BGSQD

In the Province of the Gods: Kenny Fries and Matthew Gallaway
2017-10-19 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | NY
Kenny Fries, who was born missing bones in his legs, travelled to Japan to explore how the Japanese view people with disabilities. In Japan, he discovered (it’s almost a rumor) a god with a disability, although whether he’s Shinto or Buddhist is unclear. Fries returned to Japan a second time, but before arriving, he is diagnosed with HIV.
Fries’s HIV diagnosis shakes up all of his assumptions about Japan, the body, and mortality and he is propelled to a new understanding of how to live with the constant knowledge of impermanence and threat of loss. In the end, not only was Japan the right place to discover a culture unlike his own, but Japan was also the perfect place to learn how to re-conceive and re-enter his life.
Author Matthew Gallaway joins Fries in conversation.

Copies of Kenny Fries’s In the Province of the Gods and In the Gardens of Japan are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!
This event is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Photo by Michael R. Dekker
Kenny Fries is the author of, most recently, In the Province of the Gods, as well as Body, Remember: A Memoir and The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory, winner of the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. He is the editor of Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out and author of the libretto for The Memory Stone, an opera commissioned by Houston Grand Opera.

Matthew Gallaway is the author of #gods — described by Lambda Literary as “epic” and “riveting” — and The Metropolis Case, which was praised by the New York Times for being “driven by exuberance and morbidity, fatalism and erotic energy.” He lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City with his partner and four cats.

TELL 37: HalloQween
2017-10-14 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.
Dusty Childers is the special guest host of TELL 37!
HalloQween is the theme of the 37th installment of TELL. Featuring Katharine Case, Poison Eve, and Princess Flicky.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Dusty Childers (Dusty Tea Shoulders/ @duddylynn) directs, dramaturges, conjures costumes, speaks their truth in front of audiences, drags it up periodically, and instructs the future via the classroom. Childers’ body and body of work have graced the likes of Joe’s Pub, Abrons, The Whitney, Dixon Place, BAM, La Mama, the Soho Playhouse, Sid Gold’s Request Room, NY Live Arts, Irving Plaza, House of Yes, BAM, The Mix Festival, Bureau of General Services Queer Division, The Edinborough Fringe Festival and St. Ann’s Warehouse. He has worked with Justin Sayre, Taylor Mac, Heather Acs, Mister Wallace, Big Dipper, Miguel Gutierrez, Silas Howard, World Famous *BOB* and Amber Martin (among others).

Katharine Case started publishing an anarcho-feminist zine at the age of 14 in Phoenix. She has used writing as her primary tool for stirring shit up ever since. She moved to San Francisco in her 20s where she did regular readings at rancid bars as the token feminist party girl columnist for the seminal punk magazine, Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll. She currently resides in New York, where she’s spent the last ten years teaching English at a public school where she helps complicated kids find their own voices.

Poison Eve:
Creator, Destroyer, Shredder and petty thief. Boylesque, draglesque, performance art and puppeteer. A rare carnivorous night-blooming lily – flaunting neither falsies nor realies, this downtown stalwart has performed in Blacklips Performance Cult, the Jackie 60 factory, and such spaces as the Wild Project, PS122, HERE, Howl!, St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Guggenheim, and (remarkably) both The Cock and The Hole!

Princess Flicky aka Hollywood South aka Cape Middleton aka Courtney Love Kardashian reigns over Ptown and Nola throwing the most lavish shindigs thru out the continental USA. Currently owns a Blackberry, former Sidekick 2 owner. Mother to little Willie Nelson (puppy) and favors all shades of pink and denim Loves vodka and good lighting

XXO Reading featuring DJ Ashtrae & all his Friends
2017-10-13 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Triple Love Reading series (XXO) began as a dirty dream in a twisted era. It celebrates the ways poets struggle with and make out the world. It also aspires to mix different communities in NYC. XXO is funded in part by the Greater Los Angeles Cotton Candy Fortune.

In the summer of 2016, DJ Ashtrae (Joshua Escobar) graduated from the Master of Fine Art program at Bard College where he was the Dean’s Fellow in Writing, as well as the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Merit Fellow. His first collection, Caljforkya Voltage, winner of 2017 No, Dear/Small Anchor Press Chapbook Competition, launched this September. He is a CantoMundo fellow. He lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn with dj lil piñata. IG: djashtrae17.

Carina del Valle Schorske is a poet, essayist, and Spanish language translator at large in New York City. Her work has appeared at the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Yorker online, Lit Hub, Boston Review, New York Magazine, The Offing, Washington Square, and elsewhere. She recently won Gulf Coast’s 2016 Prize for her translations of the Puerto Rican poet Marigloria Palma. She is the happy recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, the MacDowell Colony, and Columbia University, where she is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature. carinadelvalleschorske.tumblr.com /Twitter: @fluentmundo / IG: @psycheandstupid

María Fernanda Snellings is an award-winning poet from Washington, D.C. Her poems & translations have appeared in Luna Luna Magazine, The Wide Shore, Kweli Journal & elsewhere. In 2017, she received fellowships from Callaoo Writers Workshop and CantoMundo. María Fernanda is a Black-Ecuatoriana and a proponent of open-lingual space.

Omotara James writes and lives in New York City. Her poetry chapbook, Daughter Tongue, was selected by African Poetry Book Fund in collaboration with Akashic Books for the 2018 New Generation African Poets Box Set. Her work has appeared in The Recluse, Winter Tangerine, Cosmonauts Avenue and elsewhere. She is a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow and has been awarded scholarships by the Home School and Cave Canem. Her awards include the Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Award. Her debut full length collection, Mama Wata is forthcoming from CCM press. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at NYU. www.omotarajames.com /@omotarajames (IG, twitter)

Mel Elberg is a cyclical homosexual garden variety poet at large.

Tanya Zamirouskaya was born in Borisov, USSR, Soviet Belarus. Zamirouskaya writes surreal short stories about memory, ghosts, alienation and language deprivation. Her literary works have been published in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, where she worked as a journalist and music critic. She is the author of two short stories collections, Life Without Noise And Pain (2010, Moscow, AST Publishing House) and Sparrow River (2015, Moscow, AST Publishing House). She is currently attempting to write in English in order to study the effects of the language insufficiency on memory, narration, and representation. In 2017 Zamirouskaya finished her MFA in writing at Bard College. She lives in New York City.

It Makes Me Whole
2017-10-12 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join us for an evening of films by artist Doug Ischar. In conjunction with his show of drawings at the Bureau, Love me Tender, Jared Buckhiester presents three of Ischar’s works BRB, Alone With You, and Tristes Tarzan. A new collaborative film by John Neff and Steve Reinke will be screened as an introduction to the program.
The screening will begin shortly after 7 pm.
Total Run Time 69min.

Image: Still from Alone With You,

Since the early 1990s, Doug Ischar has worked in sound, video, and photography. His work has evolved from large-scale multimedia installations to single-channel videos that address issues surrounding gay identity, desire, and loss. Currently an associate professor of photography at the University of Illinois, Chicago, he has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Photographers Gallery, London; L.A.C.E., Los Angeles; and Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo.

John Neff is a Chicago based artist working with photography, installation, and video. His works have been shown at Artists Space, New York; Donald Young Gallery, Chicago; Golden Gallery, Chicago and New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. Neff is a founding curatorial board member of Chicago’s Iceberg Projects and codirector of the Ravenswood Elementary School Curatorial Practice Program. In 2016, he served as a consulting curator to the Chicago iteration of the traveling exhibition “Art AIDS America” at Alphawood Gallery. His co-edited volume Militant Eroticism: The Art+Positive Archives is forthcoming from Sternberg Press.

Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his videos. His work is screened widely and is in several collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Pompidou (Paris), and the National Gallery (Ottawa). Born in a village in northern Ontario, he is currently associate professor of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University. In the 1990’s he produced the ambitious omnibus The Hundred Videos (1996), and a book of his scripts, Everybody Loves Nothing: Scripts 1997-2005 was published by Coach House (Toronto). He has also co-edited several books, including By the Skin of Their Tongues: Artist Video Scripts (co-edited with Nelson Henricks, 1997), Lux: A Decade of Artists’ Film and Video (with Tom Taylor, 2000), and The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema (with Chris Gehman, 2005).

Gender-fluidly Yours: an Evening of Queer Non-binary Non-Fiction with Hida Viloria & Jeffrey Marsh
2017-10-11 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Non-binary pioneers Hida Viloria and Jeffrey Marsh will discuss and read from their respective books, Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hida Viloria, Hachette Books) and How to Be You (Jeffrey Marsh, Penguin Random House), with a Q & A to follow.

Born Both: An Intersex Life and How to Be You are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Hida Viloria is a Latinx writer and LGBTQIA activist in the vanguard of bringing intersex and non-binary issues to human rights organizations as a consultant (United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Lambda Legal), and to the masses as a frequent television and radio guest (Oprah, 20/20, NPR, BBC…) and one of the most extensively published writers in the field (HuffPost, The Daily Beast, The Advocate, The NY Times, Ms….). Hida spearheaded the first global call by and for intersex human rights, was the first openly intersex person invited to speak at the UN, and is a leader in the fight for non-binary gender recognition with the non-profit s/he founded, the Intersex Campaign for Equality, and as the recipient of the second intersex birth certificate in the U.S.. This spring, s/he was interviewed by Rolling Stone, Psychology Today, and NPR about her memoir Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hachette Books), which was selected as one of People’s best new books and praised by The NY Times, The Washington Post, and more, and is the first book by an intersex author published by a Big 5 publisher.

Jeffrey Marsh, author of ‘How to Be You’ from Penguin Random House, is an LGBTQ activist and icon whose message of inclusion and acceptance has amassed over 300 MILLION views on social media. Named ‘Viner of the Year’ by CBS, Jeffrey has 500k+ fans on their social channels, and is the creator of the global trends #NoTimeToHateMyself and #DontSayThatsSoGay. Jeffrey is a regular contributor, writer, and on-air host for Snapchat Stories, Facebook Live, O Magazine, Oprah.com, TIME.com, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Mashable, and Mom.me, to name a few. Other notable achievements include Jeffrey as social media ambassador/correspondent for MTV/LOGO, VH1, GLSEN, GLAAD and PFLAG. As a fashion model, Jeffrey changed the garment industry by becoming the first gender non-binary bride in a bridal gown lookbook. Jeffrey is the first non-binary author with Penguin Random House, and the first multi-hyphenate talent to use ‘they/them’ pronouns (as opposed to he/she/his/her’). Jeffrey’s fans are updated regularly on their self-acceptance fan club app, available in the Apple App Store and Google Play, and Jeffrey will soon be seen as the fashion model for their own line of genderfluid clothing.

How to Unsilence the Silenced: Karen Tintori's Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family
2017-10-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Karen Tintori, author of Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family, reads and shares research techniques in how to exhume tragic family stories. Annie Lanzillotto hosts and runs the Q & A.

“Nearly every family has a skeleton in the closet, an ancestor who sins against custom and tradition and pays a double price–ostracism or worse at the time, and obliteration from the memory of succeeding generations. Few of these transgressors paid a higher price than Frances Costa, who was brutally murdered by her own brothers in a 1919 Sicilian honor killing in Detroit. And fewer yet have had a more tenacious successor than Frances’ great niece, Karen Tintori, who refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the conviction that all history, in the end, is family history.” — Frank Viviano, author of “Blood Washes Blood”

Copies of Unto the Daughters are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Karen Tintori is an American author of fiction and nonfiction. Her books cover a wide range of human experience, from the mysteries of the Kabbalah to the lives of Italian American immigrants. Her books include: “Unto the Daughters: the legacy of an honor killing in a Sicilian American Family,” and “Trapped, the 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster.” She writes both as a solo author and in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author Jill Gregory with whom she wrote: “The Book of Names,” and “The Illumination,” among others. For more info: www.karentintori.com

Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is the author of “L is for Lion: an Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Mfemoir” and the book of poetry “Schistsong.” Forthcoming in March is Annie’s double book: “Hard Candy: caregiving, mourning and stagelight” and “Pitch Roll Yaw.” As a singer/songwriter, Annie’s albums include: “Blue Pill,” “Swampjuice: Yankee With a Southern Peasant Soul,” “Never Argue With a Jackass,” “Carry My Coffee.” For more info: www.annielanzillotto.com

AUTO ROBO ECO: Readings
2017-10-08 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
AUTO ROBO ECO is a reading for an informal group of writers and artists of various genres writing into the question of selfhood in context. Many of us are interested in thinking through experience as a way to discover or contextualize theory, politics, community, marginalization, body, philosophy, literature, family narratives, art history, transness, queerness, comedy, illness, identity, immigration, feminism, sexuality, and performance. Our little group is celebrating one year of dinners and workshops and processy check ins, and are excited to share what we’ve made. We will be reading a selection of our work.

Andrew Blevins is a writer from North Georgia. His essays have been featured in Real Life, The Point, n+1 online, and Crazyhorse. But he might be reading some fiction. He said for me to tell you, “Hey.”

Jacqueline Feldman is a writer living in New York who also works in artificial intelligence. She has contributed most recently to The New Yorker online, Real Life, and The White Review. Her research interests include the architecture of precariousness in Paris and psychological development and gender as they pertain to bots.

Jess Goldschmidt writes for performance and also nonfiction. She lives in Glendale, CA and Brooklyn, NY. jessgoldschmidt.com

Ethan Philbrick is a writer and composer. He recently completed a dissertation at the department of Performance Studies at NYU entitled Group Work and his compositions have been performed in New York at the Skirball Center, Grey Art Gallery, and Abrons Arts Center.

Chloé Rossetti is an artist, writer, performer, director, and sensuality educator. Their creative work lives at the intersection of ecology, collectivism, agency, pleasure, rewilding, sensuality, and love. They are a staff writer for Luna Luna magazine, and have written for Huffpost, RENDER, artforum.com, The Brooklyn Rail, and The American Reader. chloerossetti.com

Buzz Slutzky is an artist, writer, and curator whose practice incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, and video. Their visual art and writing often play between autobiographical and historical content, often comedically. Buzzslutzky.com

A note on the event image:
This is an illustration of Patricia Highsmith by Buzz Slutzky related to their memoir, which uses The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith as a backdrop to the narrative.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Wild Side
2017-10-04 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Wild Side (2004), directed by Sébastien Lifshitz and starring Stéphanie Michelini, Yasmine Belmadi, and Edouard Nikitine.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The 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: Stéphanie, who is transgender, and her lovers Djamel and Mikhail survive in Paris by sex work and dishwashing. When Stéphanie learns that her mother is ill, the three of them travel to her childhood village to care for her and examine the past. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In French and Russian with English subtitles.

In An Object, Love Is The Subject, or: Caregiver Caretaker
2017-09-30 17:00 - 19:30 | NY
Please join us for a reading in honor of artist Jared Buckhiester’s solo show of drawings at the Bureau, Love Me Tender.

Featuring Masha Tupitsyn, Jeffrey Berg, and Jameson Fitzpatrick.
Hosted and mc’d by Charity Coleman.

An event commemorating longing, desire, affection, and yes, love.
Reading begins shortly after 5 pm.

Jeffery Berg grew up in Six Mile, South Carolina and Lynchburg, Virginia. He received an MFA from NYU. His poems have appeared in Impossible Archetype, El Balazo Press, glitterMOB, the Leveler, and Court Green. A Virginia Center of the Creative Arts fellow, Jeffery lives in Brooklyn and blogs at jdbrecords.

Masha Tupitsyn is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of books like Love Dog, LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film, and Beauty Talk & Monsters. In 2015, she made Love Sounds, a 24-hour audio-essay and history of love in English-speaking cinema, which concluded an immaterial trilogy. She recently completed the first installment–the 1970s–of her new durational film, DECADES, on the history of sound and score in cinema. She teaches film and literature at The New School.

Jameson Fitzpatrick’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, and elsewhere. A 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Poetry, he is the author of the chapbook Morrisroe: Erasures (89plus/LUMA Publications) and teaches writing at NYU.

Event image: Photograph by Garry Winogrand

Four Way Books & Friends Fall 2017 Launch Reading
2017-09-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join us for a poetry reading with Four Way Books author Maggie Anderson (Dear All, 2017) and friend of the press Stephen Motika (Western Practice, Alice James Books 2012).

Just the Queer Parts: Readings from Vanishing New York
2017-09-28 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
From The Rawhide to Folsom Street East, blogger and author Jeremiah Moss reads from the queer parts of his celebrated new book, Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul. Signing to follow.
Copies of Vanishing New York are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Jeremiah Moss is the creator of the award-winning blog Vanishing New York. His writing on the city has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and online for The New Yorker and The Paris Review.

Healing with Ayahuasca and San Pedro: a gay shaman's perspective
2017-09-27 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
To celebrate the recent publication of his books Javier Regueiro is offering this evening talk to share his view and experiences working with both Ayahuasca and San Pedro/Huachuma in Peru over the last 13 years. More specifically he will be sharing stories from his own healing journey as a gay man, exploring the themes of sexual shame and guilt, and the importance of sexual healing as a gateway to self-empowerment and physical, emotional, and mental health.

Javier Regueiro is a gay Spanish plant medicine person/shaman born and raised in Switzerland. He is a certified Massage Therapist (Swedish Institute of Massage Therapy, New York City), Rebirther (Body Electric School, Oakland, CA) and Avatar Master. In 2004 he moved to study Amazonian plant medicine and shamanism, and has apprenticed with various teachers in the Iquitos and Pucallpa areas. Since 2006 he has been conducting his healing work with Ayahuasca and San Pedro/Huachuma at his own Ayaruna Healing Center in Pisac, Peru. He is the author of “Ayahuasca: Soul Medicine of the Amazon Jungle” and “San Pedro/Huachuma: Opening the Pathways of the Heart”, which will be published by Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press in the Fall of 2017.

CopWatch Training
2017-09-23 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
CopWatch is an effective and legal tool for empowering communities, ending police misconduct, unprofessional behavior, and discrimination. You have the right to observe and record all police activities in public places. Learn how to exercise your rights safely and legally. Workshop will be taught by comedian and activist Elsa Waithe. Suggested donation of $5 to $10, but no one will be turned away.

Spread the word!!!

“What to do if you’re stopped by the police”: a handy guide from the New York Civil Liberties Union. Print it out. Share it widely. Keep it with you. And you can find other “know your rights” cards (in English and Spanish) here.

Becoming Your Inner Black Cat: Writing the Surrealist Memoir
2017-09-16 11:00 - 13:00 | NY
We’ll meet for a 2-hour workshop where we’ll generate new work, experiment with genre (How could magical realism or surrealist elements help us tell a difficult story? What ARE the boundaries between fact and fiction?) and structure, take writing we’ve already drafted or new writing through thought-provoking revision stations, and break ourselves out of any worn-out limits. Bring something you’ve been working on or just show up with your computer–or pen and paper.

This workshop is open to writers of all experience levels! Limited to 20 participants. RSVP by emailing wren@feministpress.org by September 1st.

Ariel Gore is the author of nine previous books of fiction and nonfiction and is the founding editor of Hip Mama. She’s won an American Alternative Press Award, a Rainbow Award, and a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her stories and articles have appeared in Psychology Today, The Rumpus, Ms., Salon, and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland and Santa Fe and teaches online at Ariel Gore’s School for Wayward Writers, literarykitchen.com.

Opening Reception for Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender
2017-09-15 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender. Spanning the last decade, Love Me Tender surveys Jared Buckhiester’s exploration of conflicted desires and the American archetypes that anchor them. Curated by David Getsy, this exhibition presents a selection inclusive of the artist’s varied and emotionally-invested approach to the medium of drawing. A catalogue including an essay by the curator will accompany the exhibition. Additionally, writer and poet Charity Coleman will present an evening of readings on September 30th, and Jared Buckhiester will present and screen the films of Doug Ischar on October 12th.
Jared Buckhiester: Love Me Tender will be on view at the Bureau September 15—November 12, 2017.
Download a PDF of this press release.

Jared Buckhiester is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. He has a BFA in photo from Pratt and an MFA in Sculpture from Bard College. Jared makes everything but painting, combining biographical psychosexual material with the ever-present narratives of political violence. Jared has had exhibitions at Envoy Enterprises; Feature Inc.; Gallerie Du Jour, Paris; Thomas Rehbein, Cologne; and at The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in Lille France. Jared has been the recipient of awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, The Albert K Murray Foundation, and The Dedalus Foundation for the Arts. https://www.jaredbuckhiester.com

David J. Getsy is the Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He writes about queer and transgender strategies in modern and contemporary art and in art history’s methodologies. He has published seven books, most recently Abstract Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender (Yale, 2015) and the anthology of artists’ writings, Queer (MIT, 2016). His current projects involve archive-based recoveries of queer and genderqueer performance practices from the 1970s. He is currently completing a book on Scott Burton’s queer postminimalism and performance in the 1970s and, for the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, curating the first retrospective of costume and performance artist Stephen Varble. https://www.saic.edu/~dgetsy.

Red Hen Press Presents: Judy Grahn & More!
2017-09-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Red Hen Press authors t’ai freedom ford, Celeste Gainey, Dean Kostos, Heather Aimee O’Neill, Jason Schneiderman in celebration of Hanging On Our Own Bones, the new poetry collection from LGBTQ and feminist icon/activist Judy Grahn.

Judy Grahn is a poet, writer, and social theorist. She currently serves as Research Faculty for the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. She is former director of Women’s Spirituality MA and Creative Inquiry MFA programs at New College of California. Her books include love belongs to those who do the feeling (Red Hen Press, 2008), Blood, Bread, and Roses (Beacon Press, 1994), Edward the Dyke and Other Poems (The Women’s Press Collective, 1971), and Hanging On Our Own Bones (forthcoming from Red Hen Press, 2017).

t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow, and Pushcart Prize nominee. She received her MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. In 2014, she was the winner of The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest judged by Evie Shocklee and is a 2015 Center for Fiction Fellow. She won the 2015 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize from A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO). Her fiction has appeared in Black Ivy, The Brooklyn Review, Bronx Biannual, and Kweli, and her poetry has appeared in Drunken Boat, Sinister Wisdom, No, Dear, The African American Review, and more. Her first poetry collection, how to get over, will be released by Red Hen Press in the spring of 2017.

Celeste Gainey is the author of the poetry collection, the GAFFER, from Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. Her chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), was runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize. Graduating with a BFA in Film & Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, as well as earning an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, and has spent many years working with light in film and architecture.

Dean Kostos’s collections include Rivering (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012), Last Supper of the Senses (Spuyten Dyvil, 2005), The Sentence That Ends with a Comma (Painted Leaf Press, 1999), and Celestial Rust (Red Dust, 1994). He edited Mama’s Boy and Pomegranate Seeds. His work has appeared in leading journals: Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, and on Oxygen.com. Having taught at Wesleyan, The Gallatin School, and The City University of New York, he also wrote a libretto for Voices of Ascension, and his poem, “Subway Silk,” was translated into a short film by Jill Clark. He is also author of This Is Not a Skyscraper (Red Hen Press, 2015).

Heather Aimee O’Neill is a co-author of Obliterations, written with Jessica Piazza (Red Hen Press, 2016). She teaches writing at CUNY Hunter College and is the assistant director for the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, one of New York City’s most prominent writing workshop organizations.

Jason Schneiderman was born in San Antonio, Texas, but was raised around the United States and Western Europe. He holds BAs in English and Russian from the University of Maryland, an MFA from BYU, and a PhD from the Graduate Center of CUNY. He is the author of two previous collections of poems: Sublimation Point (Four Way Books, 2004) and Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press, 2010), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize. He is also the editor of the anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press, 2015). His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poetry, Verse Daily, The Poetry Review, and The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. Schneiderman has received Fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Yaddo, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and is the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and lives in Brooklyn with his husband, Michael Broder.

TELL 36: Past Lives
2017-09-09 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.
Past Lives is the theme of the 36th installment of TELL. Featuring Dusty Childers, Shannon Matesky, Reilly Owens, and F. Squire.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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

The only way Dusty Childers has found to keep things out of his mouth is to continue talking. Given a time frame, a mic and an audience has helped make his nonstop banter more productive, and (according to those he’s paid off) somewhat entertaining. Although not tax deductible, being an audience member of a show in which Dusty is performing surely is a charitable moment. Feel good about yourself, and clap if you can muster it.

Shannon Matesky is an actress, writer, director, producer and an organizer from Berkeley, California. She is creator and curator of Queer Abstract, a monthly performance series in Brooklyn. As an actress Shannon has performed with a range of theater companies including The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, and The Inconvenience. She has been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and elsewhere. Shannon has produced campaigns and festivals across the United States, including the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, Life is Living, and The Fly Honey Show. Shannon currently works with Urban Word NYC. For more information visit www.shannonmatesky.com

Reilly Owens is a Queer Trans Woman of Color and her pronouns are she/hers. She is a student at Queens College where she studies Anthropology. Reilly loves to converse with people and her life’s story is a series of many adventures, and meeting with many people and seeing opportunities for growth, either for herself or the people she works with. Her current journey sees her growing into her skin with self-confidence and love for those around her. FUN FACT: One of her favorite breakfasts is peanut butter, apple butter, and bananas on a English Muffin.

F. Squire is a new poetess and resident of Brooklyn, believes in the physical prowess of spoken word. Their first selected work, Hairstory, was published in Glitter & Grit (A Lambda Literary Award Winner). This year, they were Judge’s Choice Winner at the Funhouse Follies Cabaret and performed at LGBT Voices for Queens Pride Festival. Their motto is “Embrace Your Spectacle.”

Book Launch for Mickey Aloisio’s ‘American Wildlife’
2017-09-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join Mickey Aloisio as he presents and signs copies of his latest book, American Wildlife. There will be a conversation mediated by independent curator and writer, Efrem Zelony-Mindell with Aloisio about the work, starting at 7:30 and will open Q&A with the audience directly after.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
American Wildlife is the outcome of a trip where Aloisio spent three months on the road photographing queer men and their communities across the country during the fall of 2016. During this time, he found his subjects by going to the different safe spaces of that particular area. Aloisio would then arrange to go to their home to create art with them as two collaborators.
Each book is a first edition copy of 100. The book is 90 pages, soft cover with a foreword by Efrem Zelony-Mindell. Each signed copy will be sold for $50 and a limited edition print sale (25) of the book + an 8×10 signed archival pigment print will also be available for $100.

Mickey Aloisio is an American born artist who is currently based in Queens, NY. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a concentration on photography in 2016. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Aloisio addresses ideas of sexuality, vulnerability and identity with an expressive and sincere approach.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
2017-09-06 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), directed by Stephen Frears, written by Hanif Kureishi, and starring Frances Barber, Ayub Khan-Din, Shashi Kapoor, Claire Bloom, Roland Gift, and Meera Syal.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The 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: While their London neighborhood erupts with violence sparked by the police killing of a black woman, middle-class couple Sammy and Rosie cope with a visit from Sammy’s father Rafi, a former politician with an unsavory past. He disapproves of their friends and their open marriage. TW: suicide, torture. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.

USS presents IWPS Qualifier !
2017-09-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is returning with an IWPS qualifier.
IWPS is the Individual World Poetry Slam presented by PSi, in Spokane Washington this year October 11-14th.
There will be NO OPEN MIC.
Four rounds:
4 minute
1 minute
2 minute
3 minute
Sign-ups at 7pm SHARP
all ages // wheelchair accessible // admission $5-10

Bureau closed Sundays and Tuesdays in July and August
2017-08-29, 2017-08-27, 2017-08-22, 2017-08-20, 2017-08-15, 2017-08-13, 2017-08-08 | NY
The Bureau will be closed on Sundays and Tuesdays in July and August. Our summer hours are Wednesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 7 PM.

Reception for #youdonthave2banancy tees at the Bureau!
2017-08-19 16:30 - 18:30 | NY
Join us for a welcoming reception for the new #youdonthave2banancy tee-shirts at the Bureau! Stop by and check out the tee-shirts and bags and say hello to the artist who makes them, Stephen Anton!

Disclosure: Michael Broder, Donna Minkowitz, Julene Tripp Weaver
2017-08-12 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Three writers read poetry and memoir about their experiences of disease and disability with an emphasis on the complex, difficult, and fraught issues of DISCLOSURE—to lovers, friends, family, employers, and the larger community.

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

Donna Minkowitz‘s magical realist memoir, Growing Up Golem, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for the Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award. Her first memoir, Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters with the Right Taught Me about Sex, God, and Fury, won a Lammy. A former columnist for the Village Voice and The Advocate, she’s also written for Slate, The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, and Salon. She is the restaurant critic for Gay City News.

Julene Tripp Weaver is a native New Yorker who moved to Seattle in 1989. A psychotherapist, she worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. She is the author of truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007); a poem from this book was featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. She has poems published in: Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and elsewhere; a creative nonfiction piece about the night Jimi Hendrix died is published by Yellow Chair Press, In The Words of Women International 2016 Anthology. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.

OLNY's Poly Movie Night: Amorous
2017-08-09 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. This month we’ll be at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Amorous (2014), directed by Joanna Coates and starring Josh O’Connor, Hannah Arterton, Rea Mole, and Daniel Metz.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The 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: Young strangers–Max, Charlotte, Leah, and Jack–leave London for an isolated cottage where they attempt to build an intentional community of four. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes.
