BGSQD

Author Leslie L. Smith Reads from and Speaks about his new book Sally Field Can Play the Transsexual
2014-07-16 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Author Leslie L. Smith will read from and speak about his new book Sally Field Can Play the Transsexual
A serio-comic tale of sex, loss, redemption and pharmaceuticals in the modern AIDS era, Leslie L. Smith’s Sally Field is a coming-of-age story about one lost soul on a journey to find himself and his community.
But it’s also a saga about the last 25 years of gay and AIDS culture. A volume of bruising honesty and heartfelt emotion, Smith’s novel takes an unflinching look at difficult questions: safer sex, barebacking, personal responsibility, current treatments — and why HIV has once more become a rising threat among gay men.

Leslie L. Smith received his MA in Educational Theater and a BA in Creative Writing, both at New York University.
His 1997 film “David Searching,” starring Anthony Rapp, Camryn Manheim, and Julie Halston, was screened at more than 65 film festivals across the world and also had a British release. “David Searching” now belongs to the permanent collection at the Outfest Legacy Project/UCLA film archive. A New York City theatre producer, Smith is a member of the League of Off-Broadway Theaters and Producers and previously served on the Administration Committee for the Lucille Lortel Awards.
Smith is the editor of “Leaving The Rest: Gay Men On Alcoholism, Addiction, And Sobriety,” available from Magnus/Riverdale Avenue Books. He has written for numerous publications, including Premiere, Movieline, OUT, POZ magazine and The Advocate.
The author divides his time between New York City and the Jersey Shore.

Poetry Reading with Greg Wrenn, Billy Merrell, & Paul Legault
2014-07-17 19:00 - 21:00
Three emerging gay poets will read from their latest collections: Greg Wrenn (Centaur), Billy Merrell (Talking in the Dark), and Paul Legault (The Other Poems and The Emily Dickinson Reader).

Greg Wrenn is the author of Centaur (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). A Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, he has received the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and a Stegner Fellowship. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2014, The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book of linked essays about coral reefs, the impermanence of beauty, and human destiny. (gregwrenn.com)

Billy Merrell is the author of Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir (Scholastic, 2003), and co-editor of The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing about GLBTQ, and Other Identities (Knopf, 2006), which received a Lambda Literary Award. Merrell also writes for children, and is a contributor to Spirit Animals: Tales of the Great Beasts, part of the New York Times bestselling series. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Find him online at www.talkinginthedark.com.

Paul Legault is the author of three books of poetry: The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn 2010), The Other Poems (Fence, 2011), and The Emily Dickinson Reader (McSweeney’s, 2012). He co-edits Telephone Books, an imprint of Nightboat Books focused on works of radical translation. Currently he is a Writer in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis, and can be found here: www.theotherpaul.com.

Emanuel Xavier hosts an evening with Studs
2014-07-18 19:00 - 22:00
Studs: Gay Erotic Fiction
Edited by Richard Labonte, foreword by Emanuel Xavier

The event will feature contributors:
Charlie Vazquez
Lee Houck
Sam J. Miller
Emanuel Xavier

Rough and surly, smooth and sultry, or quick and raw — however you like it, you’ll find it in Studs, 20 of the hottest and best-written man-to-man sex stories to appear in print this year. In “Underground Operator” two men on a nearly empty subway platform indulge in rough, anonymous sex that lets them momentarily forget the stifling summer heat. “Donuts to Demons” finds a self-described “rock-n-roll artfag” searching for a lover “as patient and gifted and generous as he advertised on Craigslist.”

Charlie Vázquez is a writer and freelance editor, as well as the director of the Bronx Writers Center and New York City coordinator for Puerto Rico’s Festival de la Palabra. He is the CCO of Editorial Trance, an e-publishing platform, and is currently working on a novel and accompanying short stories set in the Puerto Rican terror/suspense genre.

Lee Houck was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and, in 2014, celebrates 16 years of living in New York City. His poems, essays, interviews and stories have appeared online and in print in the US, France and Australia, and in three limited-edition chapbooks. His debut novel, Yield, was the winner of Project QueerLit 2008, and was published by Kensington Books in 2010. More at www.LeeHouck.com

Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lightspeed, Shimmer, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, The Minnesota Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He is a graduate of the 2012 Clarion Writer’s Workshop, a 2014 nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award, and the co-editor of Horror After 9/11, an anthology published by the University of Texas Press. Visit him at www.samjmiller.com

Emanuel Xavier is author of the poetry collections Nefarious, Pier Queen, Americano: Growing up Gay and Latino in the U.S.A., If Jesus Were Gay & other poems and the novel, Christ Like. An LGBT History Month Icon, he also edited the anthologies Me No Habla With Acento- Contemporary Latino Poetry and Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry. He appeared twice on HBO’s Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry and continues to perform regularly throughout the country and around the world as a spoken word poet. He selected finalists and wrote the foreword for Studs. www.emanuelxavier.com

regarding JEF+KEV//SIM: a Happening @ BGSQD
2014-07-30 21:00
An interactive and delusional commercial for the upcoming premiere of the play JEF+KEV//SIM. About Dahmer, midwestern queer traumas, and meth-fueled seropositivity sorcery, this happening gives a glimpse into the interconnected stories JEF+KEV//SIM presents. A pair of complimentary tickets will be rewarded to one lucky person for the intragalactic premiere of JEF+KEV//SIM. Written and performed by Randal Barnett.

Randal Barnett is an actor and artist from the Pacific Northwest. He is sometimes called RJ.

Opening of the Exhibition En,leak’in/ment Four/For/4/Fore 5/Five Wa’heeks & Other Men’chin;able Sight/Site-Specific Tran’sss-actions
2014-07-31 13:00 - 14:00
Opening of the exhibition En,leak’in/ment Four/For/4/Fore 5/Five Wa’heeks & Other Men’chin;able Sight/Site-Specific Tran’sss-actions.
Emory Sight has, until now, worked exclusively with accidental audiences and businessMEN. While arranging flowers they tug on their hair in the hopes of guilt free sleep.
En,leak’in/ment Four/For/4/Fore 5/Five Wa’heeks & Other Men’chin;able Sight/Site-Specific Tran’sss-actions is in diverted spaces — not/knot in diverted places.
The exhibition will run through Sunday, September 7th.

A Reading and Discussion with Mark Zubro
2014-07-31 19:00 - 21:00
Mark Zubro is the author of 28 novels:
25 gay mysteries –
13 – in the Tom and Scott series
11 – in the Paul Turner series
1 – stand alone thriller – Foolproof
1 – gay young adult mystery
2 – in a gay science fiction series

When not writing he spends his time reading, napping, and eating chocolate

TELL 5: Without a Net
2014-08-01 19:00 - 21:00
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.
Without a Net is the theme of the fifth installment of TELL.

Penny Arcade aka Susana Ventura occupies a unique position in the American counter-culture and the American avant-garde. She is an internationally respected writer, poet, and she is one of the handful of artists who created contemporary text based Performance Art beginning in the 1980’s. She has continued to define Performance Art for nearly three decades, She is particularly known for her high content, complex, long form performance pieces. Her contributions to American experimental theatre began in her teens and she has left her mark on every decade from the 1960’s to the present. Her work has always focused on the human condition , on the other and the outsider, giving voice to those marginalized by society. Her decades long focus on creation of community and inclusion as the goals of performance and her efforts to use performance as a transformative act mark her as a true original. Many of her theatrical devices, not to mention her one liners , have passed into the mainstream. Her unique voice, marked by a great articulation of complex ideas still forming in the collective consciousness and her magnetic stage presence have given her mainstream career recognition far beyond America’s shores. In 2010 Semiotext(e) published a hard cover book on Penny Arcade’s Performance work Bad Reputation.
www.pennyarcade.tv pennyarcadenyc twitter pennyarcadesuperstar FB

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online and around town. www.draecampbell.com

Cecilia Gentili is a Trans-Latina originally from Argentina by way of Miami. She is currently the Trans* Health Program Coordinator at APICHA community health center. Cecilia has worked at the Gender Identity Project at the LGBT Center since 2011, as a volunteer, intern, and now consultant, facilitating groups, organizing, and working on prevention, harm reduction and self-empowerment, focusing mostly on undocumented Trans-Latinas, a reality she lived for many years. Ms Gentili is also a board member of “Transbodies” a nonprofit organization about to published a trans-resources guide book for trans-folks. She received her education at the National University of Rosario in Music studies and worked as a music teacher for special needs children.

Rosa Jurjevics is a writer, multimedia specialist, and product of New York City. Currently the owner/principal of the tiny-but-mighty Big Creature Media, Jurjevics spends most days editing video, animating critters, and removing (live-action) cats from the desk.

Elsa Waithe is a 26 year old comedian from Norfolk, Va. She’s a 3x winner of the ViRginia Beach Funnybone’s Clash of the Comics. Comedian, Actor, Motivational Speaker, Epicenter of every awesome party, and Inventor of the Nike Swoosh.

Screening of "Sergio and Simone," a film by Virginia de Medeiros--followed by a Q&A with the artist
2014-08-06 20:00 - 22:00
The film Sérgio e Simone (2009/2014), a work by the Brazilian artist Virginia de Medeiros selected for the 31st São Paulo Biennial (2014) and awarded by ICCo at the 18th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Videobrasil, documents the life of Simone, a transvestite who lived at the Ladeira da Montanha, in Salvador, capital of Bahia. Like most the residents of the borough, Simone was an avid drug user. However, after a crack overdose, she suffers a mystical delirium causing her to “find God” and circumvent death. From this episode onwards Simone abandons her identity as a transvestite, retakes her baptism name of Sérgio and becomes an avid evangelical preacher in a delirious quest to save humanity.
Virginia de Medeiros creates work that centers on documentary strategies, as a means to transgress mainstream accounts and to question the boundaries between reality and fiction. She deals with three themes within the field of art and documentary: dislocation, participation, and fabulation. Adapting documentary images and lived accounts, she employs the latter for subjective and conceptual use to revision the representation of reality and alterity. De Medeiros works primarily with video and audiovisual installations, always seeking to converge the language of art and media and expand the aesthetic and technological possibilities to engender new modes of expression.
Medeiros is a recipient of the 2014 ICCo residency award at the 18th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Videobrasil and is currently an artist in residency at Residency Unlimited.

NEWFANGLED 3: Robert Siek Introduces Lawrence Kaplun, Rickey Laurentiis, and Robert Whitehead
2014-08-08 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for the 3rd installment of NEWFANGLED, a series of poetry readings by young poets hosted by Robert Siek.
For NEWFANGLED 3 Siek introduces Lawrence Kaplun, Rickey Laurentiis, and Robert Whitehead.

LAWRENCE KAPLUN is from California, and received his B.A. in English from San Francisco State University. He has attended the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Program and the Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore. His poems appear in Sonora Review, Southern Humanities Review, Toad, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. He lives in Brooklyn.

RICKEY LAURENTIIS was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the recipient of a 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, a 2013 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a traveling fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy. His poems appear most recently in Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry magazine, and have been commissioned by the International Art Exhibition, Prospect.3 New Orleans. He lives in Brooklyn.

ROBERT WHITEHEAD received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and fellowships from the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets and The Ashbery Home School. His work appears or is forthcoming in Assaracus, Gulf Coast, Vinyl, ALL HOLLOW, Upstart, and elsewhere. He was born in Madagascar, reared in Rangoon, and currently lives in Park Slope.

ROBERT SIEK is a poet who lives in Brooklyn and works at a large publishing house in Manhattan. His poems most recently appear in The Good Men Project, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, as well as the anthology Between: New Gay Poetry. In 2002, the New School published his chapbook Clubbed Kid, and Purpose and Devil Piss, published by Sibling Rivalry Press, is his first full-length collection of poetry.

Vigil for Gaza: A Gathering to Mourn, Share and Unite
2014-08-14 19:30 - 21:30
In response to the devastation in Gaza, artists and queers gather to mourn the dead, connect with like-minded people and give voice to our feelings of grief and outrage. With contributions from M. Lamar, Pauline Park, Viva Ruiz, Luciana Achugar and more TBD, with a work-in-progress by Sarah Schulman, in absentia. Facilitated by Dan Fishback.

We’ll be accepting donations at the door for MECA – The Middle East Children’s Alliance, www.mecaforpeace.org

Photo of Palestinian woman in Gazan district of Beit Hanoun by Mohammed Abed / Getty Images

Night Gardener: Gio Black Peter
2014-08-15 22:00 - 2014-08-17 19:00
NIGHT GARDENER GIO BLACK PETER August 15-17 2014
Drawings and paintings; including the first glimpse of GBP’s 2014 COMMUNION portraits on wood.

Opening Reception Aug 15 / 10pm-3am

“The colorful and defiant universe of Gio Black Peter’s videos, songs, drawings and paintings, seep with humour, absurdity and fantasy, where misappropriations rule. Black Peter incarnates various fantasies, he is able to embody a multitude of characters, each a facet of the artist’s personality. His work remains anchored in reality, while diverting into satire and parody of politics and today’s world.” – Yann Perol

Midnight performance of; THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR
Performed by: Susanne Oberbeck, Brian Kenny, Gage of the Boone, Max Steele, Jordan Hall & Gio Black Peter with music by Gordon Beeferman.

During the 3 day run of the exhibition the Bureau will be offering an exclusive limited edition C-type print (only available in person). Each print is 8”x 5”, signed, dated and numbered on site by Gio Black Peter. Edition of 50. Also available will be a signed copy of GBP’s sophomore LP “The Virgin Shuffle”.

From August 16-17 Gio Black Peter will be doing a live photo shoot with his COMMUNION portraits. Everybody is welcome to participate. Each model will receive a copy of his/her shoot.

GBP Communion photo shoot dates: August 16 , 6pm-9pm / August 17, 3pm-6pm

Bureau Book Club #2: Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks
2014-08-20 19:00 - 21:00
The Bureau Book Club is a home for freewheeling discussion about the books and the issues that captivate us. Inspired by the conversations that break out after so many of the Bureau’s more formal events, we’ll have a one-hour session each month about a different work of fiction or non-fiction. Buy the book from the Bureau and get a 10% discount. We know you have busy lives: if you can’t finish the whole book, why not come and talk about the parts you’ve read? Just come prepared with a favorite quote. The Book Club discussions will be moderated by Ben Miller.
This month’s book will be Laurie Weeks‘ novel Zipper Mouth. Its publisher, The Feminist Press, calls out its “ranting letters to Judy Davis and Sylvia Plath, an unrequited fixation on a straight best friend, exalted nightclub epiphanies, devastating morning-after hangovers.” Michelle Tea calls it “a brilliant rabbit hole of pitch-black hilarity…and drugs, drugs, drugs.” What could be better for August?
———–
Ben Miller is a Brooklyn-based writer. Current projects include award-winning biographical research on early gay activist Harry Hay that has taken him to archives in California and conferences from Pennsylvania to New Mexico, an adaptation of an early Mozart libretto for performance at Carnegie Hall, serving as dramaturg for Circuit Theatre Company’s production of The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, and new short fiction influenced by his historical research. His teachers in history and writing have included Linda Gordon, K. Kevyne Baar, Marcelle Clements, and Jonathan Safran Foer. Ben is the winner of New York University’s Bessie and Louis Levy Prize for Excellence in American History, and was named Steffi Berne Research Scholar in the Humanities by the same institution. He is a co-founder of Squid Ink Magazine (launching soon), works as Web Associate at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and serves on the communications committee of the New York City LGBT Anti-Violence Project. He tweets @benwritesthings.

DEADLINE: Works-in-Progress from Cutting-edge Queer Artists AUGUST EDITION! w/Kelli Dunham, Kevin Ritter, Julie Aslop, Ariel Speedwagon and Sabrina Chap
2014-08-21 19:30 - 22:00
Post-Clown Disaster, Ariel Federow and Cabaret Idiot, Sabrina Chap bring you this new works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audiencefor the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
PRESENTING—————-—-
STAND UP/COMEDY STORYTELLING by KELLI DUNHAM!
“The piece is ostensibly about my botched knee replacement but really about trauma and how it gets stored in your body and how you can still learn to read your body’s signals.”
PERFORMANCE ARTIST – KEVIN RITTER!!
“”Kevin Ritter Plays Kevin Ritter” takes the subject of four people named Kevin Ritter: Kevin Ritter, the German; Kevin Ritter, the baseball coach; Kevin Ritter, the kitchen designer; and Kevin Ritter, the performance artist. This piece explores identity through mimicry, video, and original writing. A meditation in the form of a refracted palindrome.”
PERFORMANCE POET, JULIE ASLOP!!
“Susan, Susie and Suzanne are three versions of the same person. Their alter-realities begin slipping together when each receives a mysterious package The piece explores the political implications of boredom alongside themes of sexual and economic violence.”
MUSICAL BOOK REVIEW BY SABRINA CHAP
Sabrina Chap will do a musical book review of Madison Young’s new memoir, “Daddy”.
*****************************
Ariel “Speedwagon” Federow‘s work has been seen on Broadway, Lafayette, Houston, Chrystie, Fulton, N 6th, and other streets and avenue in NYC and beyond. Her stories, slideshows and slapstick have been seen places like LaMama ETC, Dixon Place, the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, Pussy Faggot, and Hey Queen! Company member: the Ballez and Butch Burlesque.
Deemed, ‘Rousing!’ by the New Yorker, Sabrina Chap is a writer, musician, cabaret artist and all around dilettante. Her latest album, the anthemic queer bonanza ‘We Are the Parade’ was deemed, ‘Joyous’ by the Advocate. She also edited the book, ‘Live Through This- On Creativity and Self-Destruction’, now with an intro by Amanda Palmer and essays by Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Swoon, Kate Bornstein and more. sabrinachap.com
Kelli Dunham [https://kellidunham.com/] is the genderqueer nurse-comic-author-ex-nun hybrid so common in modern Brooklyn. Kelli was one of Velvet Park Magazine’s 25 Significant Women of 2011, was named to the 2012 Campus Pride Hotlist and has appeared on Showtime and the Discovery Channel and nationwide at colleges, prides, fundraisers and even the occasional livestock auction. Kelli’s fifth book, Freak of Nurture [https://freakofnurture.org/] a collection of humorous essays published by Topside Press caused award-winning author Barbara Carellas to give Kelli the moniker “the David Sedaris of the queer world.”
Julie Alsop is a poet working in radio. Sometimes she has a Canadian accent.
Kevin Ritter is a queer playwright and performer. His performances include Lawn Play, Rebecca and Jeremiah: The Strange (Semi-Finalist, Indie Boots Theater Festival, 2013), The Cosmos (performed at Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Pandemonium” benefit, September 2013), Leave ‘Em Fallin’ Down, and Erato: a tragedy perhaps. He is a member of the Britomartis Devised Theater Ensemble; shows have included A Totally Real True-to-Life Play, harlot/nun, Mixtape, and, most recently, an adaption of Milton’s Paradise Lost. kevincritter.wordpress.com

East Coast Book Release Party for Sarah Fran Wisby's new book, the heart's progress. Reading with Sarah Fran Wisby, Amanda Davidson, and Dia Felix
2014-08-27 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for the East Coast Book Release Party for Sarah Fran Wisby‘s new book, the heart’s progress. Wisby will be joined by Amanda Davidson and Dia Felix.
What begins as an exercise in anthropomorphism quickly becomes a raucous joyride and moving confession. THE HEART’S PROGRESS’s pitch-perfect timing, dark hilarity, imaginative range, and spot-on insights into the spastic stations of the human heart perform a seduction so complete, I’m ready to follow Sarah Fran Wisby off a cliff — or at least, read everything she writes.
–Maggie Nelson, author of The Art Of Cruelty
Sarah Fran Wisby is the author of the heart’s progress and VIVA LOSS. She writes poetry, essays, pornography, novels, and status updates. She lives in San Francisco and works in the food trenches but is currently living out of her ’98 Lexus for three months on tour. See more pictures of her wearing fur and read her woefully outdated blog at www.sarahfranwisby.com.
Dia Felix is a writer and filmmaker who lives in New York. Her first novel, Nochita, was published by City Lights/Sister Spit, earlier this year.
Amanda Davidson’s chapbook Arcanagrams: A Reckoning is forthcoming on Little Red Leaves’ Textile Series. Her fiction chapbook Apprenticeship (New Herring Press) was a finalist for the 2013 Calvino Prize. She is currently at work on a performance novel about the mystic Swedenborg. She never knew how much a person could love one small dog.

Bold Strokes Books Reading: Mixed Grill
2014-09-04 19:00 - 22:00
Jane Hoppen, Jeremy Jordan King, Andrew J. Peters, Nora Olsen, Joel Gomez-Dossi, Daniel W. Kelly, Trinity Tam, and Nell Stark present a tasting platter of their freshest, most recent Bold Strokes Books novels. Here’s something to whet the appetite for all genres, all genders, and all interests.

Jane Hoppen‘s debut novel, In Between, was published by Bold Strokes Books in December 2013 and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her novella, The Man Who Was Not, was released in June 2014. Jane has also had stories published in a variety of literary magazines.

Jeremy Jordan King grew up on the Jersey Shore and studied theater at Marymount Manhattan College. His Immortal Testimonies series, published Bold Strokes Books, was listed in Advocate’s “Top 10 Books for Young LGBT Folks and Anyone Who Wants to Understand Them” and recommended by the American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table. He’s also a librettist.

Andrew J. Peters is an author, an activist and an educator. His published work includes the young adult fantasy The Seventh Pleiade and the Werecat series. While writing, Andrew has spent most of his career as a social worker for LGBT youth. He is an administrator and an adjunct professor at Adelphi University, and lives in Kew Gardens, NY with his husband and their cat Chloë.

Nora Olsen is the author of the YA novels Frenemy of the People, Swans & Klons, and The End: Five Queer Kids Save the World. Her next book, Maxine Wore Black, is forthcoming from Bold Strokes Books in October.

Joel Gomez-Dossi started his career as a theatrical stage manager. He then became a production manager and producer for PBS, and finally turned to freelance writing, working for regional publications across the country. He is the author of two novels published by Bold Strokes Books, Pursued and Deadly Cult.

Daniel W. Kelly is the author of the erotic horror novels Combustion, No Place for Little Ones, and Rise of the Thing Down Below. He is also creator of Boys, Bears & Scares, a website dedicated to gay male horror.

Nell Stark is an award-winning author of lesbian romance. The Princess Affair (2013) was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and in 2010, everafter (with Trinity Tam) won a Goldie award in the paranormal romance category. When she is not writing, Nell works as the Chair of English, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at a college in the SUNY system.

Trinity Tam is a marketing executive in the music industry and an award-winning writer/producer of film and television. She and Nell live, write, and parent their rambunctious child and dog a stone’s throw from the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City.

Across Genres, All Genres: A Night of Queer Writing
2014-09-05 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for an evening of multi-genre reading by today’s queer practitioners of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press). Her work has been widely anthologized and appears in publications including The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Glamour, Post Road, Salon, New York Times, Hunger Mountain, Portland Review, Dissent, and Bitch Magazine. The recipient of a 2013 Barbara Deming Memorial Fund artist grant, a 2012 Bread Loaf nonfiction fellowship, a 2014 Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellowship, and MacDowell Colony fellowships in 2010, 2011, & 2014, she is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Monmouth University and MFA faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). The daughter of a sea captain and a psychotherapist, she was raised on Cape Cod, and lives in Brooklyn.

Matthew Hittinger is the author of two poetry collections, The Erotic Postulate (2014) and Skin Shift (2012) both from Sibling Rivalry Press, and three chapbooks. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, has been adapted into art songs, and in 2012 Poets & Writers Magazine named him a Debut Poet on their 8th annual list. Matthew lives and works in New York City.

Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of Imago (CavanKerry Press) and two chapbooks: Aviary, Bestiary (Organic Weapon Arts), winner of the David Blair Memorial Prize, and Subways (Thrush Press). Recent works appeared in Poets.org, jubilat, The Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, BLOOM, and the anthology Coming Close (Prairie Lights/University of Iowa Press). He co-founded Kundiman (www.kundiman.org), a non-profit organization serving Asian American literature.

Shelly Oria was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Israel. Her short story collection, New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Random House Canada in November. Shelly’s fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, TriQuarterly, and fivechapters among other places, and won the Indiana Review Fiction Prize and a Sozopol Fiction Fellowship among other awards. A MacDowell Fellow in 2012 and 2014, Shelly holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, curates the series Sweet! Actors Reading Writers in the East Village, and teaches fiction at Pratt Institute, where she also co-directs the Writers’ Forum.

Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters
2014-09-06 19:00 - 21:00
Randy L. Schmidt will present and sign copies of his new book in the “Musicians in Their Own Words” series from Chicago Review Press Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters.

Reception at 7
Reading at 7:30

ABOUT THE BOOK: “It’s going to be one hell of a great—everlastingly great—book with humor, tears, fun, emotion, and love,” Judy Garland said of her plans to tell her life story. But she died at the age of forty-seven before seeing it through. Judy Garland on Judy Garland is the closest we will likely come to experiencing and exploring the legend’s abandoned autobiography. Collecting and presenting the most important Garland interviews and encounters that took place between 1935 and 1969, this work opens with her first radio appearance under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and concludes with her last known interview, one taped for Radio Denmark just months before her death. What makes this collection unique and distinguishes it from the plethora of Garland biographies is that it places Judy in the role of storyteller. She wrote a number of essays for various publications and sat for countless print, radio, and television interviews. These and the other autobiographical efforts she made are proof that Judy Garland wanted her story told, and wanted it told in her own words. Finally, here it is.

Randy L. Schmidt is the author of the acclaimed bestselling biography Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter and the editor of Yesterday Once More: The Carpenters Reader. He has also written articles for the Advocate and the Observer. He lives in Denton, Texas

12th NIGHTed - A READING
2014-09-07 19:00 - 22:00
12th NIGHTed by Patrick Thomas McCarthy – A reading….. On the 12th day/night of Christmas your true love brings to me, many kinds of pasta, one butler braying and one golden ring. And they’ll all come out of an Italian pear tree in the world of swinging 1960’s Little Italy, NYC, USA, with loons in the trees & fortunes to be made. Sexual confusion, two sets of twins, schermo a scamparsas [folding screens], and otherworldly voices [forgive me Thornton Wilder] make for a farce of epic proportions. Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT shot out of a confetti cannon.

1st table read of 12th NIGHTed Sunday Jan 5, 2014 on the actual 12th night of Christmas

Patrick Thomas McCarthy is an actor/director/playwright who has called NYC home since 1995. The Fresh Fruit Festival NYC has been his proving ground for the past two seasons with awards as Best Playwright and Best Ensemble Acting for both PRIDE RIVER CROSSING: A Spoon River for a New Century; and sExtOrtiOn a cautionary tale of teen sexting suggested by national news making events. His Midwestern roots include high school English teaching and most of his writing work is LGBTQ themed.
www.ptmcplaywriting.com
https://www.pinterest.com/ptmcptmc9442/12th-nighted/

DEADLINE: WORKS-IN-PROGRESS FROM CUTTING-EDGE QUEER ARTISTS: SEPTEMBER EDITION!
2014-09-10 19:30 - 22:00
Post-Clown Disaster, Ariel Federow and Cabaret Idiot, Sabrina Chap bring you this new works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness.
Check out this article on the August edition of Deadline in Next Magazine: “BGSQD’s Deadline Gives Queer Artists Room To Create And Grow” by Chris Hernandez
The September edition will feature performances by SABINA IBARROLA, AVERI DYLAN, MARIANA VALENCIA, & QUITO ZIEGLER!

SABINA IBARROLA: Sabina is a performance artist, activist, and troublemaker. This mixed-race bruja finds the meat and magia of her work in the natural world and urban ecosystems of Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by a brilliant galaxy of queer femme artists and instigators, she explores themes of heartbreak, ancestry, chosen family, femininity, apocalypse and faith.

AVERI DYLAN: Averi Dylan has been writing since childhood, and is learning to put this into the wider world via poetry and performance. Averi has performed at various open mics in New York including the Inspired Word NYC, Portraits of Poetry where she has been the feature poet, Urban Juke Joint, Green Earth Poets Cafe, and at Sarah Lawrence College. Averi has won a qualifying spot in the Inspired Word NYC poetry slam to compete in a year end final competition in December 2014, and has had poetry published in the New York Times. A four poem album by Averi is planned to be released later in 2014, and you can hear more at https://www.youtube.com/user/averidylan. Averi is based out of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York.

MARIANA VALENCIA: Mariana Valencia makes choreographic works, installations, costumes and a zine. Mariana is also a dance ethnographer and she has traveled to Belize and Mexico City for research. rhinocerosevent.blogspot.com

Gregg Shapiro and Jerry Rosco Reading
2014-09-12 19:30 - 21:30
Reading and book signing by Gregg Shapiro, author of Lincoln Avenue (Squares and Rebels Press, 2014) and Lambda Literary Award winner Jerry Rosco, editor of A Heaven of Words: Last Journals, 1956 – 1984, by Glenway Wescott (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013).

Gregg Shapiro’s debut collection of short stories, Lincoln Avenue, is published by Squares and Rebels Press. He is also the author of the chapbook GREGG SHAPIRO: 77 (Souvenir Spoon Press, 2012) and the poetry collection Protection (Gival Press, 2008). An entertainment journalist, whose interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional LGBT and mainstream publications and websites, Shapiro lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his husband Rick Karlin and their dog k.d.

Jerry Rosco is author of the biography Glenway Wescott Personally and has edited two books of Wescott journals, Continual Lessons and A Heaven of Words, and a new book of Wescott stories including the long-suppressed gay title story, A Visit to Priapus and Other Stories. Jerry worked for a decade at Mavety Magazines, including as managing editor of Mandate magazine.

An Evening of Poetry and Music: Suzanne Parker and Why The Reckless
2014-09-13 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for an evening of poetry and music at the Bureau featuring Suzanne Parker and Why The Reckless. Parker will read from Viral, her collection of poetry that was written in response to the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers student who jumped from the GW Bridge after his roommate broadcasted via webcam his encounter with another man (published by Alice James Books in 2013). Why The Reckless (stage name of independent folk musician and songwriter Carleen Kirksey) will return to the Bureau to perform her original songs.

Suzanne Parker is a winner of the Kinereth Gensler Book Award from Alice James Books. Her poetry collection, Viral, which was written in response to the suicide of Rutger’s University freshman Tyler Clementi, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was included on the American Library Association’s Rainbow List of Recommended Books of 2013. Her poetry has appeared in “Barrow Street,” “Cimarron Review,” “The Boiler,” “Hunger Mountain,” “Drunken Boat,” and numerous other journals and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. She is a winner of the Alice M. Sellars Award from the Academy of American Poets and was a Poetry Fellow at the Prague Summer Seminars. Suzanne’s creative non-fiction is published in the travel anthology “Something to Declare: Good lesbian Travel Writing.” Suzanne is the managing editor at “MEAD: A Magazine of Literature and Libations.”

Why The Reckless, footed by vocalist and ukulele enthusiast Carleen Kirksey, is a one woman band powered by ukulele to sooth you, lyrics to feed you, and vocals that slap ya round a bit. Bring your own bib.

TELL 6: SCHOOL
2014-09-17 19:00 - 21:00
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.
SCHOOL is the theme of the sixth installment of TELL, featuring stories by MARCIE BIANCO, MARIA CATALDO, KARMA MAYET JOHNSON, SHOMI NOISE, & SHANE SHANE

Marcie Bianco, Lesbian-feminist PhD, is the Senior News Editor at VProud.tv, and a contributing writer at Mic, AfterEllen, Lambda Literary, and Curve Magazine. She also makes frequent appearances on Huffington Post Live, to talk about all things feminism and LGBT. She recently published an essay regarding the “satirical aesthetics” of HBO’s GIRLS in a collected volume, and she is currently at work on a memoir about lesbian academic affairs, two excerpts of which have been published. Follow her on The Twitter at @MarcieBianco.

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Besides winning the 2011 Miss LEZ title, Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in fesivals globally. Drae was dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell throws a monthly party in Brooklyn called PRIME. Check her out online and around town. www.draecampbell.com

Maria Cataldo is a New York City based filmmaker and theater artist. Her feature film editing credits include Rain, which premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, the award winning Children of God, voted one of The Independent’s 2010 Features to Watch, Wind Jammers, official selection at the San Diego Black Film Festival, and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, awarded Best Family Feature at the Garden State Film Festival. Further credits include her post-production work through The Weinstein Company on films such as Bobby, Factory Girl, Dedication, The Protector, Penelope and The Dixie Chicks’ Documentary Shut Up and Sing. Additionally, Maria’s theater and experimental video have been presented in NYC through St. Ann’s Warehouse, HERE Arts Center, The Looking Glass Theater, and elsewhere including The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Most recently, Maria co-directed and co-produced MTV’s Rebel Music, a six part documentary series about protest music emerging from conflict areas around the world.

Karma Mayet Johnson is a multi-disciplinary performer, poet, composer, educator, and mystic. Offering vital Roots music for the 21st century, Karma Mayet’s sound is equal parts funk and glitter, Spanish Moss, cornbread and molasses.
Karma has performed at the world-famous Apollo, the Blue Note, The Juilliard School, Columbia University, Lincoln Center, and international venues including Sons d’Hiver (Paris), and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. She has worked with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Meshell Ndegeocello, The Burnt Sugar Arkestra, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bill T. Jones, Antibalas, and The Roots. Collaborators have included film-maker Michelle Parkerson, composer/pianist Major Scurlock, composer/guitarist Marvin Sewell, performance artist MonstaH Black, and the late guerilla theater innovator Rebecca Rice of D.C.’s Living Stage Theater Company, whose mentorship informs Karma’s ongoing practice of arts education as social activism.
Karma is composer of Indigo, a Blues opera: a music and dance-infused story of love and liberation, via Lesbians on the Underground Railroad. She is a featured vocalist on the The Mercy Suite, a collaboration between poet Yusef Komunyakaa and composer Tomas Doncker. Look for Karma Mayet’s original single September Song at cdbaby.com or itunes.com. Visit her website www.thisiskarma.net and join the mailing list to stay in touch!

Shomi Noise is a writer, musician, DJ, storyteller, dreamer, and tinkerer with an established reputation in the Brooklyn underground scene. Her work explores narratives of intersectionality, vulnerability, and resilience. She uses music to share empowering messages with the world through a creative mix of stories and sounds.
Shomi has DJed nationally and internationally with sets that include a clever mix of genres ranging from Latin dance music, hip-hop, electrohouse, reggae, pop, punk rock etc. Her ability to read crowds and create catchy and original song mashups on the spot makes her DJ work interesting and refreshing. She currently produces three parties in Brooklyn: Riot Chica,Telenovela, and Wretched. Riot Chica is a queercore/riot grrrl party that celebrates feminism and DIY culture by sharing empowering underground music made by ladies and queers,Telenovela is a new party for Spanish oldies and Wretched is a fun 90s party.
As a writer, performer, and musician, Shomi is working on original singer/songwriter material and other musical projects with friends. She is the author of “Building Up Emotional Muscles,” a coming of age story that incorporates music and storytelling to depict the struggles and triumphs she experienced growing up as a young queer immigrant woman of color in the US. It addresses her experience with the intersectionality of culture, race, class, sexuality and punk rock, and is based on a series of zines sharing the same title. She’s had the opportunity to share this original work as part of Heels on Wheels, an organization of radical queer femme performance artists that tours across the US and Canada. She is currently working on the 4th and last volume of the series and hopes to one day make a movie or play about it. Shomi’s work is best described as unique, sassy, musically eclectic, and fun. She is deeply committed to spreading messages of self-love, empowerment, social justice, and community building.
To find out more about Shomi visit:
www.shominoise.com
https://soundcloud.com/shominoise
https://www.facebook.com/djshominoise

Shane Shane is the gay dance music project of Shane O’Neill. He tours constantly and has shared the stage with such acts as Kool Keith, Har Mar Superstar, and Big Freedia.
He also plays in a band called Screamin’ Cyn Cyn & The Pons and occasionally does drag under the name Anita Lane Bryant.
He recently moved to Brooklyn where he likes to sew hideous costumes and eat mayonnaise-based salads.
He has a cat named Wanda and is so totally super gay.

Peter Cameron and Benjamin Taylor discuss Totempole
2014-09-18 19:00 - 21:00
On Thursday, September 18, at 7 p.m., join Peter Cameron and Benjamin Taylor for a discussion of Totempole by Sanford Friedman. This event is taking place on the occasion of New York Review Book‘s re-publishing of Totempole, originally published in 1965.
Totempole is a coming-of-age story that traces the life of a young Jewish boy growing up in New York City from two-year-old boy to twenty-four-year-old man. As Peter Cameron writes in the book’s afterword, “Totempole is an unusual gay novel: It isn’t about life in the closet, and it isn’t about coming out. It’s about the space in between those two stages of gay life, a complex and murky area that has not often been written about: coming out to oneself.”

Born in New York City, Sanford Friedman (1928–2010) was a novelist, playwright, and theater producer who taught writing at Juilliard and SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders). He served as a military police officer in Korea from 1951 to 1953, where he earned a Bronze Star. He is the author of several novels, including Conversations with Beethoven, published for the first time and now available from NYRB Classics.

Peter Cameron, photograph by Lisbeth Salas
Peter Cameron is the author of several novels, including The City of Your Final Destination, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You, and, most recently, Coral Glynn. He lives in New York City, and publishes limited-edition books at Shrinking Violet Press.

Benjamin Taylor is the author of two novels, Tales Out of School and The Book of Getting Even. His most recent book is a travel memoir, Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2012 and next year will publish Proust: The Future’s Secret, a biography for Yale’s Jewish Lives series. He lives in New York City.

Read~Act
2014-09-19 19:00 - 21:00
New works on paper with accompanying performance piece by Jeffrey Burdian.
Burdian’s works on paper will be on view at the Bureau from 9/10-9/20.
The performance will take place on Friday, 9/19: reception at 7, performance at 7:30.
Read~Act is a cooperative performance piece by Jeffrey Burdian. Jeffrey will be laying naked and face down while visitors are urged to sit on him and read portions of books they bring or that are provided. This new and important piece will rattle your guts and most likely change your outlook on life as you know it. While the participant is reading aloud Jeffrey will react to both what is being read as well as the reader. Expectation of profound snippets of wisdom is appropriate. Each reader will have approximately 5 min to read depending on the vibe.
Please bring your books:)
Jeffrey Burdian graduated from NYU with a BFA in 2005 and has been included in shows in NYC, Brooklyn, and Jacksonville Fl. In 2010 he began to experiment with performance art as a way to activate individuals and communities as works of art. For more information about the artist and to get a peek at his work you can visit his www.jeffreyburdian.com

ASS & DICK Book Release Party
2014-09-20 19:00 - 22:00
Dropping their new book ASS & DICK, Ian Faden and Brian Stremick invite you to come and view their explicit, yet intimate paintings. Together the two have painted the fronts and backs of 36 models that have have been solicited from gay apps. Some of their favorite works from the series will be on display and the new catalog will be available for purchase.

Having met in art school, Ian and Brian began collaborating and sharing work spaces shortly after graduation. Now they live and work together out of their apartment, (frequently visited by models) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with their cat Tompkins.

Bureau Closed--Moving to The Center!!!
2014-09-21 00:00 - 2014-10-03 23:55
Saturday, September 20th, will be the Bureau’s final day of business at 83A Hester Street. We will re-open at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street in room 210 on Saturday, October 4th!

Please join us for the Grand Opening of the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center! Come celebrate this new chapter in the lives of both the Bureau and The Center! Lady Quesa’Dilla (aka Alejandro Rodríguez), one of the charming information & referral specialists at The Center’s front desk, will preside over our Grand Opening, which will feature Original Cockette Rumi Missabu, visiting from San Francisco, along with local friends of the Bureau Stephen Boyer, Cristy C. Road, West Vargina (aka Heather Acs), Dust Tea Shoulders, Drae Campbell, Max Steele, Mizz June, and DJ Jade Payne!
Suggested donation of $10 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Grand Opening at The Center!
2014-10-04 19:00 - 23:00
Please join us for the Grand Opening of the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center! Come celebrate this new chapter in the lives of both the Bureau and The Center! Lady Quesa’Dilla (aka Alejandro Rodríguez), one of the charming information & referral specialists at The Center’s front desk, will preside over our Grand Opening, which will feature Original Cockette Rumi Missabu, visiting from San Francisco, along with local friends of the Bureau Stephen Boyer, Cristy C. Road, West Vargina (aka Heather Acs), Dust Tea Shoulders, Drae Campbell, Mizz June, Max Steele, and DJ Jade Payne!
$10 suggested donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Kevin Scott Hall – A Quarter Inch from My Heart A Reading, Discussion, and Q&A about the Book
2014-10-08 19:00 - 21:00
Kevin Scott Hall’s second book, the stunningly candid memoir A Quarter Inch from My Heart, has been getting some buzz since its June release. Hall has appeared on about ten blog radio shows (hear the best ones one his website, www.kevinscotthall.com).

Hall will give a reading and Q&A with award-winning writer/actor Ben Rimalower (Patti Issues, Bad With Money) at the Bureau on October 8th at 7:00 p.m. That date coincides with the 20th anniversary of his highly-publicized stabbing in October 1994—a compelling backstory in the memoir, and from which the title comes.
Hall officially goes national in September with an appearance on “Seth Speaks,” a talk show on Sirius XM Radio, Wednesday, September 17th, 4:30-6:00 p.m.

Although Hall comes out in many ways with this book, his story of what happened when he took in and cared for a mysterious stranger for two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 defies categorization. In fact, in interviews so far, hosts have seen the complex and universal human story around issues of trust, spirituality, homelessness, crime, AIDS, caregiving, and race—and how love ultimately has the power to heal all wounds. As author Jocelyn Lieu says, “I’ve never read a memoir like this before.”

Kevin Scott Hall is a writer, performer, producer, and master teacher. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York. His vocal recordings include “New Light Dawning,” and he published the novel Off the Charts! in 2010 and his memoir, A Quarter Inch from My Heart, in 2014. Hall writes a music column and entertainment features for Edge Media Network, and freelances for other publications. He is an adjunct lecturer in writing, speech, and literature at two City University of New York campuses, and teaches the art of cabaret singing on his own. Hall is a member of ASCAP, the Bistro Awards Committee, and Toastmasters International. He resides in Brooklyn, New York. www.kevinscotthall.com
To find out more about the author, go to www.kevinscotthall.com. For press inquiries, please contact Boice-Terrel Allen at 412-606-6709 or rattlecat@yahoo.com.
Early praise for A Quarter Inch from My Heart:

A Quarter Inch From My Heart is a harrowing account of love and loss. Kevin Scott Hall writes about being young in New York City and reckoning with how we all must grow up by taking care of each other and ourselves. His memoir is not only about one life or even the defining, complicated friendship at its center, but about the universal project of being decent, thoughtful citizens of the world. It is at once deeply introspective and outward reaching.
– Rachel DeWoskin, author of Foreign Babes in Beijing, Repeat After Me, and Blind!

Kevin Scott Hall’s book is more than a book; it is an intimate letter of a young artist struggling with the peradventure of chance meetings and a relationship that would lead him to grow as an individual psychologically and spiritually. Like all such letters the reader is drawn into the pathos of the naked emotion of life and love: A growth from eros to phillios and further to the undeniable agape. If you have ever cared for a friend and come to see the holy in the other then this is a work that is a must read.
— Fr Jeffrey L. Hamblin, MD, Bay Ridge Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, NY

In A Quarter Inch from My Heart Kevin Scott Hall explores his amazing love for a dazzling drifter, Maurice, the man who became his “prodigal brother”–and who leaves an indelible mark on Hall’s heart and the hearts of all who read this luminous, unforgettable memoir about agape, recovery, and faith.

–Jocelyn Lieu (author of Potential Weapons and What Isn’t There)

Kevin Scott Hall’s memoir of an offbeat life and an inexplicable love offers consistently readable ups, downs, and—especially—curves that, in the end, offer life lessons in generosity, persistence and redemption.
–Robert Windeler, noted critic, and biographer (Shirley Temple, Julie Andrews: A Life on Stage and Screen, and Sweetheart: The Story of Mary Pickford, among others)

“…gritty, sometimes horrifying, but also absolutely triumphant after all is said and done. Where Hall’s genius for narrative lies, as he equally proved in his novel Off the Charts!, is in his character depictions…”

Andrew Martin, NiteLife Exchange

“While the events of Kevin’s memoir are tragic, the real draw is in his reactions to them, presented in naked introspection. There’s a lack of pretense at internal continuity that makes this such an honest memoir. . . . He embraces his emotional fickle nature and lays it bare on the page . . . the raw emotions that guide his choices make him a deeply sympathetic narrator of his own life. . . . This is a book that made me feel as though I knew a person. . . . Worth reading to the end.”

Andrew Clunn, Applause Applause

Poetry Reading with Hafizah Geter, James Allen Hall, & Jericho Brown
2014-10-09 19:00 - 21:00
Lawrence Kaplun Hosts a Poetry Reading with Hafizah Geter, James Allen Hall, & Jericho Brown

Hafizah Geter is a South Carolina native, and a Cave Canem Fellow. The
recipient of a 2012 Amy Award from Poets & Writers and a 2014 Ruth
Lily Finalist from The Poetry Foundation, her poems have appeared or
are forthcoming in RHINO, Drunken Boat, Vinyl, Columbia: A Journal of
Literature and Art, Linebreak, Narrative Magazine, and Gulf Coast,
among others. She is currently the Events & Marketing Associate at
Scenarios USA and a poetry editor at Phantom Limb Press. She lives in
Brooklyn.

James Allen Hall is the author of NOW YOU’RE THE ENEMY (University of
Arkansas Press, 2008), which received the Lambda Literary Award for
Gay Poetry, and awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, and the
Fellowship of Southern Writers. His poems have appeared in many
journals such as Bloom, Boston Review, Four Way Review, The New
England Review, Triquarterly, and The Best American Poetry 2012. He is
an associate professor in the creative writing program at Washington
College in Maryland, where he resides.

Jericho Brown is the author of two books of poetry, PLEASE (New
Issues, 2008), and THE NEW TESTAMENT (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). He’s
the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, and fellowships from the
Radcliffe Institute, and the NEA. His poems have appeared in many
journals such as American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic,
The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and The Best American Poetry 2013. He is
an assistant professor in the creative writing program at Emory
University, and lives in Atlanta.

Queercopia Readings by LGBTQ New York Comic Con Writers Maria Burnham, Dylan Edwards, Jeff Krell, Amber Love, and Jennie Wood
2014-10-10 19:00 - 21:00
After Friday’s New York Comic Con, come to a reception and reading celebrating the diverse writings of LGBTQ New York Comic Con writers. Readers include Maria Burnham, Dylan Edwards, Jeff Krell, Amber Love, and Jennie Wood. A reception begins immediately following the convention at 7pm with the readings at 7:30pm.

Maria Burnham is a writer and hairstylist currently living in New York City. She is the proud creator and star of the memoir comic Jesus Loves Lesbians, Too, and she hopes you like reading it as much as she likes writing it. In addition to waxing poetic about Jesus and lesbians, she loves shooting photos, cooking dinner for friends, walking her Boston Terriers, reading novels, surfing, wakeboarding, and kicking people’s butts on game night.

The comics of Dylan Edwards (the artist occasionally known as NDR) have been published in a variety of venues, both in print and online, including his book Transposes (Northwest Press, 2012), and the anthologies No Straight Lines (Fantagraphics, 2012) and QU33R (Northwest Press, 2013). He will be featured in the upcoming all-queer sci-fi/fantasy anthology Beyond (2015). He is also the creator of the ongoing webcomic Politically InQueerect, which you can read at www.studiondr.com.

Jeff Krell created the gay-themed humor strip “Jayson,” whose 1983 debut in the Philadelphia Gay News led to a two-decade run in Gay Comix and Meatmen. In 2005 two “Jayson” retrospectives were so well received that Krell launched a series of original “Jayson” graphic novels, including “Jayson Goes to Hollywood” (2008) and “Jayson Gets a Job” (2012). Krell also translates for famed German cartoonist Ralf König (“Maybe…Maybe Not” & “The Killer Condom”).

Amber aka Elizabeth-Amber Love is a podcaster, model, and writer from New Jersey. She is one of the co-founders of a huge comic art auction hosted by Comic Fusion to benefit a domestic violence charity. She has written “Holyoak,” “Slim & Posh,” “Teen Detective,” “Athena Voltaire: Land, Sky & Sea”; she is one of the co-writers of “No. 130, For Love” in the Shakespeare Shaken Anthology and has been a guest writer for the “Subculture” webcomic. Her podcast Vodka O’Clock features many different aspects of arts and entertainment and is on iTunes and Stitcher and her 18+ site, AmberUnmasked.com.

Jennie Wood is the creator of Flutter, a comic series. The Advocate calls Flutter one of the best LGBT graphic novels of 2013. She is also a contributor to the award-winning, New York Times best-selling FUBAR comic anthologies. She is a comic and graphic novel writing instructor at Grub Street and writes non-fiction features for infoplease.com. On September 4, 2014, 215 Ink will release her novel, A Boy Like Me. For more: jenniewood.com
