcoming in Dusie and Little Red Leaves. Other work has appeared recently in Fact-Simile, The Offending Adam and The Volta. She works as associate director of the Kelly Writers House, teaches literature and creative writing at Penn, and coedits the online journal of poetry and poetics Jacket2.

Maxe Crandall‘s chapbook “Together Men Make Paradigms” was published last summer by Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs. The play premiered at Dixon Place and was shortlisted for the Leslie Scalapino Award. A 2014 Poetry Project Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow and a 2014 Poets House Fellow, Maxe just published a dance review in Women & Performance, has a 15-page poem about Cher forthcoming in Vetch, and is writing a new poets play, BOCCACCIO ON ICE.

A former NEA Fellow, Brian Teare is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the American Antiquarian Society. He is the author of four critically acclaimed books—The Room Where I Was Born, Sight Map, the Lambda Award-winning Pleasure, and Companion Grasses, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award. His fifth, The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven, will be out from Ahsahta in September. An Assistant Professor at Temple University, he lives in Philadelphia, where he makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books.

Rough Night Reading Series presented By Raspa Magazine
2015-04-17 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Rough Nights is a reading series created by Raspa Magazine in attempt to connect our audience and featured authors in way that extends past the page. We believe that through increased visibility and access the relationship between audience and authors can grow moreintimate and help spur understanding amongst ourselves as peers and for those outside our community.
Featuring:
Mónica Teresa Ortiz
Charlie Vasquez
Heidi Andrea Restrepo
Dan Vera
Raspa Magazine is a response to the paucity of queer Latino literature readily available to readers. It is a biannual queer literary magazine that focuses on the Latino perspective. Raspa intends to showcase the experience of queer Latino artists, thereby providing a better understanding for ourselves as peers and for those outside of our community. Raspa Magazine was started in Austin, Texas by César Ramos in the fall of 2012.

Mónica Teresa Ortiz is a writer and native Texan based in Austin. She holds a B.A. from UT-Austin, an MFA from UT-El Paso, and a chapbook called On a Greyhound Straight from the 915. Her work has appeared in Bombay Gin, Huizache, Pilgrimage Magazine, Paso del Rio Grande del Norte, Borderlands, As/US, The Texas Observer, Autostraddle and Black Girl Dangerous. A two-time Andres Montoya Letras Latinxs Poetry prize finalist
Charlie Vasquez is a queer Bronx-born writer of Cuban and Puerto Rican decent and author of the novels, Buzz and Israel, and Contraband. He has edited two anthologies of Latino literature The Best of PANIC! (Fire King, 2010) and From Macho to Mariposa (Lethe, 2011) with author Charles Rice-González. Charlie is the director of the Bronx Writers Center and is the New York City coordinator for Puerto Rico’s “Festival de la Palabra”. He currently resides in the Bronx.

Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes is a feminist, second generation Colombian immigrant, writer and political activist. Committed to the arts as a practice of creative justice and community healing. Much of her work seeks to act as social documentation, as well as provocation. Her creative writing has been or is forthcoming in Wilde, The Progressive, Yellow Medicine Review, 2014 National Queer Arts Festival, and Nepantla. She currently resides in Brooklyn.

Dan Vera is a writer, editor, and literary historian living in Washington, DC. He is the author of two poetry collections: Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen, 2013), the inaugural winner of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books, 2008). His poetry has been included in the writing curricula at colleges and universities and has appeared in various journals, including Notre Dame Review,Delaware Poetry Review, Gargoyle, and Little Patuxent Review, in addition to the anthologies Queer South, Divining Divas, and Full Moon On K Street. Named a 2014 Top Ten “New” Latino Author to Watch (and Read) by LatinoStories.com, he’s edited the gay culture journal White Crane, co-created the literary history site, DC Writers’ Homes, and chairs the board of Split This Rock Poetry.

Our Name
The title Raspa was carefully chosen for its linguistic significance. The word itself is reflective of the progression of the Spanish language. It is an integration of formal Spanish and colloquial speech. Through colloquial usage the traditional word raspar, which means “to scrape,” has morphed into raspa, the rainbow-colored shaved ice many of us grew up enjoying on hot summer days. It is from this current colloquial usage that Raspa draws its visual connotation: The rainbow-colored ice resembles the diversity symbol of the pride flag, and the cone suggests the inverted triangle that was once used to mark homosexual internment camp victims and is now being reclaimed as a symbol of pride and gay rights.

Poetry Reading: Michael Klein, Joan Larkin, and Tony Leuzzi
2015-04-18 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Poets Michael Klein, Joan Larkin, and Tony Leuzzi will read their poems. Each poet will read old and new poems, thereby promoting their past publications and generating buzz for their recent work.

Photograph by Shef Reynolds
Michael Klein’s third book of poems, The Talking Day (Sibling Rivalry Press) was both a Thom Gunn Award Finalist and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. His second book, then, we were still living (GenPop Books), was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and his first book, 1990, tied with James Schuyler’s Collected Poems to win the award in 1993. His new book, A Life in the Theater will be published in the fall of 2015 by Sibling Rivalry Press. He also has written a collection of short, lyric essays, “States of Independence” which won the 2011 BLOOM Chapbook contest in non-fiction judged by Rigoberto Gonzalez and was published in 2012 and two memoirs Track Conditions (Lambda Literary Award finalist) and The End of Being Known, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press. His poems, essays and interviews with American poets have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Bloom, Fence, Tin House, Ploughshares, Provincetown Arts, Poets & Writers and many other publications. He has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Binghamton University, Manhattanville and for the last 20 years has been part of the graduate writing faculty at Goddard College, in Vermont. For many years he was on the faculty of the summer program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a fellow in 1990 and now teaches at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro, Massachusetts. He lives in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts and teaches at Hunter College.

Photograph by John Masterson
Joan Larkin’s fifth poetry collection, Blue Hanuman, was published in spring 2014 by Hanging Loose Press. Among her previous books, My Body: New and Selected Poems received the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. Other work includes Lambda Award winner Cold River, which served as the basis for her play The AIDS Passion; Sor Juana’s Love Poems, translated with Jaime Manrique; and the twenty-poem chapbook Legs Tipped with Small Claws. Joan was an activist publisher during the feminist literary explosion of the ’70s and ’80s, coeditor of several anthologies of poetry and prose, and author of two books in the Hazelden recovery series. She has taught writing at Brooklyn College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Drew University MFA program in poetry, among many other places, most recently serving as Grace Hazard Conkling Writer in Residence at Smith College. Her honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photograph by J. Alfred
Tony Leuzzi’s third book of poems, The Burning Door, was published by Tiger Bark Press in spring 2014. His previous poetry collection, Radiant Losses (2010), won the 2009 New Sins Editor’s Prize, judged by Rane Arroyo. He has authored several chapbooks, including “Fake Book” (Anything Anymore Anywhere Press 2011) and “40,000 Crows” (Hank’s Loose Gravel Press 2012). In fall 2012, BOA Editions published Passwords Primeval, Leuzzi’s interviews with 20 leading American poets. As a visual artist, Leuzzi has held exhibitions of his collage, assemblage, and erasure paintings, many of which have informed or are informed by his poems. Currently an Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Monroe Community College, in Rochester, NY, Leuzzi has earned the Wesley T. Hansen Award for Excellence in Teaching and the State University of New York’s Chancellor’s Award for Creativity and Scholarship. He also oversees the college’s Creative Reading Series in fiction and poetry. His poems and interviews have been published or are forthcoming in National Poetry Review, Sentence, Great River Review, Arts& Letters, Provincetown Arts, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. He is a staff writer of book reviews and literary criticism for The Brooklyn Rail.

Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists Reading
2015-04-22 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Nine finalists for Triangle Awards will read brief excerpts from their nominated works, including fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
The authors of the following nominated books will read at the Bureau on the eve of the Publishing Triangle Awards Ceremony:

Sideways Down the Sky, by Barry Brennessel (MLR Press);finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction)

How a Mirage Works, by Beverly Burch (Sixteen Rivers Press); finalist for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry

Little Reef and Other Stories, by Michael Carroll (University of Wisconsin Press); finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction

Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, by Philip Gefter (Liveright/W.W. Norton); finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction

The End of Eve, by Ariel Gore (Hawthorne Books); finalist for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

Unaccompanied Minors, by Alden Jones (New American Press); finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction

I Don’t Know Do You, by Roberto Montes (Ampersand Books); finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry

New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, by Shelly Oria (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction

When Everything Feels Like the Movies, by Raziel Reid (Arsenal Pulp Press); finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction

The winners for the book awards will be announced at the awards ceremony on April 23, 2015 at the Auditorium of the New School in New York City.
For more information visit publishingtriangle.org

Bi Book Club: Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men
2015-04-23 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets once a month to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise. People of all orientations and genders welcome! Dinner after nearby.
Our current book is Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men edited by Robyn Ochs & H. Sharif Williams (Dr. Herukhuti.) We plan to continue reading 2 sections per month of Recognize until we’re done with the book. Pick out some phrases or paragraphs that you’d like to discuss, that inspired you, or that struck you because of their elegant turn of phrase or the meaning behind it. If you havent had time to finish the readings, come anyway because we read passages from the book aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Getting Books: We urge you to purchase your print copy at BGSQD and support the only LGBT bookstore in New York City. Especially since they are hosting us in their space! If you prefer e-books, just get them your usual way.
Deciding Books: The group votes on what book to read next.
The Bi Book Club meets at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division on the last Thursday of each month.

Tina Horn’s “Love Not Given Lightly” Book Release
2015-04-24 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Come celebrate this landmark in Tina’s career! Expect glitter, leather, refreshments, and a hot meat injection to your brain.
Love Not Given Lightly is the first major collection of nonfiction stories from award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and advocate Tina Horn. In her vast experience in sexual undergrounds, Tina has befriended pro-dommes, porn stars, kinky fetishists, rent boys, and more. Instead of writing a sex worker memoir, she opted to tell the stories of the people she met along the way. Illuminating human issues of desire, gender, beauty, and ultimately friendship, the stories in this book will do no less than alter the way you think about modern sexuality in America.

Tina Horn is a queer punk writer and professional macho slut. She produces and hosts the sexuality podcast, “Why Are People Into That?!”, now in its second season. Her writing on sex worker rights, dirty talk, and kink communities has appeared in Vice, Nerve, and Best Lesbian Erotica 2015. She has won two Feminist Porn Awards and once sold a golden dildo to Beyonce. Follow her ass (@TinaHornsAss)

Live from the Bureau! An Open Mic Night—Hosted by Charles Rice-Gonzalez
2015-04-25 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
LIVE from the BUREAU! An Open Mic Night
Organized by Andrew Bell
LIVE from the BUREAU! is a program featuring the original work of fledgling, emerging, established and seasoned live-performers, poets and visual artists. Come for songs, burlesque, spoken word, diary musings, violin solos, puppetry, and other queer induced happenings, including a pop-up gallery, with the overarching theme of: Oppression and Resistance/Fear and Hope. Expect individuals and small gangs, elders and twinks, the sacred, the profane, the tragic, the hilarious and everything in between, and come ready for anything.

The April installment of Live from the Bureau! is curated by El Museo del Barrio and hosted by Charles Rice-Gonzalez.

Featuring a special guest performance by RUBYCON.

SIGN UP TO PERFORM AT THE EVENT
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED

Drew Bell is a full-time painter and Bureau volunteer happy to be making his contribution as an event organizer.

Notes from the Underground – the Cabaret Scene in 1980s Japan
2015-04-26 18:30 - 21:00 | NY
A slideshow presentation by Japanese photographer Kazuo Sumida, which follows his uncle through the night, in the gay cabarets and bars of a small-town’s red-light district in the 1980s.
Tosa Late Night Diary, the book of photographs from which the slide presentation draws, is available for purchase from the Bureau.
Featuring a musical performance by Jarvis Earnshaw.

Kazuo Sumida has been active as a photographer for forty years, shooting in Japan, New York, Russia and France. A visiting lecturer of photography in Manila and Vladivostok, his publications include Memories of My Father: A Journey to Siberia, New York Subway Story and Tosa Late Night Diary.

NYC Launch of Best Sex Writing of the Year
2015-04-29 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join Cleis Press in launching Best Sex Writing of the Year—a thought-provoking collection that traverses the spectrum of the contemporary sexual landscape.Editor Jon Pressick and contributors David Henry, Sterry, Stoya, and Lux Alptraum will read from their contributions as well as conduct an informal question and answer session exploring the intersections between sex and writing and how those can then be informed and affected by society and our personal selves.

Always thought provoking, these passionate yet incisive essays boldly confront the controversies surrounding our most deeply held assumptions about sexuality.

Jon Pressick (SexinWords.ca) is a Toronto-based writer, editor, blogger, radio personality and gadabout specializing in topics related to sex and sexuality for more than fifteen years.
Currently, Jon contributes to Kinkly.com and has been published on/in New York Magazine, MetAnotherFrog.com, Xtra, Quill & Quire and in the books Secrets of the Sex Masters and Best Sex Writing 2013. He primarily publishes to his blog, Sex in Words, sharing and contributing analysis of sex-related news stories, feature interviews and erotic fiction.
As one of the hosts and producer of Toronto’s sex radio institution Sex City, Jon has interviewed some of the sex community’s biggest names, including Cindy Gallop, Candida Royalle, Sunny Megatron, Susie Bright, Tristan Taormino, Kate McCombs, Reid Mihalko, Carol Queen, Dr. Charlie Glickman and many others (including many of the contributors to this collection!).
When he pulls himself away from the keyboard, Jon occasionally performs burlesque, DJs, speaks at sexuality conferences, acts as a juror for the Feminist Porn Awards, curates an erotica library and offers prostate pleasure and erotica workshops.
Throughout the years, Jon’s efforts have earned him TNT’s Sex Journalist of the Year Award and recognition as one of Broken Pencil‘s “50 People and Places We Love”.

Lux Alptraum is a writer, sex educator and consultant specializing in sex technology. Past projects have included gigs as the editor, publisher, and CEO of Fleshbot; a sex educator at an adolescent pregnancy prevention program; an HIV pretest counselor and the founder of ThatStrangeGirl, an alternative porn site, and Boinkology.

David Henry Sterry(davidhenrysterry.com), author of sixteen books, is a performer and activist. His bestselling memoir Chicken Self: Portrait of a Man for Rent has been translated into a dozen languages.Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boyswas featured on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.

Stoya is an adult performer and writer. She recommends that you refrain from Googling her while at work. Read more of her words at graphicdescriptions.com.

NYC Launch of My Body Is Yours by Michael V. Smith and Nothing Looks Familiar by Shawn Syms
2015-04-30 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Two Canadian queer authors take New York by storm!

Improv artist, sex radical, genderqueer uni professor Michael V. Smith launches a memoir, My Body Is Yours (Arsenal Pulp Press), exploring his emancipation from masculinity. In a night of hijinks and stunnery, you can expect: sexy confessions, giveaways, tear-jerking, and a naughty touch of stand up improv hairyness.

Like Michael, Shawn Syms is also hairy—and so are the situations described in his debut short-fiction collection Nothing Looks Familiar (Arsenal Pulp Press). With a particular focus on the lives of the downtrodden and marginalized, the book marries a vivid and distinct sense of place―the sights and smells of a meatpacking plant; a church-basement meeting hall full of sexual abusers―with universal themes such as the nature of friendship and relationships, and the configuration of the self. Each author will take you to places both dark and light—real, and imagined.

Michael V. Smith is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist and occasional clown. His novel, Cumberland (Cormorant Books, 2002), was nominated for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Smith won Vancouver’s Community Hero of the Year Award and the inaugural Dayne Ogilvie Award for Emerging Gay Writers. He teaches creative writing in an interdisciplinary fine arts department, Creative Studies, at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

Shawn Syms has written about sexuality, politics and culture for over 25 years in more than 50 publications. He’s the author of the short-story collection Nothing Looks Familiar, and he edited the first book of literary fiction about social media, Friend. Follow. Text. Shawn is currently at work on a novel about the power of dirty money, fetishistic sex and compulsive gambling.
