BGSQD

Fire!! and the Young Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance
2017-02-17 19:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | NY
Join longtime activist, scholar of African American studies, and friend of the Bureau James Wright for a discussion of FIRE!! and the Young Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1926, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis created the first and only issue of the black literary journal FIRE!!, which included Nugent’s explicitly gay poem “Smoke, Lilies and Jade.” Wright will discuss FIRE!! in the context of the Harlem Renaissance, and we will screen Brother to Brother (2005, written and directed by Rodney Evans, 90 minutes), a dramatic film about the life and times of Bruce Nugent.

James Wright has organized events at the Bureau exploring the lives and works of James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Refreshments will be served and materials relating to FIRE!! and Bruce Nugent will be distributed at the event.

TELL 31: Black History Month Edition: EVERYTHING
2017-02-18 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.
EVERYTHING is the theme of the thirty-first installment of TELL, the Black History Month Edition. Featuring Robin Cloud, Marcus Hicks, Meliq Karim, and Dorian S.!

$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.

Robin Cloud is a New York City-based TV host, comedian, and writer. She is the host of BK Live, a daily show that showcases Brooklyn’s art, culture, and political scenes. She has been featured in Diva Magazine, GO magazine’s “Top 100 Women We Love,” Time Out New York’s “Quote of the Week”, and the Washington Post. Her festival appearances include the Women in Comedy, Ohio Lesbian, Fresh Fruit, Emerging Artists, and Hot! Festivals. Frequently booked to be the Master of Ceremonies, she is proud to have teamed up with fantastic artists and organizations such as the Hetrick-Martin Institute, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, NYC Pride, Mr. Murray Hill, Toshi Reagon, Doria Roberts and many more!As a college speaker, Robin tours the country with her talk “Accept Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself” which aims to inspire audiences to transform their fears into acts of courage. She is thrilled to be represented by OUTmedia and The Contemporary Issues Agency.

Marcus Hicks is a Brooklyn based designer, tailor and humorist. Born and raised in Bakersfield, CA, Hicks studied Black Studies at San Francisco State University before moving to New York to start a career in fashion.

Meliq Karim or ‘Mel August’ is a black, Afro-Caribbean, bigender photographer and activist. They currently attend St. John’s University and study sociology and photography. Their main points of interest lie in black trans and queer activism, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latinix visibility, and photographing the Pan-African Diaspora in and around NYC.

Dorian S. is an ex suburban teen who spends most of his time teaching yoga, reading, playing with cats, commuting, pondering US health care, and making playlists. He has always loved a good story and is just happy to be (here).”

Queer Collage Party
2017-02-19 15:00 - 18:00 | NY
The Queer Collage Party is back! This will be our fifth Queer Collage Party at the Bureau. We provide the glue sticks and scissors, you provide the pictures and paper/cardboard. Everyone who attends should bring at least one magazine or book or a bunch of pictures that you’ll contribute to the group. Each person can make their own collage(s), or team up with others! You can keep your own collage(s), but don’t expect to walk away with your magazine intact! The spirit here is fun and sharing. Attend for part or all of the afternoon. You are encouraged but not required to bring a little snack to share — chips, tangerines, grapes, hummus, whatever.
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

USS presents Nora Meiners and Open Slam #5
2017-02-21 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
It’s that time of the month again! Time for our second-to-last chance to qualify for Union Square Slam Finals! Time to attend a free writing workshop to tighten up that poem you’ve been working on! Time to get your head and heart back on straight, with a little help from the wicked smaht Nora Meiners!
6:30pm-7:30pm: Free Writing Workshop
7:30pm – 8pm: Sign Ups.
8pm: First round of Slam
8:45pm: Feature
9:10 second and third rounds of slam
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Nora Meiners is mostly all ears and maybe some words. Which is to say she wants to read/hear your poems most! She has competed as a member of the 2013 Boston Poetry Slam, 2014 Lizard Lounge Poetry Slam National teams, and performed as a showcase poet on finals stage for the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam in Flagstaff. She lives in Cambridge, MA.
About our Slam:
::Union Square Slam National Team Competition::
There are six opportunities to compete for the Union Square Slam National Team. The top two winners of each Open Slam have secured their spot in Finals.
Each open slam will :
consist of up to 8 poet competitors
have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
Union Square Slam Nationals Qualifiers (Open Slams) are on the following dates:
September 20th
October 18th
November 15th
January 17th
February 21st
March 21st
Union Square Slam National Team Selection Finals will be held on April 18th.
The National Poetry Slam will be held in Denver, CO August 7-12th, 2017. All proceeds and donations to Union Square Slam go directly to funding travel, lodging and registration fees for representatives of Union Square Slam at national events.
In order to represent Union Square Slam at any National Competition, you must meet the following requirements:
Be 18 years old or older
Be an active member of PSI at the time of competition (register at www.poetryslam.com you cover your annual registration fee of $20 — questions? Talk to Cecily or the current slam manager)
Read, sign, and adhere to the PSI Code of Conduct
Participate in at least one Specialty Slam during the 2016-7 season. Specialty Slams include WOWPS qualifiers, Nerd Slams, Petty Slams, Iron Poet Slams, etc.

Come Talk Some Moonlight! Meaning, Message, and Magic
2017-02-22 18:30 - 20:30 | NY
Join Urban+Out for an intimate community conversation on Moonlight! One of the most important and innovative LGBT films in years, Moonlight has sparked lots of feelings and thoughts- come share yours!
We will delve deeper into key themes and perspectives through our discussion and closer readings of the extraordinary writing it has inspired, from deeply personal pieces on masculinity, sexuality, race, and redemption, to poignant explorations of 1980s Miami, Afro-Cuban identity, and music. We are putting together an online Moonlight Reader of articles and invite you to select articles/themes to explore and share during our discussion.
URBAN+OUT supports professional development, community empowerment, and cultural and civic
engagement.
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URBAN+OUT engages, empowers, and supports diverse LGBTQ professionals of color to connect with, invest in, and contribute to each other, and all the communities in which we live.

FIGHT Harder: NYC Poets Organize In Trump Era
2017-02-25 16:00 - 18:00 | NY
I DONT WANT TO LOOK BACK AT THESE YEARS AND THINK
“I SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT HARDER.” NOW IS THE TIME TO STAND UP.
this event is a strategic planning meeting for poets in nyc who want to discuss and get ready for the year of literary activism ahead… that way we can be proactive about all the bullshit coming our way, as opposed to reactionary to it.
This event is being planned quickly / organically. Literary Presses that will be present for the discussion and promoting this event are:
Nepantla & Undocupoets
Drunken Boat
The Operating System
No, Dear
Brooklyn Arts Press
Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon
Sibling Rivalry Press
Noemi Press
Weird Sister
Kundiman
The Poets Settlement
Newfound
Union Square Slam
Let Christopher Soto know if you would like to add your press or organization to this list. All you need to do is help invite folks to the event page and have a representative present at the meeting.
—
Tenative Agenda:
– What social/governmental issues do we want addressed in the coming year
– What literary activist issues do we want addressed in the coming year
– What strategies for activism have we seen be successful?
-Where and how do we focus our energy?

Union Square Slam Presents: Lo Anderson!
2017-02-28 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
*Mark your calendars: the last Tuesday of every month will feature a local musical performer.*
The stunning Lo Anderson will be blessing USS with her down-to-earthy vibes and damn near angelic voice.
About our Show:
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic (Music + Poetry Are Welcomed Here!)
8:45pm: Lo Anderson!
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5

Feminists Read Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, by Audre Lorde
2017-03-05 17:00 - 19:00 | NY
Join us to discuss Audre Lorde‘s autobiography/biomythography, ZAMI : A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1982). In the words of the feminist publication off our backs’ review (quoted on the cover of the book), “ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 50’s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her. … Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”

Please support the Bureau and purchase your copy of ZAMI: A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME at the Bureau! Thanks!

USS presents Kirwyn Sutherland
2017-03-07 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is thrilled to host a lively open mic, with none other than Philly’s own fantastic Kirwyn Sutherland!!
6:30pm: Free Writing Workshop
7:30pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
9:00pm: Feature — Kirwyn Sutherland
// All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible //
Suggested Donation $3-$10
(all proceeds go to supporting the Bureau and sending USS reps to national events)
About our Feature:
Kirwyn Sutherland was inspired to write poetry while watching the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. Issues of racial discrimination, apartheid, and survival as a black man discussed in the poetry of Amiri Baraka, Craig muMs Grant, and Black Ice hit home for Kirwyn. Writing poetry became a vehicle for introspection, community building, connecting with people from diverse cultures, and healing. These early writings culminated in a chapbook, self- published March 2013, entitled X: A Mixtape. The majority of the proceeds from this book went to a $500 book scholarship (Delores Sutherland Scholarship) to a freshman student. Kirwyn’s second chapbook, published by Two Pens & Lint June 2014, entitled X: A Mixtape Re-mastered contained a combination of new and old poems on the topics of slavery, racial discrimination, mental health, and biological sciences. Kirwyn has featured at several open mic and slam venues in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, DC, Delaware, and Detroit. Additionally, he was one of 5 poets to represent Philadelphia at the 2015 National Poetry Slam. The team made the Semi-finals of the competition (top 20 out of 72 teams). Kirwyn has participated in workshop/residencies at Cave Canem, Poet’s House, Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Lincoln University. Kirwyn’s poetry has been published in Tobeco Literary Arts Journal, Drunkinamidnightchoir, APIARY magazine, and Public Pool. Kirwyn currently serves as editor-at-large of Public Pool and list editor at WusGood magazine.

Elska Magazine issue (10) Mumbai (India) - Launch Party
2017-03-09 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Come celebrate the launch of the tenth edition of Elska Magazine, this time dedicated to Mumbai, India. Noticing how underrepresented South Asian men are in gay media, we were inspired to showcase the local boys and local stories from India’s biggest city. The founder of Elska Magazine, Liam Campbell, will be there to say a few words about Elska and talk about the experience of meeting and shooting men In India and around the world. Come hang out with us, ask questions, have a chat, maybe meet some boys… and pick up a copy of the latest issue. Free “Elska Mumbai” posters will be available to everyone who buys a copy from the Bureau on the night.
Featuring:
Liam Campbell – founder, editor, and chief photographer of Elska Magazine
Mark Blakey – assistant for the making of issue (07) Cardiff (Wales) and issue (08) Yokohama (Japan)

ACLU People Power Action Event - March 11
2017-03-11 16:30 - 18:30 | NY
Join us on March 11 for a livestream viewing of the ACLU’s launch of People Power. We’ll watch the Resistance Training live and talk about next steps for organizing to resist Trump’s attacks on our basic freedoms.
Please RSVP here:
https://go.peoplepower.org/event/attend/1227

Note about capacity: we’ve capped attendance at 75 but probably can fit around 50 folks. We know that not everyone will actually be able to make it. If you have arrived to the RSVP page (link above) after we’ve reached capacity, you can still try to make the event, as it’s always likely that some folks will not show up. We will have a list of RSVP’s at the door! Please try to arrive at 4:30 given how many attendees we have. We will try to admit those who might not have been able to RSVP around 4:45, until our space is full. Thanks for your interest!

The schedule for the day, FYI: 4:30-5, introductions and strategic intentions 5-6, national training lifestream 6-6:30, group discussion We’ve got to leave at 6:30 to clear the space for an evening event! So looking forward to meeting you.

From the American Civil Liberties Union website:
“In the weeks following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, we have seen the harms that his policies cause people around the world and the danger his actions represent for our civil liberties. Trump’s use of executive power has prompted the protest and defiance of millions, echoing the voices of many who know that our basic American values are being tested by our president.
The ACLU will continue to defend our basic freedoms and hold this administration accountable for every unlawful or unconstitutional measure they propose. We will use the courts as one avenue to aggressively advance our agenda, but we cannot do it alone.
That is why the ACLU is launching a major new grassroots mobilization platform, PeoplePower.org, in response to the growing number of people who believe that Trump’s actions cannot go unchallenged.
We’ve hired a group of digital organizers who have worked with activist groups, the White House, and Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign to help build and launch PeoplePower.org. With this platform, we hope to help organize the mass resistance to President Trump’s bankrupt policies. With a nationwide presence through our 50-plus state affiliates, the ACLU is well-positioned to take on the incredible responsibility of grassroots organizing coast to coast. This type of program is new for us at ACLU, but it is necessary if we are going to overcome the Trump administration’s attempts to curtail civil rights and eventually advance a 21st century civil liberties agenda.
On March 11, the ACLU will hold a “Resistance Training” town hall in Miami, Florida. An email ask went out today to the organization’s over 2.5 million members to organize thousands of grassroots events in communities across the country to watch the ACLU town hall. Full details on the training are forthcoming.
PeoplePower.org will use digital tools to communicate with and help train volunteers to resist President Trump’s unlawful policies across the country. The ACLU will promote ideas for action to defend sanctuary cities, resist deportation raids, oppose the Muslim Ban, maintain Planned Parenthood funding, and support other priorities. But the program will also seek to amplify organic, bottom-up grassroots actions. PeoplePower.org will be a one-stop hub for everyone looking to influence the national debate.
We ask you to join us as we build communities ready to resist Trump’s agenda and to protect our constitutional rights. The fight may not be easy, but it will be worth it.”
Suggested donation of $5 – $10 to support the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

TELL 32: Dating
2017-03-11 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.
DATING is the theme of the thirty-second installment of TELL. Featuring Micah Brown, Katie Liederman, and Shane O’Neill.

$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.

Micah Brown is a non binary NYC native and self-proclaimed wise guy who works as a barista in NoLita, and is never short of stories or perspective. With an emphasis on Spotify playlist-based self care, he’s been navigating adulthood and neurodivergence without any major injuries (so far).

Katie Liedermanis a writer, playwright and director whose next play, about a sordid love affair between a magician and a saxophone player opens August 2017. She also hosts a monthly travel storytelling event at Metropolitan called TRIPS and you should come talk to her after the show if you have a story to tell.

Shane O’Neill is a writer, performer, video maker, and homosexual living in Brooklyn, NY. His writing and videos have been featured on The New York Times website, Refinery29, and ArtNews New York. He and his work have appeared onstage at Joe’s Pub, the LaMama Theater, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and at too many gay bars and queer DIY party spaces to list here. He has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe via his musical persona Shane Shane. “Jane Johnson for the Stay At Home Shopper,” an original musical he wrote with Jill Pangallo, recently debuted at the OUTsider festival in Austin, TX. You can see him in New York City at his monthly comedy/variety shows “Tonight’s Special with Shane Shane” and “S.U.C.K. (Stand Up Comedy Klub).” He has a boyfriend named Dusty, a cat named Wanda, and a lovely family–both chosen and by blood–in the Great Midwest, all of whom he loves a great deal.

Join the Bureau at the New York Live Arts Live Ideas Festival: Mx'd Messages
2017-03-14 - 2017-03-19 | NY
The Bureau will have a pop-up shop at the Live Ideas Festival, Mx’d Messages, in the lobby of New York Live Arts, March 14—19.
MX’D MESSAGES
Curated by Mx Justin Vivian Bond
Trans-genre artist Mx Justin Vivian Bond curates a series examining the idea of a world without binaries–across gender, politics, theology, sensory perception and race.
Richard Move and MoveOpolis!, kick off the festival with the world premiere of XXYY and a special performance celebrating the 20th anniversary of Martha@…
Mx’d Messages continues March 14-19 with a keynote conversation, lunch time reading series, an afternoon film program curated by Dirty Looks, Happy Hour panel discussions on trans-theology, afrofuturism, activism and social justice, caregiving and choral workshops, Prime Time genre bending performance events including the TEAM’s RoosevElvis (Re_MX’D), Mx Bond’s House of Whimsy and more, and ends with a queer punk rock dance party.
Live Ideas is an annual humanities festival of arts and ideas, exploring the ideas, controversies and thinking informing a different bodily-oriented theme each time out. Past festivals have included The Worlds of Oliver Sacks, James Baldwin, This Time!, SKY-Force and Wisdom in America Today, curated by Laurie Anderson, andMENA/Future-Cultural Transformations in the Middle East North Africa Region.

VIEW THE FESTIVAL BROCHURE FOR FULL LISTING OF EVENTS

219 West 19th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues
NY, NY 10011

USS presents Raena Shirali and David Winter
2017-03-14 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is thrilled to host a lively open mic, and dynamic duo Raena Shirali and David Winter!!
6:30pm: Free Writing Workshop
7:30pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
9:00pm: Feature — Raena Shirali and David Winter
// All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible //
Suggested Donation $3-$10
(all proceeds go to supporting the Bureau and sending USS reps to national events)
About our Feature:
Raena Shirali’s collection, GILT, fiercely unveils its first generation, East Indian speakers’ reconciliation of her identity as it engages with and critiques both Indian and American culture’s treatment and expectations of women. David Winter’s chapbook Safe House, and his current manuscript Archived Light, explore how queer and raced bodies live and love in a violent world. By performing their poems in conversation with each other, these two poets pose questions such as: How do we discern safe space from violence in drag? How can fragmentation and lyric explore our unknowable selves, lovers, heritages? How do we reconcile the personal body with the political, the self with its surrounding cultures? How can violence be music, and music be violent? How does communication fail us; how then, can silence (of lovers, families, cultures, nations) be a source of trauma? And can such silences be reclaimed as spaces for meditation or healing?
Indian American poet Raena Shirali’s first book, GILT, is forthcoming in 2017 with YesYes Books, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blackbird, Crazyhorse, Four Way Review, Indiana Review, Muzzle Magazine, Ninth Letter, and many more. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University. Her honors include a 2016 Pushcart Prize, the 2016 Cosmonauts Avenue Prize, recognition as a finalist for the 2016 Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, the 2014 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, recognition as a finalist for the 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Prize in 2013. She will be the Spring 2017 Philip Roth Resident at the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, and currently serves as a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine.

David Winter wrote the chapbook Safe House (Thrush Press, 2013), and is currently working on a full-length manuscript entitled Archived Light, which has been a semi-finalist for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award. From 2010-2012 David led creative writing workshops with NYC non-profits in locations such as the LGBT Community Center, the 14th Street Y, Riker’s Island, and PS 279. More recently, he has received an MFA from The Ohio State University, a 2016 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and a 2016-18 Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University. David’s poems appear in publications such as The Baffler, Day One, Four Way Review, Muzzle, Ninth Letter, The Offing, and For Some Time Now: Performance Poets of New York City.

Union Square Slam presents Natasha Hooper and our Last Open Slam
2017-03-21 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is delighted to host, all the way from San Diego, nationally-ranked poet and goddess of grace, NATASHA HOOPER!!
AND! It’s your very last chance to qualify for Union Square Slam’s Finals Stage on April 18th. Get down here and sign up early!
6:30pm: Free Writing Workshop w/ IS Jones
7:30pm Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Slam and Feature
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Suggested Donation $5-$10
About our Feature:
In a short period of time, Natasha Hooper has made her mark on the spoken word community, performing on various stages across the country, spanning from California to New York. She ‘s performed with the likes of Jasmine Mans at the infamous Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. and competed in the largest individual poetry competition, the Individual World Poetry Slam, ranking among the top 25. A force to be reckoned with, Natasha holds the record in San Diego for the most consecutive slam wins in a single season. Recently, she also became a driving force in helping her slam team, San Diego Poetry SLAM, become the #2 team in the nation during her first trip to the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, GA.

Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism
2017-03-24 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A reading and discussion on resistance movements past and present, and the special role of LGBTQ movements in American radicalism, by L.A. Kauffman, author of the new book, DIRECT ACTION.

As Americans take to the streets in record numbers to resist the presidency of Donald Trump, L.A. Kauffman’s timely, trenchant history of protest offers unique insights into how past movements have won victories in times of crisis and backlash and how they can be most effective today.
This deeply researched account, twenty-five years in the making, traces the evolution of disruptive protest since the Sixties to tell a larger story about the reshaping of the American left. Kauffman, a longtime grassroots organizer, examines how movements from ACT UP to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter have used disruptive tactics to catalyze change despite long odds. The book highlights the centrality of feminist and queer organizers to the creation of a vibrant, decentralized tradition of resistance and activism.
Kauffman’s lively and elegant history is propelled by hundreds of candid interviews conducted over a span of decades. Direct Action showcases the voices of key players in an array of movements – environmentalist, anti-nuclear, anti-apartheid, feminist, LGBTQ, anti-globalization, racial-justice, anti-war, and more – across an era when American politics shifted to the right, and a constellation of decentralized issue- and identity-based movements supplanted the older ideal of a single, unified left.
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
L.A. Kauffman has spent more than 30 years immersed in radical movements, as an organizer, strategist, journalist, and observer.

READ ALOUD TO CAUSE TROUBLE: Impropria Persona Release Party
2017-03-25 19:30 - 21:00 | NY
READ ALOUD TO CAUSE TROUBLE brings together a gaggle of wobbly-kneed armchair revolutionaries who don’t vote to celebrate the release of IMPROPRIA PERSONA, a collaborative chapbook by Kay Gabriel and David W. Pritchard (Damask Press, 2017) with an evening of poems and provocations.

READERS:

KAY GABRIEL is the author of Elegy Department Spring (BOAAT Press, forthcoming) and, with David W. Pritchard, Impropria Persona. She is aufgehoben or bust, baby.

DAVID W. PRITCHARD is a poet and a scholar, though he is not a poet-scholar. He is the author, with Kay Gabriel, of Impropria Persona. He is currently working on a super-poem entitled REVOLUTION OR DECADENCE for which he has been paid 50 cents by an anonymous donor. In this way he is the last living residue of literary patronage.

A.B. ROBINSON has been called a Surrealist in both condemnation and praise. She is not a Surrealist.

CAM SCOTT is a poet, critic, and practicing non-musician from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty One territory. He performs under the name Cold-catcher and as always, the motivating question is For whom?

ZACHARY LAMALFA was recently described as a poet whom one could easily imagine enjoying a career as a civil engineer or architect, which made everyone else in the room laugh very hard. He is one thing about the city.

Nonprofits, Foundations, and Resisting the Savior Mentality
2017-03-26 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
What is the role of wealth and privilege in social movements, and how can we change it? A conversation on foundations, nonprofits, capitalism and social change with scholar and organizer Sujani Reddy and journalist and organizer Jordan Flaherty, featuring poetry by Sabina Ibarrola.

Sujani Reddy is a writer and educator whose work focuses on U.S. imperialism, mass criminalization and migrant justice. She is Associate Professor of American Studies at SUNY Old Westbury, the author of Nursing and Empire: Gendered Labor and Migration from India to the United States (UNC Press), and a co-editor of The Sun Never Sets: South Asian Migrants in an Age of U.S. Power (NYU Press). Both books are also published by Orient BlackSwan in South Asia. You can hear her discuss the history of nursing and empire at: https://whomakescentspodcast.com/2016/06/02/episode-22-sujani-reddy-on-nursing-and-empire.

Sabina Ibarrola is a green witch and herbalist in the Wisewoman tradition. Drawing on her training in herbal medicine and earthspirit wisdom, Sabina is building her teaching and clinical practice, combining a passion for plants and plant medicine with a fierce dedication to collective liberation and helping people love their beautifully diverse bodies. Sabina also works at LAVA Brooklyn, and is associate creative director of Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. sabinaibarrola.com.

Jordan Flaherty is an award-winning journalist, producer, and author. His print journalism has been featured in publications from the New York Times to Colorlines, as well as in seven anthologies. He has been a guest on shows from Anderson Cooper 360 to Democracy Now, and he has produced television documentaries and news reports for Al Jazeera America, Al Jazeera English, and The Laura Flanders Show. He was the first journalist to bring the case of the Jena Six to a national audience, he played himself on HBO’s television series Treme, and he was a target of the New York City Police Department’s spying programs. He is the author of the new book No More Heroes: Grassroots Responses to the Savior Mentality. You can see more of his work at jordanflaherty.org.

MORE ABOUT NURSING AND EMPIRE:
How is nursing tied to histories of capitalist imperialism in India and the United States? How was its professionalization shaped through the institutionalization of gender, race, class, caste, sexuality, regional and religious hierarchies? How does this process relate to the fundamental role that the institutions promoting a “savior mentality” have played in establishing a colonial “civilizing mission” at home and abroad? How do we find the stories of marginalized women workers in the archives? What happens when we ask Indian nurses about their own life stories? Spanning two centuries and multiple geographic spaces, Nursing & Empire pursues these questions in order to shed light on histories of capitalist expansion, and marginalized women’s histories of resistance and labor migration.”In this beautifully written and brilliantly argued book, Sujani Reddy demonstrates the urgency of understanding Indian nurse migration to the United States in relation to the many reconfigurations of ‘Anglo-American capitalist imperialism’ over two centuries. This is an indispensable and groundbreaking contribution to the history of women and labor migration, and it sets a new standard for the global study of imperialism, capitalism, and race.”–Jennifer Guglielmo, author of Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City“Sujani Reddy neatly traces the development of modern racialized nursing practices by going beyond simply analyzing migration to examining the historical emergence of nursing in India and the United States. Nursing and Empire explores labor markets, intimate industries, and gender with a writing style that is simultaneously deeply analytical and richly descriptive. An absolutely exciting and one-of-a-kind book.”–Sharmila Rudrappa, author of Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India

MORE ABOUT NO MORE HEROES:
From the Crusades to Black Lives Matter, No More Heroes is a grassroots history of resistance to the savior mentality. This book weaves the stories of LGBTQ organizers, teachers, international volunteers, sex workers, FBI informants, indigenous organizers, and prison abolitionists into a narrative of revolutionary change that travels from Alaska to Palestine, from Karl Marx to Muhammad Ali, and from KONY 2012 to the Red Cross.No More Heroes brings us real life stories of life-or-death conflict: Riad Hamad, a Lebanese middle school teacher in Texas betrayed by FBI informant Brandon Darby. Monica Jones, a Black transgender sex work activist arrested for “walking while trans” in Phoenix, Arizona. Haidar Eid, a professor resisting colonialism and liberalism in his daily life and work in Gaza City. Sophie Lucido Johnson, a recent college graduate who finds her youthful idealism channeled by others to displace unionized African American teachers in New Orleans.

No More Heroes explores the growing response to these dynamics: grassroots and street-based uprisings like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter, creating accountable movements focused on real, systemic change.

“No More Heroes exposes the savior complex for what it really is: imperialism camouflaged as a rescue operation. A perfect gift for the age of Trump.”
-Robin D. G. Kelley, Author, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“From systemic racism to climate change, there are no easy fixes to the deep- rooted crises of our time. In this marvelous, enormously instructive book, Jordan Flaherty explores how we too often allow the struggle for change to be undermined by would-be saviors—and how today’s grassroots social movements, led by communities on the frontlines of crisis, are charting a far more powerful path forward.”
– Naomi Klein, Author, This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

No More Heroes is a vitally useful intervention in the current political moment. Spot-on analysis, gripping examples, and a clear, urgently necessary argument about how we need to re-think harmful “rescue” frames and the leadership models they foster will make this book immensely useful to contemporary movements. No More Heroes helps us understand how our movements’ debates about leadership, respectability politics and co-optation relate to long-standing investment in ideas of saving that have got to be dismantled if we are going to build the new world we so desperately need and long for.
– Dean Spade, Author, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law

“Buy this book if you believe a better world is possible and want to know how to get there. From Jordan Flaherty, the journalist that broke the story of The Jena Six, comes this thrilling people’s history of current movements for revolutionary change. A powerful, engaging, exciting book for anyone concerned about the state of the world.”
-Cynthia McKinney, 2008 Green Party Presidential Candidate; former Georgia Congresswoman

See more at jordanflaherty.org/saviors.

Union Square Slam presents George Abraham's Book Release Party
2017-03-28 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
We are so thrilled to celebrate George Abraham‘s release of their first book, al youm! Please join us for a free writing workshop, a lively open mic, and George!
6:30pm Writing Workshop w/ IS Jones
7:30pm Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm Open Mic
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Suggested Donation: $5-$10
Praise for al youm:
“George Abraham is the poetic love child of Whitman and Darwish, an exile living in the borderlands of his own Palestinian body. Through these poems–daringly experimental, explosively confession–he rebuilds himself out of his own erasure. In his words, ‘your body isn’t a temple–/ your body is the heaven the temples bow to.'”
– Phil Metres, author of Sand Opera, winner of the Arab American Book Award
“George Abraham’s al youm engages my brain and my heart in ways both relentless and tender. These poems do such exciting things with form—they are simultaneously ancient and futuristic, considering old hurts and old histories while constantly reimagining what is possible in terms of what a poem can do—visually, syntactically, emotionally— on the page. However, their technical skill comes in no way at the expense of their pulsing, living heart—these poems hurt, and bloom, and I will never, ever stop thinking about them. ”
– Safia Elhillo, author of The January Children
“George Abraham’s poems are both guide and gift. Here is writing through the body in space and time; through ancestral memory and trauma; here is breath, soul, life — in America; in Palestine. Abraham’s poems arrive as ingenious and necessary solutions to equations we don’t yet know we need. This book is how we heal.”
– Marwa Helal, author of Invasive Species (forthcoming with Nightboat Books)

About the Author:
George Abraham is a Palestinian-American poet attending Swarthmore College. They competed in the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (placing 2nd out of 68 international teams), the National Poetry Slam, and the Individual World Poetry Slam. They are a Pushcart nominee, a 2-time recipient of the Favianna Rodriguez Award for Artistic Activism, and a recipient of the Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian Literature Scholarship. They are the author of al youm: for yesterday & her inherited traumas – a winner of the Atlas Review’s 2016 chapbook contest. Their poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Diode, Kweli, the Margins, Thrush, Apogee, and Sukoon, as well as the Ghassan Kanafani Anthology of Palestinian Literature. They hope to continue bringing awareness to Palestinian human rights and socio-economic struggles through art.
More work and contact info can be found at his artist website: https://gabrahampoet.wixsite.com/gabrahampoet

Belladonna* WITH Sam Ace & Aristilde Kirby (co-presented by Vetch)
2017-03-30 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Belladonna* Collaborative & Vetch Magazine present: Sam Ace & Aristilde Kirby will read at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division on March 30, at 7pm.
New chaplets from each reader will be available at the event.
Vetch is the first magazine of its kind, a journal of poetry solely by trans writers. We aim to publish work that is as excited about being poetry as it is engaged with the social conditions that allow for its production. Say it has an aesthetic and doubles down hard, wouldn’t that be fun. Belladonna* Collaborative’s programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Samuel Ace is the author of Normal Sex, Home in three days. Don’t wash., and Stealth (a collaboration with Maureen Seaton). He has received the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award, the Firecracker Alternative Book Award and is a two-time finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Poetry, Fence, Posit, Vinyl, Troubling the Line: Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Best American Experimental Poetry 2016 and many other publications. www.samuelace.com

Aristilde Kirby is a poet born in the Bronx, NY, but currently lives in Carrollton, GA. She is 25, a UGA Master Gardener, was previously published in Vetch (no. 2 & 3). She has a few things in the works, and hopefully forthcoming. You can just call her Aris, say her name like Paris without the P or Aeris from FFVII, but with & without the lisp. She’s a black lesbian in either case. You can find her on twitter @motjustine

The Lesbian Avengers: 25th Anniversary Exhibition
2017-03-31 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for the opening reception party for The Lesbian Avengers: 25th Anniversary Exhibition on Friday, March 31st. We’ll screen clips from the new feature film, Nothing Without Us, by Harriet Hirshorn and Mary Patierno. From New York to Nigeria. Burundi to the American South beginning at 7 PM.

The readings by Eileen Myles and Sassafras Lowrey have been postponed. We’ll keep you posted.

We did it, and we’ll do it again! A multimedia activist exhibit celebrating the Lesbian Avengers, formed 25 years ago during another surge of hardcore misogyny, and anti-gay, white Nationalist hate. Includes still photos, flyers, posters, slide shows, and video. Were you there? We welcome your participation. This mobile exhibit won’t take on its final form until late April. In June, it will begin to pop up all over the country. Including a neighborhood near you!

Also exhibited, images of powerful women fighting AIDS worldwide from the new feature film, Nothing Without Us, by Harriet Hirshorn and Mary Patierno. From New York to Nigeria. Burundi to the American South.

The Lesbian Avengers: 25th Anniversary Exhibition will be on view at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from March 31 through June 4, 2017.

Related upcoming events:
Friday, April 21 Lesbian Avengers 25 event series, “Resist, Rebel, Transgress” in co-operation with Lambda Literary. Includes Avenger co-founder and writer Sarah Schulman and writer Carmen Machado
Friday, May 12 Lesbian Avengers 25 event series, “Resist, Rebel, Transgress” featuring a screening of the powerful film, Nothing Without Us, by Harriet Hirshorn and Mary Patierno about women fighting AIDS worldwide.
Friday, June 2 Lesbian Avengers 25 event series, “Resist, Rebel, Transgress” in co-operation with Lambda Literary. Includes Lesbian Avengers and writers, Susana Cook, Ana Simo (co-founder), and others.
photo: Carolina Kroon, Dyke March, Washington, DC, 1993

Book Launch for Claudia Cortese’s Wasp Queen and Gillian Cummings’ My Dim Aviary
2017-04-01 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Please join us for the launch party of Claudia Cortese’s Wasp Queen and Gillian Cummings’ My Dim Aviary. Gillian and Claudia are press sisters whose books were just published by Black Lawrence Press.
Ocean Vuong says that “Claudia Cortese has given to Lucy what Anne Carson has given to Geryon: a life as desperate and fraught as our own, which is to say, a human rendition of the poetic potential. . . . I finished this Wasp Queen only to read it all over again, finding and losing myself, gladly, at every turn.
D. Nurkse says that My Dim Aviary is a book filled “with the ache of individuation, the estrangement of sexuality—‘a swan gouging its breast with its bill.’ Searing in its originality, My Dim Aviary is a masterful conception, a trance, a prayer of abandonment.”
There will be cupcakes! There will cake! There will be plastic tiaras! There will be purple mood lighting! There will be a most glorious mix playing (Whitney Houston, Bikini Kill, Pat Benatar…)
Grey Vild (bio below) will be emceeing; Claudia and Gillian will read from their gorgeous books; and these brilliant humans will also be reading:
Jayson P. Smith is a writer/performance artist from the Bronx. Their poems & interviews appear / are forthcoming in journals such as Gulf Coast, Vinyl Magazine, & The Offing. J is a 2016-17 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow with The Poetry Project, & has received previous support from The Conversation Literary Festival & Millay Colony for the Arts. They currently live in Brooklyn and the internet at jaysonpsmith.com.
Kaveh Akbar‘s poems appear recently or soon in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, APR, Tin House, and elsewhere. His debut full-length collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, will be published by Alice James Books in September 2017.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions).
Grey Vild is a Queer Art Mentorship & Brooklyn Poets fellow & a MFA candidate in poetry at Rutgers University. His work can be found at Them, Vetch, Harriet: The Blog and elsewhere.

Union Square Slam presents Timothy DuWhite and our Capturing Fire Qualifier
2017-04-04 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Come on out for our Very Here, Very Queer CAPTURING FIRE QUALIFIER, featuring Capturing Fire’s 2015 Champion and all-around No BullPoop No Fux Giving Poet/Prophet/Pidgeon Whisperer Timothy DuWhite!!

6:30pm Free Writing Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm Sign-Ups and Socialize
8:00pm Slam and Feature
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible

COMPETING POETS: must be self-identified queer to compete! must have three 3 minute poems! must consider registering for Capturing Fire and competing anyway, regardless of who wins this qualifier!
About our Feature:

Timothy DuWhite is the current Program Manager at New York Writers Coalition, a non-profit dedicated to providing writing workshops to under-served communities. Prior to his time at NYWC, Timothy worked as the Program Coordinator at Urban Word NYC, a champion in youth literacy, and as the Online Communications Specialist at Believe Out Loud, an online network invested in bridging the gap between the faith and LGBTQ communities. He received his BA in English/Creative Writing from Montclair State University, where he developed his love for spoken word poetry and performance. Timothy’s work has been featured at venues/sites such as the United Nations/UNICEF, Apollo Theater, Nuyorican Poet’s cafe, The Rumpus, Bowery Poetry Club, La Mama Theater and many more. In 2015, Timothy developed a writing workshop entitled “HIV & the State: Coalition Building beyond the Condom,” in which he communally debunks popular narratives surrounding HIV as it relates to black people. Timothy’s political work and analysis has granted him appearances/keynote speeches at institutions such as San Diego State University, Columbia University, Oregon State University, Columbia College Chicago, and many more. When he isn’t off trying to save the world, Tim can be found working on his next play, and listening to 90’s R&B.
About Capturing Fire:

Capturing Fire is a DC-based international spoken word and poetry festival where queer-identified writers gather for 3 days of individual poetry slam competition, alongside panels, workshops and performances during the day. The Poetry Slam focus of Capturing Fire will be June 9 and 10 with a series of Queer Arts Events starting Sunday June 4 at The Sparkle Open Mic at Busboys & Poets. We will be holding Capturing Fire during Capital Pride Weekend which culminates with the LGBT March on Sunday June 11, 2017 at 10am. For more information, please refer to https://capfireslam.org/

A Discussion of Umberto Saba's 'Ernesto' with Peter Cameron, Benjamin Taylor, Jaime Manrique, and Stefano Albertini
2017-04-06 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join NYRB Classics in celebrating the publication of Umberto Saba’s Ernesto, a classic of gay Italian literature available in a new translation by Estelle Gilson. Peter Cameron, Benjamin Taylor, Jaime Manrique, and Stefano Albertini will discuss Saba’s life and work.

Peter Cameron is the author of six novels, including ‘Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You,’ and two collections of short stories. He lives in New York City and Vermont, where he runs Shrinking Violet Press, which publishes limited editions of finely-crafted books. He has written afterwords to many books, including New York Review of Books’ ‘The Outward Room’ by Millen Brand and ‘Totempole’ by Sanford Friedman.

Benjamin Taylor‘s family memoir, ‘The Hue and Cry at Our House,’ will be published in May of 2017 by Penguin Books. He is also the author of ‘Proust: The Search,’ named a Best Book of 2016 by Thomas Mallon in The New York Times Book Review; ‘Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay,’ named a Best Book of 2012 by Judith Thurman in The New Yorker; and of two novels, ‘Tales Out of School,’ winner of the Harold Ribalow Prize, and ‘The Book of Getting Even,’ winner of a Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. He edited ‘Saul Bellow: Letters,’ named a Best Book of 2010 by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times and Jonathan Yardley at The Washington Post, and Bellow’s ‘There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction.’ A faculty member in the New School’s Graduate School of Writing, Taylor also teaches in the Graduate Writing Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. A past fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, he is also president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. ‘Debriefing,’ his edition of the short fiction of Susan Sontag, is due from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in November of 2017.

Jaime Manrique was born in Colombia. He is a bilingual novelist, essayist, translator, and poet. His novels include ‘Latin Moon in Manhattan,’ ‘Our Lives Are the Rivers,’ and ‘Cervantes Street.’ He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a winner of Colombia’s National Poetry Award, and the International Latino Book Award. Mr. Manrique’s work has been translated to twelve languages. He is currently a Distinguished Lecturer in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York. He has just completed a new novel, ‘Like This Afternoon Forever.’

2017 NYC Queer Comic Fair
2017-04-08 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
WabiSabiZinez and Carmine Street Comics are proud to present the first (hopefully) annual New York City fair geared entirely towards queer sequential art (comics, graphic novels, illustrated stories, photo-comics, or any other interesting take on the medium of still-visual narrative storytelling).

The fair is free and open to the public, thanks to our hosts, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, located on the second floor of The LGBT Center NYC, 208 W 13th St., room 210.

Vendors include:

WabiSabiZines: WabiSabiZineZ.Storenvy.Com / @Wabi_Sabi_Zinez
Carmine Street Comics: carminestreetcomics.com / @CarmineStComics
Bearpad: bearpadshop.storenvy.com / @bearpadshop
Tim Bauer: cargocollective.com/tbauerillustration
Doable Guys: doableguys.tumblr.com/
Easy: easythecomic.com
Greg Fox / Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast: Kylecomics.com
Mikey Hope / Preternatch: preternatch.deviantart.com/gallery/
Comics by Patrick J Reilly: comicsbypatrick.com/
Lucky Sanford: luckysanford.com
Sci-Fi Explosion: twitter.com/scifiexplosion
Susse Sønderby: unteleported-tomatoes.net / @sussesonderby
Ship Jumper: ShipJumperComic.com
SquareBears: Instagram.com/squarebears
Stevie Wilson: swinku.tumblr.com
Woolybearz: woolybearz.tumblr.com / @woolybear
Bill Zanowitz: crimefighterinquiry.com / comicbookbears.com

Great Weather for Union Square Slam
2017-04-11 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Great weather for media has a brand new anthology called “The Careless Embrace of the Boneshaker.” We are excited to bring you some of the poets from this anthology to our stage.

Here are the poets:

Taylor Steele
Liv Mammone
Craig Kite
Brendan James Gillett

Founded in January 2012 by former Uphook Press editors Jane Ormerod, Thomas Fucaloro, and Brant Lyon, great weather for MEDIA focuses on the unpredictable, the fearless, the bright, the dark, and the innovative…

They are based in New York City and showcase both national and international writers. As well as publishing the highest quality poetry and prose, they organize numerous readings, performances, and book releases in New York City and across the country. Find them every Sunday on the Lower East Side at the Parkside Lounge, 317 East Houston St, for their reading series, great weather presents Spoken Word Sundays. Featured readers and a poetry open mic, 4:00 – 6:00 pm. They’d love to see you! This is a terrific New York City poetry open mic.

6:30pm Writing Workshop w/ IS Jones
7:30pm Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm Open Mic
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Suggested Donation: $5-$10

Author Readings and Discussion with Stefani Deoul & Ann Aptaker
2017-04-13 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us as Stefani Deoul reads from and discusses her crazyfunkycool new YA novel, On a LARP, which features the fresh and feisty bit-bending teen heroine, Sid Rubin. As an added attraction, Lammy-winning historical criminal fiction writer, Ann Aptaker will take the stage to talk about and share a reading from Genuine Gold, Book Three of the popular Cantor Gold Crime Series.
Please support the authors and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and purchase copies of On a LARP, Criminal Gold, Tarnished Gold, and Genuine Gold at the Bureau!
We look forward to seeing you there!

STEFANI DEOUL is the author of the award-winning novel The Carousel and the newly released YA novel On a LARP. She has written for numerous publications, including Curve Magazine, Outdoor Delaware and Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, penned short stories, and written both film and television treatments. As a television producer her resume includes TV series such as Haven for the SyFy Network, The Dead Zone, Brave New Girl, Dresden Files and Missing.

Lambda Literary Award winner and native New Yorker ANN APTAKER has earned a reputation as a respected, if cheeky, exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Taking the approach that what art authorities find uncomfortable the public would likely enjoy, exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.

TELL 33: Betrayal
2017-04-15 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
BETRAYAL is the theme of the thirty-third installment of TELL. Featuring Erica Caldwell, Amalia Q, Persephone Sarah Jane Smith, and Pamela Sneed.

$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.

Erica Cardwell is a writer and radical educator. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Hyperallergic, Sinister Wisdom, the Lightwork Annual, The Feminist Wire, Bitch Media, and EMERGE: An Anthology of the 2105 Lambda Literary Fellows. Erica hopes to complete a draft of her first book, Stone Fruit- a collection of personal essays by December.

Amalia Q is a latinx queer unicorn from LA. As the daughter of immigrant parents, the pull to overachieve and give back was immense; therefore, as of late, Amalia had been trying to practice self-care by slowing down and hanging out with tiny humans (aka kids). Amalia holds masters degrees from all the schools and knows a whole lot about microaggressions, substance use, and mental health. You can find Amalia on a dance floor near you!

Persephone Sarah Jane Smith (They/Them/Theirs)
A singer songwriter and poet that lives in Bushwick with far too many hobbies to list. Thier Latest endeavor is running for City Council in their District. Greatest skill though is telling Humorous stories from their tragic life.

Pamela Sneed is a New York based poet, writer and actress. She has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out, Bomb, VIBE, and on the cover of New York Magazine. In 2015, she appeared in Art Forum, Black Book and The Huffington Post. She hosted Queer Art Film at the IFC in New York City. She is author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, published by Henry Holt in April 1998, KONG & other works, published by Vintage Entity Press (2009) and a chapbook Lincoln (2014). In 2015, she published the Chaplet Gift with Belladonna. She has performed for sold out houses at Lincoln Center, P.S. 122, Ex-Teresa in Mexico City, The ICA London, The CCA in Glasgow Scotland, The Green Room in Manchester England, BAM Cafe, Joes Pub, The Public Theater, Central Park Summer Stage, Bronx Summer Stage and recently Columbia University’s Tribute to James Baldwin, The Whitney Museum and BRIC. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s, The One Hundred Best African American Poems. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence as a guest faculty member and is an online Professor at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute teaching Human Rights and Writing Art. She was a mentor/consultant for the poet-Linc program at Lincoln Center and directed a final show at Lincoln Center Atrium in 2016. She has recently presented at a symposium at NYU on Humor, Politics and the AIDs crisis. In summer 2016, she has received a residency at Denniston Hill and is an SAIC visiting artist in the MFA low residency program. She is completing a collection of short stories “Anna Mae/For Black Women Survivors,” and has a forthcoming chapbook Sweet Dreams with Belladonna2017.

Union Square Slam presents Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib and Team Selection Finals!
2017-04-18 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
!! TIME !! FOR !! TEAM !! SELECTION !! FINALS !!

featuring
HANIF WILLIS-ABDURRAQIB

ARE YOU READY FOR POEMS?!

6:30pm: Writing Workshop by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
7:45pm: Slam, First Round
8:30pm: Feature: Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
9:00pm: Slam, Second Round

Writing Workshop, by donation/pass-the-bag
Feature/Slam: suggested $7-$10, collected at door

* * * We’ll also be selling limited edition copies of Union Square Slam’s Inaugural Year Team Slam Chapbook — all proceeds go to getting the team to Nationals this year ♥ * * *
Bureau of General Services – Queer Division
(inside the LGBT Center)

208 W 13th St., #210 (btw 7th and 8th Ave)
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first collection of poems, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was released by Button Poetry in 2016. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, is forthcoming from Two Dollar Radio in winter 2017.

Open Love New York Poly Movie Night: Carrington
2017-04-20 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be meeting at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division which is located on the second floor of The LGBT Center, Room 210.
Please join us for Carrington (1995), directed by Christopher Hampton and starring Emma Thompson (Harry Potter) and Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones).
We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: “Who on earth is that ravishing boy?” asks writer Lytton Strachey when he first sees Carrington. Despite his initial disappointment that Carrington is not a boy, he becomes very fond of her while she falls in love with him. The film is based on the lives of the early twentieth-century painter Dora Carrington and gay Bloomsbury writer Lytton Strachey. Running time: 2 hours.
