BGSQD

CELEBRATING OLD, QUEER & KICKING! (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-02-09 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Jonathan Ned Katz talks about his art & history, work & life.
For his 85th birthday, historian, and visual artist Jonathan Ned Katz celebrates old queers.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Jonathan Ned Katz is a historian activist, and visual artist. He has published five books on the history of sexuality and intimacy, most recently The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams (2021). He founded the free US LGBTQ public history website OutHistory.org (2008). In 2013 a solo exhibit of Katz’ visual art was held at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, NYC and Katz published a memoir, Coming of Age in Greenwich Village. That show was curated by Jonathan David Katz (no relation).

Opening Reception for It Will End in Tears. Charlie Welch
2023-02-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Bureau is proud to present It will end in tears., a solo exhibition of collages by Charlie Welch.
It will end in tears. will be on view at the Bureau from February 10 through April 9, 2023.
Charlie will host a collage party at the Bureau on Saturday, March 11th. Details forthcoming.

Artist’s statement:

“The collages included in It Will End in Tears. began as meditations, typically created first thing in the morning. I have multiple sources that I use for references, as well as many folders of images that I’ve been saving for many years. One day I started playing with layering and cropping of images in order to tell different stories, unrelated to their original contexts, and usually those stories are about desire.”

Charlie Welch received a BFA, with a focus on photography, from Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles in 1989. After graduating he moved to New York where he worked as a photo assistant for Josef Astor and David Seidner. In 1994 he began working in window displays at Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman and Ralph Lauren. In 1998 he began assisting as a prop stylist and set designer and went solo three years later. In 2006 he moved to Barcelona to continue his art studies at Metàfora International Workshop focusing on sculpture, installation and public intervention. At the end of 2008 he returned to New York and resumed working as a prop stylist, set designer and photographer, while also putting more focus on his personal work.
His experience from commercial work comes into play with his fine art. Photography is his main medium, but he also incorporates sculpture and collage. Constructed environments and playful sets are signatures of his work, which conveys narratives about identity formation, public and private selves, and how we navigate daily life.
Charlie is a co-founder of the NY Queer Zine Fair and co-organizer from 2015-2018. He also was part of the Queer Action Figures collective (1994-96) and one half of KNOWSGAY, along with Paul Anthony Moreno. Charlie’s projects include short films, collage, photography, limited edition stickers, t-shirts, posters, objects and zines. He draws his inspiration from dirty sailors, fancy desserts and sad pop songs.
He is also an award-winning pie baker.

My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson with Jelani Alladin (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-02-12 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Come celebrate and enjoy a reading and Q & A with acclaimed author, Rasheed Newson, author of the debut novel MY GOVERNMENT MEANS TO KILL ME, which was named a notable book of 2022 by the New York Times Book Review. He will be in conversation with Broadway actor Jelani Alladin, who narrated the audiobook.
A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story following the personal and political awakening of a young, gay, Black man in 1980s New York City.
Earl “Trey” Singleton III arrives in New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, at 17, he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind.
In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships—all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death.
Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson’s My Government Means to Kill Me is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning.
Copies of My Government Means to Kill Me are available at the Bureau and will be available for purchase at the event.
You can also purchase the book from our online store:

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel.
Jelani Alladin originated the role of Kristoff in the Frozen musical and narrated the audiobook of My Government Means to Kill Me.

Book Launch: Scenes of Projection by Jill H. Casid (in person & streaming)
2023-02-17 17:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join queer-feminist theorist, artist and historian Jill H. Casid at the Bureau on Friday, February 17th at 5 PM for the launch of the Spanish translation of her book, Scenes of Projection/Escenas de proyección. A reading with special guests and a book signing will be followed by a reception.
Guest readers include Camilo Godoy, Vick Quezada, and Catalina Schliebener Muñoz.
About Scenes of Projection/Escenas de proyección:
Theorizing vision and power at the intersections of the histories of psychoanalysis, media, scientific method, and colonization, Scenes of Projection poaches the prized instruments at the heart of the so-called scientific revolution: the projecting telescope, camera obscura, magic lantern, solar microscope, and prism. From the beginnings of what is retrospectively enshrined as the origins of the Enlightenment and in the wake of colonization, the scene of projection has functioned as a contraption for creating a fantasy subject of discarnate vision for the exercise of “reason.”
Jill H. Casid demonstrates across a range of sites that the scene of projection is neither a static diagram of power nor a fixed architecture but rather a pedagogical setup that operates as an influencing machine of persistent training. Thinking with queer and feminist art projects that take up old devices for casting an image to reorient this apparatus of power that produces its subject, Scenes of Projection offers a set of theses on the possibilities for felt embodiment out of the damaged and difficult pasts that haunt our present.

Escenas de proyección toma los instrumentos proyectivos de la revolución científica –desde el telescopio de proyección y la cámara oscura, hasta la luz solar y el microscopio– para demostrar que la escena es un complejo dispositivo de poder que produce su propio sujeto. En la medida que saca al yo de su vulnerabilidad e instala la fantasía de una visión de un sujeto racional e inmanente respecto de todas las figuras minoritarias, raciales, queer, feminizadas, perpetúa una estructura de dominación.
A lo largo de este libro, Jill H. Casid nos lleva desde los orígenes míticos de la representación hasta instancias ejemplares del arte contemporáneo, con el objetivo de explorar el potencial de transformación de las tecnologías de proyección e invertir su dirección en virtud de posiciones no normativas. Es decir, traza conexiones reprimidas entre elementos de la escena y elementos que cruzan de una escena a otra, para así abrirla y reinventar el sujeto, inaugurar devenires, liberar el potencial del por qué-no, del no no-aquí y del no no-todavía.

Copies of Scenes of Projection/Escenas de proyección (both English and Spanish versions) will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.

About Casid:
A queer-feminist theorist, historian and artist, Casid holds the position of Professor of Visual Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author of Sowing Empire: Landscape and Colonization (Minnesota, 2005) and Scenes of Projection: Recasting the Enlightenment Subject (Minnesota, 2015) which has just been released by Metales Pesados in Spanish translation, Casid is currently bringing to completion Photogenic: Essays on Refusing Photography and Necrolandscaping, the first part of a two-book project on Form at the Edges of Life. Casid’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York and Documenta 15.
@jillhcasid
jillhcasid.net

Camilo Godoy is an artist and educator born in Bogotá and based in New York City. He has participated in residencies at Movement Research, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), coleção moraes-barbosa, Recess, New Dance Alliance, among others. Godoy’s work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, CUE, OCDChinatown, PROXYCO Gallery, New York; Moody Center, Houston; UNSW Galleries, Sydney; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito; among others. He has performed at Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Center for Performance Research, New York; Toronto Biennial; and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt. Godoy teaches at Bard College, Parsons School of Design, Recess, Whitney Museum, and School of Visual Arts.

Vick Quezada grew up in El Paso, Texas right where the United States and Juarez, Mexico border converge. Quezada currently lives in Western Massachusetts where they are a Visiting Lecturer in Sculpture at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. Quezada is currently a Yale Mellon Arts & Practitioner Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Additionally, in 2023 their works will be shown at Des Moines Art Center, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Artspace New Haven, Atlantic Wharf Gallery Boston, American Museum of Ceramic Art Pomona, and Presa House Gallery in San Antonio, TX. In 2021, they were a select recipient of the Andrew W.Mellon Fellowship co-sponsored by the Ford Foundation in Latinx art. In 2020 Quezada was hand selected from a “large-scale survey” of 40 emerging artists from the US and Puerto Rico to be featured in El Museo del Barrio’s groundbreaking, La Trienal. From 2019-20 Quezada was the artist-in-residence at the Latinx Project at NYU where they gave public talks, and workshops. In 2018, Quezada was selected as the University Massachusetts Contemporary Arts -University Massachusetts at Amherst Curatorial Fellow, along with Fred Wilson, who curated the show, 5 Takes On African Art. Their work has been featured in Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Art News, Trans Studies Quarterly, and Remezcla. Quezada holds a BA from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from UMASS Amherst.

Catalina Schliebener Muñoz is a Sudamerican, Chilean-born visual artist who works primarily with collage, installation, and murals. Their work draws on images, objects, and narratives associated with childhood and explores gender, sexuality, and class. Their work has been exhibited in Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago, Chile), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York, NY), Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, NY), Children’s Museum of Manhattan (New York, NY), Boston Center for the Arts (Boston, MA), Centro Cultural de España (Santiago, Chile), Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Center for Books Arts (New York, NY), Catalyst Arts (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn, NY), Hache Galería (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Jardín Oculto (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Galería Metropolitana (Santiago, Chile), and Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (New York, NY), among others. A recipient of multiple FONDART Grants (Cultural and Arts Development Fund of the Government of Chile), Schliebener Muñoz also received grants from DIRAC (Board of Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Relations of Chile) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (New York, NY). They also received a Queer Artist Fellowship from the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (2017), and an Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) Fellowship from the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2018). In addition, Schliebener Muñoz has extensive teaching experience, from early childhood education to undergraduate education, on topics ranging from philosophy and art theory to art instruction in schools, studios, and museum settings. They are currently working as a teaching artist with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and The Queens Museum, and they facilitate gender and sexuality trainings for the Early Childhood Professional Development Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY). They received a Bachelor of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Universidad de Arte y Ciencias Sociales (ARCIS; Santiago, Chile).

SECOND TUESDAY PRESENTS: A PILL FOR PROMISCUITY – GAY SEX IN AN AGE OF PHARMACEUTICALS
2023-02-18 18:30 - 21:00 | The LGBT Community Center Room 301, 208 West 13th Street Room 301, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join editor, Andrew Spieldenner, in conversation with contributors Justice Jamal Jones and Ted Kerr, for the launch of the recently released book A Pill for Promiscuity – Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals (Rutgers University Press 2023), which brings together artists, academics, and artists from various disciplines to reflect on how gay sex has altered in a post-PrEP era.
Register to Attend: https://gaycenter.org/a-pill-for-promiscuity/
Please note that February 2023’s Second Tuesday will be taking place on a Saturday. To request an accommodation for this event, please contact Richard Morales at rmorales@gaycenter.org or 646.502.6370 by February 10, 2023.
ABOUT A PILL FOR PROMISCUITY – GAY SEX IN AN AGE OF PHARMACEUTICALS
A Pill for Promiscuity brings together academics, artists, and activists—from different generations, countries, ethnic backgrounds, and HIV statuses—to reflect on how gay sex has changed in a post-PrEP era. Some offer personal perspectives on the value of promiscuity and the sexual communities it fosters, while others critique unequal access to PrEP, and the increased role Big Pharma now plays in gay life. With a diverse group of contributors that includes novelist Andrew Holleran, trans scholar Lore/tta LeMaster, cartoonist Steve MacIsaac, and pornographic film director Mister Pam, this book asks provocative questions about how we might reimagine queer sex and sexuality in the 21st century.
The Bureau will be on hand at the event to sell copies of A Pill for Promiscuity (Rutgers University Press, 2023, paperback, $16.95). We encourage you to reserve a copy of the book if you plan on purchasing it. Please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of A Pill for Promiscuity” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

ABOUT THE EDITORS
Andrew Spieldenner is the Executive Director of MPact: Global Action for Gay Rights and associate professor of communication at California State University San Marcos. Openly living with HIV, he writes about LGBTQ community, HIV, and disability, while serving as co-editor for the collections Intercultural Health Communication and Post-AIDS.

Jeffrey Escoffier (1942-2022) was a research associate and faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He was one of the founders and the publisher of the pioneering LGBTQ journal “OUT/LOOK,” and is author of the books, “Bigger Than Life, American Homo,” and “Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography” (Rutgers University Press).

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Justice Jamal Jones (she/he/they) is a filmmaker, actor, and writer based in New York City. As a Black Queer Alchemist, they integrate Black Feminist Queer theory alongside Black diasporic spirituality, such as Vodou (Voodoo), into their work. Their debut film “How To Raise a Black Boy” was a reimagining of Jones’ childhood linking their boyhood to their identity as a nonbinary artist. The film was internationally recognized at over 30 film festivals, earning 10 awards. Justice is a 2021 Sundance Ignite Fellow, and in 2022 was a commissioned director for MTV and Calvin Klein. Jones was also a guest on Good Morning America’s Hulu special “A Conversation Between Black Men,” where Jones was an advocate for Black trans and nonbinary individuals. In 2023 Jones’ sophomore film “Crossroads Blues” was set for pre-production, alongside the release of the anthology, “A Pill for Promiscuity.” Jones enjoys dinner parties with friends, the occasional glass of green Chartreuse, and playing with their kitty, Esu.

Canadian-born Theodore (Ted) Kerr is a Brooklyn-based writer and organizer whose work focuses on HIV/AIDS, community, and culture. In 2022, his book “We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production,” with co-author, Alexandra Juhasz, was published by Duke University Press. His writing has also appeared in Women’s Studies Quarterly, The New Inquiry, BOMB, CBC (Canada), Lambda Literary, POZ Magazine, The Advocate, Cineaste, The St. Louis American, IndieWire, HyperAllergic, and other publications.

RED CLAY SUZIE: Coming of Age Queer in the Deep South (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-02-19 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In conversation with Jeffrey Dale Lofton, including readings by the author from his award-winning debut novel RED CLAY SUZIE, a fictionalized memoir of growing up gay and physically misshapen in a deeply conservative family and community in the Deep South.
Jeffrey will be joined in conversation by author Ryan La Sala
Copies of Red Clay Suzie (Post Hill Press, 2023, hardcover, $28) are available for purchase at the Bureau and can be purchased at the event or on our online store:

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Jeffrey Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia, best known as the home of Roosevelt’s Little White House. He calls the nation’s capital home now and has for over three decades. During those early years he spent many a night trodding the boards of the DC’s theaters and performing arts centers, including the Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and Studio Theatre. He even scored a few television screen appearances, including a residuals-rich Super Bowl halftime commercial, which his accountant quipped “is the finest work of your career.”
Ultimately he stepped away from acting for other pursuits, including helping war veterans tell their stories to add richness and nuance to historical accounts. At the same time, he focused on pursuing post-graduate work, ultimately being awarded Master’s degrees in both Public Administration and Library and Information Science. Today, he is a senior advisor at the Library of Congress, surrounded by books and people who love books—in short, paradise.

Ryan La Sala writes about surreal things happening to queer people. He is the author behind the luminous and terrifying horror The Honeys. His previous titles include the riotously imaginative Reverie, and the brilliantly constructed Be Dazzled, both of which made the Kids’ Indie Next List. He has been featured in Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Tor.com. Ryan is the host of the infamous Bad Author Book Club Podcast, and a frequent speaker at events/conferences. When not writing, Ryan does arts & crafts, and rollerblades around Central Park. His next book, BEHOLDER, will be published in October 2023 with Scholastic Press.

Book Launch: Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-02-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Christian Liclair in conversation with the artist and writer Jillian McManemin about his book Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s and, in particular, the subversive pleasures of BDSM. Drawing on the theorization of sadomasochism from Michel Foucault over P. Califia to DIY manuals from the 1970s, Liclair and McManemin discuss artistic representations of BDSM as a pleasurable experiment to disrupt sexual subjectification and challenge the body’s heteronormative organization, which have been perpetuated by psychoanalytical concepts of sexual desire.
Book cover art: Joan Semmel, Red, White and Blue (1973). Oil on canvas, 46″ × 54″.
Copies of Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Christian Liclair is an art historian and critic. He is currently Editor-in-Chief at the Berlin-based art quarterly TEXTE ZUR KUNST. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin in 2021. After being a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School for Art and Sciences at Harvard University, he co-established the DFG-funded research project “Aesthetic of Desire: Counter-hegemonic Visualizations of Bodies, Sexuality, and Gender” at Freie Universität Berlin.

Jillian McManemin is a writer, artist, and Founder of the Toppled Monuments Archive. She has written for Hyperallergic, ART PAPERS, The Broadcast, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, Art Agenda, Metrograph Editions, among other publications including forthcoming pieces with TEXTE ZUR KUNST and SITUATIONS Gallery.

TELL 85: POTPOURRI (in person & live-streaming)
2023-02-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, 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.
Potpourri is the theme of the 85th TELL, guest-hosted by Nonye Brown-West. Storytellers: Neje Bailey, Calvin S. Cato, and Lois Thompson.
The event will also be live-streamed at youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the storytellers.
We will pass a bag at the start of the event. Donations by card can be made at the register or via Venmo @bgsqd with TELL 85 in the message. Thank you for supporting the Bureau and TELL!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
We ask that all attendees bring proof of vaccination and wear masks. Thank you!
Nonye Brown-West is a Nigerian-American comedian and writer. She has been featured in the Boston Globe’s Rise column as a Comic to Watch, NPR, PBS, ABC, Sway In The Morning, and the New York Comedy Festival. Nonye has two animated web series, Fairytales with Nonye and Gayby Jesus.

My name is Neje Bailey. I am the last Bailey standing whose bloodline predates freedom and I’m Queer … boy, do I have a story for you!

Named one of Time Out New York’s Queer Comics of Color to Watch Out For, Calvin S. Cato has dazzled audiences around the world. His television appearances include Oxygen, Netflix, and an unaired pilot for Vice Media called Emergency Black Meeting. His comedy has been featured in numerous festivals including San Francisco Sketchfest, Brooklyn Pride, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Gotham Storytelling Festival, and FlameCon. In early 2021, Calvin was published in Kweendom, an anthology of essays by queer comedians and entertainers.

For the past ten years, Lois Thompson has produced and hosted Blacklight Comedy Show at The Brooklyn Moon. Always an all-female line-up, Blacklight has become a must-do stage for NYC and visiting comedians alike. Since 2016, she has also produced the comedy portion of the Brooklyn Pride Celebration.
When Lois isn’t making folks laugh with her irreverent comedy, she is helping people fulfill the dream of home ownership through her 20+ year career as a real estate broker.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Vita and Virginia (in person event)
2023-03-01 18:30 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
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 IN PERSON at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Please join us for Vita and Virginia (2018), directed by Chanya Button and starring Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, and Isabella Rossellini.

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 event is free, although a $5-$10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.

You can send donations through Venmo to @Open-LoveNY.

Synopsis: The story is based on the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West as recorded in their letters to each other. Vita’s popular writing helped keep Virginia and her husband Leonard’s publishing business afloat while Virginia was inspired by Vita to write Orlando. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

Never Fine: Joseph Lezza In Conversation with Greg Mania (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-04 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In I’m Never Fine, a collage memoir of essays and poetry, Joseph Lezza shouts in the dark from the backseat of a stranger’s car, a ditch on the Italian coast, a forest outside the arctic, and from the bottom of a shaving cream can.
When Joseph caught himself wishing necrotizing skin infections upon unhurried retirees in the self checkout lane, and fantasized about loud-talking commuters making quick friends with the underside of a steamroller, he began to wonder if he was fine.
Of all the things Joseph Lezza could have been, he certainly wasn’t fine.
The “fine” he’d adopted watching his father succumb to cancer was beginning to wane. It could no longer be used as a shield to melt the face off of anyone who dared inquire. All the “fines” prophesized in every article, every book, and every inspirational meme-courtesy of every armchair expert with a pulse and internet connection-had lost their value.
When Joseph realized he was facing a future that would find him standing over the carcass of an overzealous Costco greeter, one thing became clear: moving on required looking back.
This memoir is an autopsy of perceived missteps, a conclusion to unfinished conversations, and a reframing of flawed judgments through the eyes of a young man in search of a feeling.
Copies of I’m Never Fine will be available to purchase at the Bureau.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Joseph Lezza is a writer in New York, NY. Holding an MFA in creative writing from The University of Texas at El Paso, he is a 2021 finalist for the Prize Americana in Prose. His work has been featured in, among others, Occulum, Variant Literature, The Hopper, Stoneboat Literary Journal, West Trade Review, and Santa Fe Writers Project. His debut memoir in essays, I’m Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss, is out February 2023 from Vine Leaves Press.

Greg Mania is a writer, comedian, and award-winning screenwriter based in New York City. His words have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, HuffPost, Oprah Daily, PAPER, among other international online and print platforms. His debut memoir, Born to Be Public, is out now from CLASH Books.

A Reading By Lori Horvitz, Joan Larkin, and Shelley Marlow (in person event)
2023-03-05 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for the NYC launch of Collect Call to My Mother: Essays on Love, Grief, and Getting a Good Night’s Sleep by Lori Horvitz. Lori will read excerpts from her new book and will be joined by Joan Larkin and Shelley Marlow, who will also read from their recent work.
Copies of Collect Call to My Mother will be available for purchase ($18) and Lori will be happy to sign copies. “A scintillating collection, full of subtle wit and passionate yearning.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review).
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Queer Collage Workshop with Charlie Welch (in person only)
2023-03-11 14:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for a queer collage workshop with Charlie Welch in conjunction with Charlie’s current exhibition at the Bureau, It Will End in Tears.
No experience necessary! All are welcome to join!
We will have some materials (magazines, printed matter, glue, cardboard) and tools (scissors) available, but we encourage you to bring materials and tools to share. Thank you!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Space is limited: registration on Eventbrite is strongly encouraged!

JENNIFER SAVRAN KELLY AND MARGOT DOUAIHY (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-12 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Jennifer Savran Kelly, author of ENDPAPERS, and Margot Douaihy, author of SCORCHED GRACE, for a joint reading and conversation. The event will consist of a reading, a conversation between Jennifer and Margot, a Q&A, and book signing.
About ENDPAPERS: It’s 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city’s street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she’s at her most masculine. Meanwhile at work, Dawn has to present as female, even on days when that isn’t true. Then, one day at work, Dawn finds something hidden behind the endpaper of an old book: the torn-off cover of a midcentury lesbian pulp novel. On the front is an illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man’s face. And on the back is a love letter. Dawn latches onto the coincidence, becoming obsessed with tracking down the note’s author, trying to understand how to live in a world that doesn’t see her as she truly is.
About SCORCHED GRACE: Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this “unique and confident” debut crime novel. Scorched Grace is the inaugural title from Gillian Flynn Books
Copies of Endpapers and Scorched Grace are available to purchase at the Bureau and on our online store:

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Jennifer Savran Kelly (she/they) lives in Ithaca, NY, where she writes, binds books, and works as a production editor at Cornell University Press. ENDPAPERS is her debut novel. In 2018 it won a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. In 2019 it was selected as a finalist for the SFWP Literary Awards program and for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Her short fiction has appeared in Potomac Review, Black Warrior Review, Green Mountains Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere.

Margot Douaihy is a Lebanese American originally from Scranton, PA, now living in Northampton, MA. She is the author of the poetry collections Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, and Girls Like You (Clemson University Press). She is a founding member of the Creative Writing Studies Organization and an active member of Sisters in Crime and the Radius of Arab American Writers. A recipient of the Mass Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship, she was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Writing Award, and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation’s Hemingway Shorts. Her writing has been featured in Colorado Review; Diode Editions; The Florida Review; North American Review; PBS NewsHour; and elsewhere. Margot teaches Creative Writing at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH, where she also serves as the editor of the Northern New England Review. As a co-editor of the Elements in Crime Narrative Series with Cambridge University Press, she strives to reshape crime writing scholarship, with a focus on the contemporary, the future, inclusivity, and decoloniality.

Second Tuesday Presents: Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?
2023-03-14 18:30 - 21:00 | The LGBT Community Center Room 301, 208 West 13th Street Room 301, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join author Craig Seligman, in conversation with Liz Brown, for the launch of his recently released book Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? (Public Affairs Books, 2023), which explores the exciting new history of drag told through the life of the remarkable, flawed, and singular Doris Fish.

To request an accommodation for this event, please contact Richard Morales at rmorales@gaycenter.org or 646.502.6370 by March 3, 2023.

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division will be on hand to sell copies of Craig Seligman’s Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? (Public Affairs, 2023, hardcover, $29). We encourage attendees to reserve a copy of the book to ensure that we have plenty of copies for all.
Please write to contact@bgsqd.com (with “March 14th event” in the subject line). Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

ABOUT WHO DOES THAT BITCH THINK SHE IS?
In the 1970s, gay men and lesbian women were openly despised, and drag queens scared the public. Yet that was the era when Doris Fish (born Philip Mills in 1952) painted and padded his way to stardom. He was a leader of the generation that prepared the world not just for drag queens on TV, but for a society that welcomes and even celebrates queer people. How did we get from there to here? In Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Craig Seligman looks at Doris’s short but overstuffed life as a way to provide some answers.

Seligman recounts this dynamic period in queer history—from Stonewall to AIDS—providing insight into how our ideas about gender have broadened to make drag the phenomenon we know it as today. In a book filled with interviews and letters about a life that ricocheted between humor and tragedy, he revisits the places and people Doris knew in order to shed light on the multihued era that his remarkable life encapsulated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Seligman has written for and edited a host of magazines, journals, newspapers, and websites. He is the author of “Sontag and Kael: Opposites Attract Me” (Counterpoint LLC, 2004). Craig resides in Brooklyn.

ABOUT LIZ BROWN
Liz Brown is the author of “Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire.” Her writing has appeared in Bookforum, London Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Book Review, Slate, and elsewhere.

Friendship and Feud: Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
African-American scholar James Wright presents an account of the friendship and the feud between two of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance, writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. The event will also feature readings from Laurence Holder‘s play Zora and Langston (1998).

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Art + Social Justice: How to elevate your unique voice to make a change (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-19 15:00 - 16:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join award-winning author, Nadia Uddin, and drag artist, Gina Tonic, for a conversation about how to elevate your unique voice to create social change.
Copies of Nadia Uddin’s Edison in the Hood (2022, paperback, $19.95) are available at the Bureau’s physical store and on our online store:

Copies will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Winner of Slice’s 2019 Bridging the Gap Award, Nadia Uddin is a graduate of Yale Writers’ Workshop and has studied alongside esteemed writers through The Center of Fiction, Catapult and A Public Space. Her debut novel, Edison in the Hood, was released in Fall 2022.

With the brains of Goldie Hawn and the brawn of Bette Midler, Gina Tonic has been enchanting New York City with her live vocals and comedy chops for nearly a decade. This two-time Glam Award nominee has headlined all across the country, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, St. Louis, New Haven, and Baltimore, just to name a few.

Seeking the Anarchism of Love: A Discussion of Queer Tolstoy (online event)
2023-03-22 19:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Please join us online for a discussion about the newly released Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography with author Javier Sethness Castro and Joe Scheip, coordinator of Anarchist Political Ecology.
This event will take place at 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time.
Queer Tolstoy is a multidimensional work combining psychoanalysis, political history, LGBTQ+ studies, sexology, ethics, and theology to explore the life and art of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Our conversation will begin by contemplating queerness as a concept, based in the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s ideas of universal bisexuality and polymorphous perversity. We will review Tolstoy’s same-sex attachments, from childhood to old age, and consider how the artist’s underappreciated queerness influenced his anarchist and anti-militarist politics. We will not, however, shy away from Lev’s contradictions and hypocrisy, whether as a landlord, a sexist, or a difficult husband to Sofia Tolstaya. Finally, before turning to Q&A with the audience, we will contrast Tolstoy’s vision of free love and universal peace with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fascist crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community and genocidal wars on Syria and Ukraine.
Copies of Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography (Routledge, 2023, paperback, $44.95) are available at the Bureau’s physical store and on our online store:

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place online only. In order to join the event on Zoom, please register on the event page on Eventbrite:
Click here to register
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Javier Sethness Castro encourages attendees to donate to Solidarity Collectives in support of anti-authoritarian fighters in Ukraine.
Javier Sethness Castro is a primary-care provider, and the author and editor of four other books: namely, Imperiled Life, For a Free Nature, Eros and Revolution, and I Am Action.
Joe Scheip is a father to Dachshunds, an exploited proletarian, a hater of fascism, and the coordinator of Anarchist Political Ecology.

Comedy Against Work: M.E. O'Brien in conversation with Madeline Lane-McKinley (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-24 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Work is a joke. Laughing at it is political.
Humor, Groucho Marx asserted, is “reason gone mad.” For Walter Benjamin, laughter was “the most revolutionary emotion.” In a moment when great numbers of people are reevaluating their commitment to the hellscape we call “work,” what does it mean to take comedy seriously—and to turn it against work?
Both philosophically brilliant and deeply personal, Comedy Against Work demonstrates how laughing about work can puncture the pretensions of tyrannical bosses while uniting us around a commitment to radically new ways of making the world together. At the same time, Lane-McKinley exposes a war at the heart of contemporary comedy between those who see comedy as a weapon for punching down and those whose laughter points to social transformation. From stand-up to sitcoms, podcasts to late night, comedy reveals our longing to subvert power, escape the prison of work, and envision the joys of a liberated world.
Copies of Madeline Lane-McKinley’s Comedy Against Work (Common Notions, 2022, paperback, $20) as well as M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abelhadi’s Everything for Everyone (Common Notions, 2022, paperback, $18) are available at the Bureau’s physical and online stores.

Copies of both books will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Madeline Lane-McKinley is a writer, professor, and Marxist-feminist with a PhD in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a founding member of Blind Field: A Journal of Cultural Inquiry. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, The New Inquiry, Entropy, GUTS, and Cultural Politics. She is also the author of the chapbook Dear Z and a contributor to The Museum of Capitalism.

M. E. O’Brien writes on gender freedom and communist theory. She co-edits two magazines: Pinko, on gay communism, and Parapraxis, on psychoanalytic theory and politics. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, and Turkish. Previously, she coordinated the New York City Trans Oral History Project, and worked in HIV and AIDS activism and services. She completed a PhD at New York University, where she wrote on how capitalism shaped New York City LGBTQ social movements. She is currently in training to be a psychoanalyst, and works as a therapist. has headlined all across the country, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, St. Louis, New Haven, and Baltimore, just to name a few.

Book Launch: CAMP QUILTBAG by Nicole Melleby and A. J. Sass (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-25 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join authors Nicole Melleby and A. J. Sass as they discuss their new novel, CAMP QUILTBAG. From the acclaimed authors of Hurricane Season and Ana on the Edge, an unforgettable story about the importance of and joy in finding a community, for fans of Alex Gino and Ashley Herring-Blake. Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is so excited to spend her summer at Camp QUILTBAG, an inclusive retreat for queer and trans kids. She can’t wait to find a community where she can be herself—and, she hopes, admit her crush on that one hot older actress to kids who will understand. Thirteen-year-old Kai (e/em/eir) is not as excited. E just wants to hang out with eir best friend and eir parkour team. And e definitely does not want to think about the incident that left eir arm in a sling—the incident that also made Kai’s parents determined to send em somewhere e can feel like emself. After a bit of a rocky start at camp, Abigail and Kai make a pact: If Kai helps Abigail make new friends, Abigail will help Kai’s cabin with the all-camp competition. But as they navigate a summer full of crushes, queer identity exploration, and more, they learn what’s really important. CAMP QUILTBAG is a heartfelt story full of the joy that comes from being and loving yourself.
Copies of Camp QUILTBAG (Algonquin Young Readers, 2023, hardcover, $16.99) are available at the Bureau’s physical and online stores.

Copies of Camp QUILTBAG and other titles by Nicole Melleby and A. J. Sass will be available for purchase at the event.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Nicole Melleby (She/her), a New Jersey native, is the author of highly praised middle-grade books, including the Lambda Literary finalist Hurricane Season and ALA Notable book How to Become a Planet. She lives with her wife and their cats, whose need for attention oddly aligns with Nicole’s writing schedule. Visit her online at nicolemelleby.com

A.J. Sass (he/they), is the critically acclaimed author of the ALA Rainbow Book List Top 10 titles Ellen Outside the Lines, which was also a Sydney Taylor Honor Book, and Ana on the Edge. He grew up in the Midwest, came of age in the South, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his husband and two cats who act like dogs. Visit him online at sassinsf.com.

Atmospheres of Violence reading with Eric Stanley and Tourmaline (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-03-26 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
NYC launch for Eric A. Stanley‘s new book Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable (Duke UP). Join Eric and Tourmaline for a conversation around the state’s structuring violence, abolitionist escape plans, riotous philosophy in action, and much more.
Copies of Atmospheres of Violence (Duke University Press, 2021, paperback, $24.95) are available at the Bureau’s physical and online stores.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Eric A. Stanley is the author of Atmospheres of Violence Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable and the co-editor of Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility and Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex.

Tourmaline is an artist, filmmaker, cultural producer, writer, and activist whose practice highlights the experiences of Black, queer, and trans communities and their capacity to impact the world.

Queering The Stage Playwrights (in person only)
2023-03-29 19:00 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We will read scripts in development by Queer playwrights and screenwriters. Queer writers with works they want read, and actors wanting to improve their cold reading skills are welcome to join this in person event. Depending on requests, we will read short scenes or full scripts. If you would like your work read or want to offer your acting talent, please join the meetup group Queering The Stage Playwrights and message the organizer, Jack Shamblin:
https://www.meetup.com/queering-the-stage-playwrights/

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Jack “Mia” Shamblin (pronouns flexible) is a Queer performer, playwright, and filmmaker based currently in Brooklyn, NY.
Raised in rural Northeastern Oklahoma, Shamblin is proud to be a Cherokee Nation tribal member. From working-class pioneer stock, the sexually and gender non-conforming Shamblin’s awareness of cultural inequality and exclusion provoked them into creating political art. Several critics described Shamblin’s work as fierce, punching, stunning, and witty. The camp is like wrapping a feather boa around painful truths.
New York legends such as La MaMa ETC, Dixon Place, Mother, and HERE have produced their plays.
In 2015, Shamblin published Queering The Stage, a collection of their LGBTQIA++ scripts. In addition to a NY community, Shamblin lived several years in Portugal where they wrote and performed for choreographer Paulo Henrique, taught at Centro Em Movimento, and created the experimental film O Castelo Preto.
Highlights were performing with Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Skriker by Caryl Churchill and with Kate Bornstein in Shamblin’s play Thurma.

Authors in Conversation: Rita Mae Brown and Felice Cohen
2023-03-30 19:00 - 21:00 | The LGBT Community Center Room 301, 208 West 13th Street Room 301, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Center, in partnership with the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, present critically acclaimed author Rita Mae Brown in conversation with award-winning author Felice Cohen, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle . The two will discuss (and celebrate) the works of Rita Mae Brown, along with writing and life.
Please note that seating is first come first served. To request accessibility accommodations for this event, please contact Richard Morales at rmorales@gaycenter.org by March 22, 2023.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division will be on hand to sell copies of Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Brown’s Hiss & Tell, and Felice Cohen’s Half In. We encourage attendees to reserve a copy of any of these books to ensure that we have plenty of copies for all.
Please write to contact@bgsqd.com (with “March 30th event” in the subject line) and let us know which title(s) you would like to reserve:
Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, (Bantam, 2015, paperback, $17)
Rita Mae Brown’s Hiss & Tell: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery (Bantam, March 2023, hardcover, $28)
Felice Cohen’s Half In: A Coming-of Age-Memoir of Forbidden Love (Dividends Press, 2022, paperback, $14.99)
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

BIOS
Rita Mae Brown
New York Times bestselling author, pioneering LGBT-rights activist, and Emmy-nominated screenwriter Rita Mae Brown has written more than 70 books in a variety of genres. From her groundbreaking coming-of-age novel, “Rubyfruit Jungle ” to the popular long-running “Mrs. Murphy/Sneak Pie Brown” murder mystery series, Ms. Brown has been delighting audiences for over five decades. An animal lover and humane hunter, Brown is a Master and Huntsman of the Oak Ridge Fox Hunt Club (where they chase scent rather than kill foxes). She lives outside Charlottesville, VA on a 600-acre farm with her many cats, dogs, and horses.
Felice Cohen
Felice Cohen is the award-winning author of the bestselling books Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden, 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (…or More) and the universally loved What Papa Told Me, about her grandfather’s life before, during and after the Holocaust. Felice has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC, CBS, NPR,Time, Globe & Mail, New York Daily News, the Daily Mail and more. Felice splits her time between NYC and Cape Cod.

Craft Class & Reading with Dana Levin (virtual class - online only)
2023-04-01 11:00 - 13:30 | online class
Join us for a Virtual Craft Class & Reading with Dana Levin. Craft Class will run from 11 AM-1PM EST. Followed by a reading from 1:05 PM-1:20 PM.
Serious Play: This April Fool’s Day workshop will focus on play–the heart of any strong writing practice. We’ll start with Keats’ notion of negative capability, discuss associative logic, and start playing! My hope is that participants will come away refreshed and interested in generating new poems with zest. The workshop will end with a round of Japanese Renga.
Registration on Eventbrite is required in order to receive the Zoom link on Friday, March 31st (the day before the craft class).
Click here to register
To join the class on Saturday, April 1st, go to the Eventbrite page where you registered and click on “Access link” (under “When and Where” and “Location.”
Dana Levin’s new book is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), a New York Times Editors’ Choice. She the author of four other books of poetry, including Banana Palace (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) and Sky Burial (Copper Canyon Press, 2011), which The New Yorker called “utterly her own and utterly riveting.” Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, The Nation, Poetry, and Guesthouse, among other publications. Levin is a grateful recipient of many fellowships and awards, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, the Witter Bynner Foundation and the Library of Congress, as well as from the Lannan, Rona Jaffe, Whiting, and Guggenheim Foundations. Levin currently serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis and as faculty for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Office Hours Poetry Workshop is a community-based writing workshop for poets who show a demonstrated commitment to writing. The workshop fellowship culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are womxn-identified. Our Craft Classes are free and open to the public with RSVP.
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe presents her new novel Tell the Rest (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-04-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Stonewall Award winning author Lucy Jane Bledsoe presents her new novel, Tell the Rest, which follows the lives of two estranged childhood friends who find themselves on parallel paths to return to the site of the conversion therapy camp that tore them apart.
Lucy will be joined in conversation by author Kirstin Valdez Quade, author of the award-winning novel The Five Wounds and the short story collection Night at the Fiestas.

Copies of Tell the Rest (Akashic Books, 2023, hardcover $28.95) are available at the Bureau’s physical and online stores.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

LUCY JANE BLEDSOE is the author of several works of fiction, including A Thin Bright Line, which was a Lambda Literary Award and Ferro-Grumley Award finalist. She is the winner of an American Library Association Stonewall Award, a Yaddo Fellowship, a California Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships, and a finalist for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Award. A native of Portland, Oregon, she now lives in Berkeley, California. Tell the Rest is her latest work.

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of The Five Wounds, which won the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Lambda Literary Award. Her story collection, Night at the Fiestas, won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She teaches at Princeton and in September will join the faculty of the Stanford Creative Writing Program. (Author photo by Holly Andres)

Couplets & Friends (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-04-07 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Beep beep! Come celebrate the last stop on the COUPLETS book tour with readings from four NYC poets: Kay Gabriel, Elisa Gonzalez, Kyle Carrero Lopez, and Maggie Millner. Come for the sonnets, stay for the quips. No, wait—come for the outfits, stay for the rhymes. Or come for the horny verse, stay for the horny vers! Whatever you want, babe. Just come . . . and then stay.
Millner’s Couplets, Gabriel’s A Queen in Bucks County, and Lopez’s Muscle Memory will all be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy of any of these titles, please email us at contact@bgsqd.com.
Both Millner’s and Gabriel’s books are also available on our online store:

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Kay Gabriel is a poet and essayist. With Andrea Abi-Karam, she co-edited WE WANT IT ALL: AN ANTHOLOGY OF RADICAL TRANS POETICS. She’s also the author of the poetry collections KISSING OTHER PEOPLE OR THE HOUSE OF FAME and A QUEEN IN BUCKS COUNTY.

Elisa Gonzalez is a poet, an essayist, and a fiction writer. Her work appears in The New Yorker and elsewhere. She is the author of GRAND TOUR, forthcoming from FSG in 2023, and the recipient of a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.

Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in northern New Jersey and is the author of MUSCLE MEMORY, the chapbook winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest. Among other subjects, his work centers power, social life, and Afro-Cuban histories.

Maggie Millner is the author of COUPLETS. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, BOMB, and elsewhere. She is a Lecturer at Yale and a Senior Editor at The Yale Review.

Opening reception: Slava Mogutin: Analog Human Studies
2023-04-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Please join us for the opening reception of Slava Mogutin: Analog Human Studies, on Wednesday, April 12, 6 to 8 PM.

Slava Mogutin: Analog Human Studies is on view at the Bureau from April 12 through June 4, 2023.

On Sunday, April 23rd, at 3 PM, Slava will screen a project called Gay Propaganda at the Bureau. More details soon.

Analog Human Studies is an ongoing project that covers two decades of Slava Mogutin‘s film photography, from the outtakes from his first monograph Lost Boys (2006) to most recent commission and editorial work, portraits and nudes taken in NY, LA, Berlin and beyond. Based on Mogutin’s new book published by MenOnPaperArt (London), the show features a series of works on fabric, as well as photo collages from Polaroid Rage, another ongoing project documenting queer communities around the world.

Born in Siberia, Slava Mogutin is a Russian-American artist, author and activist exiled from Russia for his outspoken queer writing and activism. A third-generation writer and self-taught photographer, he became the first Russian to be granted political asylum in the US on the grounds of homophobic persecution. Informed by his bicultural dissident and refugee experience, Mogutin’s work examines the notions of displacement and identity, pride and shame, devotion and disaffection, love and hate. Mogutin is the author of seven books of writings in Russian, three monographs of photography and two illustrated collections of poetry published in the US, as well as numerous artist editions. He’s the winner of Andrei Bely Prize for poetry and the Tom of Finland Foundation Award for artistic achievement.
Copies of Analog Human Studies (MenOnPaper, softcover, 160 pages, 210 x 297 mm / 8.25 x 11.75 inches, $50) will be available for purchase at the Bureau.

BETTINA APTHEKER ON COMMUNISTS IN CLOSETS: QUEERING THE HISTORY 1930s-1990s, WITH SARAH SCHULMAN (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-04-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Bettina Aptheker in a rare New York live appearance, will be discussing her fascinating new book about queer people and the Communist Party: Communists in Closets: Queering the History, 1930s-1990s. The book transforms our understanding of the roots of many crucial aspects of queer liberation, tracing their foundations to rejection by the party and analysis and organizing skills learned in the party. Subjects include Harry Hay and the creation of Mattachine, Lorraine Hansberry and the Broadway production of Raisin In The Sun, Alix Dobkin and the creation of lesbian separatism and women’s music, the founding of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and Angela Davis’s role in and influence by the Communist Party.
Bettina will be interviewed by Sarah Schulman, Kessler Prize awardee by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies.
A limited number of copies of Communists in Closets: Queering the History, 1930s-1990s (Routledge, 2023, paperback) will be available for purchase at the event at the discounted price of $30 (regularly $48.95). To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Bettina Aptheker is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz where she taught for more than 40 years, and had over 17,000 students in the course of her career. An activist-scholar she co-led the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in 1964, and the National Student Mobilization Committee To End the War in Vietnam. She was a member of the Communist Party from 1962-1981. She has been part of the LGBT movement since the late 1970s, She has published several books including, The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis, Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness and the Meaning of Daily Experience, and a memoir, Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech & Became A Feminist Rebel that was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 2006. She and her wife, Kate Miller, have been together since 1979. They live in Santa Cruz.

Sarah Schulman is the author of more than twenty works of fiction (including The Cosmopolitans, Rat Bohemia, and Maggie Terry), nonfiction (including Stagestruck, Conflict is Not Abuse, The Gentrification of the Mind, Let the Record Show), and theater (Carson McCullers, Manic Flight Reaction, and more), and the producer and screenwriter of several feature films (The Owls, Mommy Is Coming, and United in Anger, among others). Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate, and many other outlets. She is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at College of Staten Island, a Fellow at the New York Institute of Humanities, the recipient of multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was presented in 2018 with Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award. She is also the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, and the co-director of the groundbreaking ACT UP Oral History Project. A lifelong New Yorker, she is a longtime activist for queer rights and female empowerment, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace. (Author photo by Drew Stevens)

TELL 86: My Rainbow (in person & live-streaming)
2023-04-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, 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.
My Rainbow is the theme of the 86th TELL, guest-hosted by Darlinda Just Darlinda. Storytellers: Lyssette, Klondyke, and Nadia Iqbal.
The event will also be live-streamed at youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and the storytellers.
We will pass a bag at the start of the event. Donations by card can be made at the register or via Venmo @bgsqd with TELL 86 in the message. Thank you for supporting the Bureau and TELL!
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation.
Photo by Johnel Clemente
Coined “Mastermind of Bizarre Extravaganza” by The Village Voice, Darlinda Just Darlinda has been working as an International Performance Artist and Burlesque Performer since 2004. Darlinda is the Creator of the Year in Rainbow. Darlinda has produced shows The New York Times calls “shockingly explicit.” Darlinda has also performed Off Broadway in Year in Rainbow LIVE (Joe’s Pub 2022), One Woman Rainbow (Joe’s Pub 2019) and with Taylor Mac in The Lily’s Revenge (Obie 2009) & 24 Decades of Popular Music (Macarthur Award 2016). USA Today says “It’s hard to top Darlinda.” darlindajustdarlinda.com

Lyssette is a black queer, artist, activist, and filmmaker. As a former homeless youth and graduate of the Reciprocity Foundation, Lyssette developed a love for yoga and meditation. She credits her first acupuncture treatment as the first time she felt “at home in her body”. Armed with new tools, Lyssette spoke out on the many ways trauma manifests in black and brown LGBTQ homeless youth. Acupuncture treatments, yoga and mental health services have been supportive in speaking and finding the courage to heal.
Inspired by the works of Audre Lorde, Lyssette strives to make self care and healing accessible to those in need and reduce barriers to healing.
Lyssette’s activism has led to many creative endeavors including an Emmy nominated short documentary about the myths and causes related to youth homelessness. They were also named one of the ‘Top Forty Under 40’ by The Advocate magazine and their work was featured on the cover of Gay City News.
Lyssette says, “By prioritizing my healing and my truth I give permission for others to commit to their healing journey and show up authentically.

Klondyke is an alien tragg*t superstar!!! Child of a black hole and a supernova, raised by a 4th dimensional rockstar. Experimental musical theatre composer, Haus of Quench Member, and winner of Cakeboys 2021 Takes the Cake Competition they are here to terrorize norms out of existence through the great unifier: MUUUUSIIIIIC!

Nadia Iqbal is a writer, actress and comedian based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a certified cat lady and an official citizen oral historian for the 1947 partition archive. She is still very mad about colonialism.

Stir Up Magic with House Of Our Queer (in person event & live-streaming)
2023-04-16 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We all have access to the magic that can change our lives. In this Book Talk, author Bex Mui, will share about her ever-growing spiritual toolbox including energy work, astrology, tarot, sacred sexuality, and honoring ancestors. Bex is thrilled to be in conversation with Tai, a professional astrologer and co-founder of Novaa Network, a community for spiritual practitioners. Using the framework of her Bex’s new release, House of Our Queer: Healing, Reframing, and Reclaiming Your Spiritual Practice, this moderated conversation will center on the blessing of queerness, and aims to meet participants wherever they are in their energetic and spiritual journeys. If you’re looking for a Sunday energy cleanse and restart for a fresh week, you don’t want to miss this special event.

Copies of House of Our Queer: Healing, Reframing, and Reclaiming Your Spiritual Practice (Purple Palm Press, 2023, paperback, $19.95) will soon be available at the Bureau’s physical and online stores.
Planning to purchase a copy at the event?
We strongly encourage you to reserve a copy in advance so that we can be sure to have enough copies on hand. Please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “reserve House of Our Queer” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.

Author/presenter:
Bex Mui, M. Ed, she/her is a biracial, first gen, queer witch, spiritual organizer, certified energy worker, and long-time LGBTQ+ advocate. She is also the founder of House Of Our Queer, a spiritual playspace for the queer and trans community. Bex is thrilled to return to NYC where she spent her formative 20s to stir up some magic in powerful queer community.

Moderator:
Tai is an astrologer, brand manager, and globetrotter from Houston, TX. She began her consulting practice in 2018 during her time studying criminology and law in London, England. After traveling the world, she came back to the USA in 2020, where she began developing the idea that is now Novaa Network, a community for spiritual practitioners. Novaa launched with cofounders in 2021, and has hosted in person and virtual classes, workshops, and events with a variety of spiritual creators and practitioners.

Rainbow Book Fair Presents Brian Broome (in person)
2023-04-22 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In conjunction with the Rainbow Book Fair 2023, the Bureau is pleased to announce that Brian Broome, who resides in Pittsburgh, will speak at the Bureau at 3 PM, on Saturday, April 22.
BRIAN BROOME’s debut memoir, Punch Me Up to the Gods, is an NYT Editor’s Pick and the winner of the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. He is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. His work has also appeared in Hippocampus, Poets and Writers, Medium, and more. Brian was a K. Leroy Irvis Fellow and an instructor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
He has been a finalist in The Moth storytelling competition and won the grand prize in Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Writing Awards. Brian also won a VANN Award from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation for journalism in 2019. His film, Garbage, won the Audience Choice Award at the Cortada Short Film Festival and was a semi-finalist in the Portland Short Fest. Brian is a 2022 Writer in Residence at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California.
Copies of Punch Me Up to the Gods (Mariner Books, 2022, paperback, $17.99) will be available for sale and signing by the author. To reserve a copy, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “Please reserve Punch Me Up to the Gods” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
More about the Rainbow Book Fair:
The New York Rainbow Book Fair, the largest lgbtq+ book event in the US, will resume once more on Saturday, April 22, from Noon to 6 PM, at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th Street in the West Village, after a 2-year absence due to Covid-19. The theme of this year’s fair is WEIRD AND QUEER. Showing close to 100 exhibitors with books ranging from kids’ to seniors, this book fair highlights the range, depth, and quality of queer books, their authors, and most importantly, their readers. The popularity of the Rainbow Book Fair shows that books are NOT dead. At all.
Along with an array of books in two large rooms at the Center, the Fair will also host its famous Poetry Salon, curated by Nathaniel Siegel, giving a showcase to close to 50 poets reading briefly, and of course, being poets, talking to each other seriously (but fun, too! Yeah.)
There will also be short readings by 30 authors, and Featured Readings by Curtis Chin, author of the memoir Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant (Little Brown); Brian Broome, Pittsburgh author of the landmark memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods (Mariner Books), chosen by the NY Times as one of the “100 Notable Books of the Year,” winner Kirkus Non-Fiction Book Award; and West Coast author Felice Picano—The Lure, The Joy of Gay Sex, Like People in History — an original member of the famous Lavender Quill group that included Andrew Holleran and Edmund White.
Plus, exciting panels all day explore queer books and their authors in depth. They include “Weird and Queer: Sci-Fi, Gothic, Horror, and Memoir”; “Librarians and Archivists: Fighting Back Against the Attacks on Queer Books”; “Queering Comics”; and “Queer Histories.” There will also be showcases for outstanding lgbtq+ publishers, including Archer Books, Rebel Satori, and Riverdale Avenue Books.
The Rainbow Book Fair is free to attend, but a voluntary $3 donation is asked at the door. For more information on the RBF, go to rainbowbookfair.com, or rainbowbookfair123@gmail.com; or belhuepress@earthlink.net.
