20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2015-10-14 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We hold our meetings on the second Wednesday of every month from 8-10 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!

20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Truvada Revolution: Screening and Q&A
2015-10-15 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Have you heard of Truvada and PrEP? Do you have questions about the controversial FDA-Approved drug that prevents HIV? Producer and Director Eric Leven will host a screening of his VICE Documentary: Stopping HIV: The Truvada Revolution with a Q & A afterward to answer any questions about the film, filmmaking process and any lingering questions about the medication of Truvada itself.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Eric Leven is a Producer and Director with nearly ten years of experience in the documentary and reality television industry, having produced and directed such show’s as Dual Survival, Strange Medicine, BBQ Pitmasters and Mobwives. Eric is also a social and political activist focusing on such issues as: LGBT Rights, Safer Sex awareness and HIV/AIDS. He is 34 years old and lives in the East Village.

Trans Poets Bloom: A Launch Party For Vetch Poetry
2015-10-17 20:00 - 22:00 | NY
Vetch is a new journal of trans poetry and poetics–one of the first venues that will publish only poems by trans poets. Come out to the first issue launch party to celebrate with us! There will be readings by editors and contributors, as well as an atmosphere of giddy joy.
Reception will begin at 8 PM, readings at 8:30.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Readers:

Kay Gabriel finished her BA at Columbia University in 2013 and won a Euretta J. Kellett fellowship for postgraduate study at Cambridge, which she used to spend a year writing dykily about Sappho. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Princeton University classics department. Her poetry has appeared in Industrial Lunch.

Stephen Ira’s poetry and short fiction have appeared in The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, Spot Literary Magazine, the St. Sebastian Review, and Specter Magazine, among others. In 2013, he was selected as one of Lambda Literary’s summer fellows in poetry. In 2014, he was featured as a guest star in La Mama’s SQUIRTS: New Voices in Queer Performance. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2014.

Liam O’Brien grew up on a small island outside Seattle. In 2012, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, where he received the Stanley and Evelyn Lipkin Prize for Poetry and the Nancy Lynn Schwartz Prize for Fiction. His work can be found in print in Unsaid Magazine, and online at The Offending Adam, Blackbird VCU, Buffalo Almanack, and Industrial Lunch. He is currently pursuing his MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Grey Vild’s work has appeared in THEM, Elderly, and Hue. He has a chapbook forthcoming from EOAGH and is the happy recipient of the Queer Art Mentorship Fellowship 2014 with Stacy Szymaszek.

Rebecca Bedell is an English major in her junior year at Princeton University, hoping to complete a creative writing certificate in poetry. She fantasizes about further bastardizing the Whitman-Ginsberg poetic lineage to a stark and confessional trans poetics, and hasn’t been able to write about anything other than being trans for a while. Her work was published in a few teen collections which aren’t very relevant since they used her old name.

Bureau Book Club Discusses Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, by Samuel R. Delany
2015-10-18 18:00 - 20:30 | NY
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue combines in 200 brief pages daring and sexy queer encounters in Times Square’s pornographic movie theaters and contemplation on the nature of social relationships in cities. A late-career masterpiece by noted queer Black science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, the book is a perfect dip into our fair city’s seedier and sexier past.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please email the Bureau if you would like to reserve a copy of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue: contact@bgsqd.com

Bureau Book Club is facilitated by Ben Miller.
Ben Miller is a writer and researcher in Crown Heights, Brooklyn who has published short fiction and essays on queer histories and themes. He tweets @benwritesthings, learn more at www.benwritesthings.com

WRITE QUEER!
2015-10-20 19:00 - 21:00, 2015-10-27 19:00 - 21:00, 2015-11-03 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Write Queer! is an ongoing open-ended weekly writing workshop for those who identify as both Queer and Writer. Come read a variety of work by queer artists, generate new writing, and workshop with your peers. All experience levels and writing backgrounds are welcome.
Classes meet every Tuesday from 7pm-9pm at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Please note that the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays—we will open from 7 to 9 PM on Tuesdays for this event.
$20 per class to benefit the facilitators and the Bureau. Limited sliding scale and scholarship available. Contact Cecily at sumthn.else@gmail.com for details.

Queer Collage Party
2015-10-21 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
The first Queer Collage Party, organized by friend of the Bureau Paul VanDeCarr, took place at the Bureau in June, and it was such a hit that we’re doing it again! We provide the glue sticks and paper, you provide the pictures. Everyone who attends should bring at least one magazine or book or a bunch of pictures that you’ll contribute to the group. Each person can make their own collage(s), or team up with others! You can keep your own collage(s), but don’t expect to walk away with your magazine intact! The spirit here is fun and sharing. Attend for part or all of the evening. You are encouraged but not required to bring a little snack to share — chips, tangerines, grapes, hummus, whatever. We’ll have music playing (not live, though). Beer, wine, and sparkling water will be available for cash donations.
Facilitated by dear friend of the Bureau David Christie
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Bi Book Club: Call It Wonder, by Kate Evans
2015-10-22 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
The Bi Book Club meets monthly to discuss bi-themed books and the issues they raise.
Day/Time: Oct 22 (4th Thursdays), 6:30-8pm. Dinner after nearby (so far, we always go to Village Den.) Nov & Dec dates conflict with the holidays so we are working on alternative dates.
Our book for Oct: Call It Wonder: an odyssey of love, sex. spirit, and travel a new memoir by Kate Evans. (We suggest you buy or order your copy from our host, BGSQD. Write to contact@bgsqd.com
Pick out some phrases, paragraphs or scenes that you’d like to discuss, or just join in on our read-a-long. Give us your critique of the book. What worked, what didn’t, how was bisexuality represented? If you haven’t had time to finish the readings, come anyway because we read passages from the book aloud for discussion. As usual, we’ll also be using the text as a jumping off point to further discussion of bisexual issues and personal experiences.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on Meetup.com

TELL 17: Chance
2015-10-23 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Chance is the theme of the seventeenth installment of TELL. Featuring Hana Malia, Camille Atkinson, Jay Lucero, and Cara Kildruff.

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

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

New York vocalist Camille B. Atkinson has been performing and working as a singer, actor, voice over artist and dancer for over 20 years. She has fronted 5 NYC bands singing Blues, Soul, Funk, Pop, Motown, Country, Rhythm & Blues, Standards, Musical Theater, Art-Rock and Early Jazz. She has sung on countless EPs, demos, at weddings, in concerts, fundraisers and at private events. Her earliest exposure to music came from the Catholic church where she began singing in the choir in her hometown of New Orleans, as well as the lively Jazz musicians that played on the streets near Jackson Square. To get a feel for her voice, she has been called “the love child of Janis Joplin and Ella Fitzgerald”. She possesses a high school diploma in Theater Arts from Interlochen Arts Academy and a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College. She is a seasoned, well rounded theater artist who skills include stage management, directing, producing, songwriting, playwrighting, costume design, wigs, props and make up artistry. She is currently taking on various front and backstage roles in “Truffles! A murder mystery dinner theater experience”. She also performs in an acoustic duo called GUMBO with guitarist/vocalist Mike Cobb. For more information on her upcoming events please visit her website.
web site
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Cara Kildruff started her stand-up career in the classrooms and principal’s offices of the New Britain, CT public school system. Voted “Class Clown” in high school, she took a break to attend film school in the hopes of becoming a “serious” filmmaker. Two schools and a theatre degree later, Cara found herself working on Block Island by day and at the suggestion and offer of a free ticket from the owner of the Empire Theatre, got up on stage to amuse the tourists before the show. Since moving to NYC fifteen years ago, she spent four soul sucking years toiling for Corporate America and had a pre-mid-life crisis. She quit her job, took a three week comedy workshop, a one year program in comedy performance and writing and had been doing stand-up ever since. Cara was a member of the sketch comedy group “Hottie Grandma”, performed at the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, has appeared on here!TV’s “Hot Gay Comics Live”, performed at clubs and colleges all over, including the Friar’s Club, and is currently a co-host of “Talking About”, a monthly LGBTQ program on Queens Public Television. She recently debuted her first solo show, “How I Became an Unskilled Laborer” at the People’s Improv Theater as well as participated in the PIT’s first LGBTQ Comedy Festival in 2015.

Jay Lucero is a college student majoring in creative writing. A few of his interests are theatre, music and fashion. He’s been acting since his sophomore year in high school in different school productions. Jay Lucero is the recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. award at Queensborough Community College. Jay explores gender through his writing and he hopes to one day publish a funny memoir where he documents his queer childhood.

Hana Malia is a proud public school teacher, prouder (mourning) born and bred NYC lifer, theater artist, and author. Her work has appeared on stages (think Dixon Place, La Mama, sticky bar floors, and Carnegie Hall), and pages (think smut, obscure poetry magazines, and the zines you keep treasured in your bathroom reading collection) that speak life into fat filthy femme survival, city silences and shouts, aging classroom blackboards, and campy musical rewrites. Traditionally a dinner table story teller and impressionist, Hana is thrilled to put the pieces together at TELL and see what comes out of her mouth.

Celestial Body: BD/SM, Rituals and Protocols, Top-Secret Fetishes, Underground Sexuality . . . and God.
2015-10-28 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
“Is our often-censored urge towards sex and our great, undeniable urge towards a union with God . . . the same urge?” from The Substance of God, by Perry Brass.
What are the core feelings that link queer sexuality, BD/SM and spirituality? Is there a Dominant/ Submissive-Master/Slave feeling that links us directly with submission to the God-force? Does “kinky” sexuality lower male defenses enough to bring in a feeling of a supernatural union? Is gay tribal sexuality—at the heart of a leather and S/M lifestyle—important to our own survival now in the time of a mainstreaming and corporatization of gayness leaving too many gay men and lesbians feeling alone, isolated, and alienated from their community? Perry Brass, author of The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love, hosts a three-part series of discussions, readings, and even demonstrations on this intriguing, often controversial topic.
Each session will feature different guests sharing their feelings about this often controversial topic. Please note: this series addresses material of a sexually graphic nature and some sessions will include nude performers.

Special guests Andrew Harwin, John Ollom, and Darrell Perry will participate in the first session, Wednesday, October 28, 7 to 9:30 PM.
The second session will take place on Wednesday, November 18, 7 to 9:30 PM.
The third and final session will take place on Wednesday, December 16, 7 to 9:30 PM.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Perry Brass has published 19 books, including poetry, novels, short fiction, science fiction, plays, and bestselling advice books (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, The Manly Art of Seduction, The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love). Active in the movement toward lgbt rights (gay equality) since 1969, Brass’s work continuously deals with issues of sexual freedom, personal authenticity, and personal politics coming out of his involvement with the movement for gay liberation. He is especially interested in that connection between sexuality and spirituality; with the world of the body, the mind, and a deeper “soul” consciousness connecting the two. Aside from his books, poetry, plays, and essays, he also regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. For more information: www.perrybrass.com

Andrew Harwin is a Life Coach and Ordained Interfaith/Interspiritual Minister. A Native New Yorker and Bronx Science graduate whose earliest spiritual experiences were in Nature, he pursued Hinduism and Buddhism when a Reform Jewish education didn’t meet his spiritual needs. As a teenager Andrew had transcendent LSD experiences but realized he couldn’t continue and still remain in his body. Hesse’s “Siddhartha” revealed enlightenment was best attained by living consciously, recognizing the connectedness of everything.
Having his first sex with men at 14, Andrew came out at 17 and began exploring his erotic shadow and kinky desires. From 19 to 21, he was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. He also learned Transcendental Meditation and has been practicing ever since.
Diagnosed with HIV in ’88, Andrew lost many friends and lovers to AIDS and almost died in ‘95. Returning to life in ’96, he came out as a leatherman, marching with the Leather contingent in the ’97 NYC Pride March and joining the now-defunct Gay Male S/M Activists. He’s a former GMSMA President and Chairman, currently serving as an advisor to the Folsom Street East Board and a member of its Events Committee.
For 10 years, Andrew helped teach the GMSMA Novice Tops & bottoms course. He created a BDSM Spirituality Discussion Group and is the author of stories and essays on transcendent SM published in GMSMA’s “NewsLink.”
In 2003 Andrew was given the Barry Douglas Community Service Award for “selfless dedication and unwavering commitment to New York’s SM-Leather-Fetish community.”
A Chicago Hellfire Club Associate and Member of Delta International, he’s the 2011 recipient of CHC’s J. Paul Eaton Award for service behind the scenes at Inferno.
Andrew’s a graduate of The Body Electric School, including “Power-Surrender-Intimacy” and “Sacred Intimacy Training.” He’s also a member of the Easton Mountain Retreat Center community.

John Ollom received his MFA from Goddard College and BFA in Ballet from Texas Christian University where he trained under Fernando Bujones of American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet. He has been teaching in New York City and around the country since 2000. His methodology has been taught at the Eastern Michigan University, Kalani Retreat Center in Hawaii, Atmananda Yoga Sequence, Baruch College, CUNY Hostos, CUNY in the Heights, Easton Mountain Retreat Center and every summer at the Ollom Movement Art Summer Program at Smith College.
In 2010-2011, John Ollom was chosen as the Artist in Residence at the Eastern Michigan University Dance Department. Since 2002, John has served as the Artistic Director of Ollom Movement Art/Prismatic Productions, Inc. where he has choreographed such works as The Catalyst, Love and Longing, The Journey, John Ollom’s The Journey, Anatomy of Woman, Dido and Aeneas, The Other Species, Love Stories, Internal Landscapes, Man of War, M.U.D. (Men Under Dirt), Kuan Yin’s Compassion, Nemetona, The Portal, and Prisoner of My Projection. His choreography and direction can also be seen in the film “Karpos and Kalamos”.
His work has been the subject of three documentary films: “Late Bloomers” by Annette Cyr, Professor of Art at the National University in San Diego; “The Making of M.U.D.: An Exploration of the Work of John Ollom and Ollom Movement Art” by Robert Kazmayer, MA; and, “There’s Something About John” by Emma McCagg.

Darrell Perry (aka Darrellblackandblue) has been active in the New York Leather scene since 1990. He was a member of GMSMA (now defunct) and has been co-founder or founding member of some of the New York area’s most influential leatherclubs.
Darrell produces and sources still and video imagery for both print and web in the news, celebrity, advertising and promotion areas. He also hosts leather-themed play parties and is building a network of interconnected web-based businesses to serve the leather and gay communities in the e-commerce space.

Boys, Bears & Scares
2015-10-30 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Frightful foreplay on Halloween eve as four gay horror authors read from their latest chilling horror and suspense fiction.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Featuring:

Bronx-born wordsmith, Larry Benjamin considers himself less a writer than an artist whose chosen medium is the written word rather than clay or paint or bronze. He is the author of the allegorical Vampire novella Vampire Rising, the gay novels What Binds Us, and Unbroken―a 2014 Lambda Literary finalist, and a 2014 IPPY (Independent Publishers Book Award) Gold medalist―and Damaged Angels, a collection of short stories. He lives in Philadelphia with his husband and their two dogs.

Daniel W. Kelly is the author of the Comfort Cove gay horror series, plus the horror collections Horny Devils and Closet Monsters: Zombied Out and Tales of Gothrotica. He is also creator of Boys, Bears & Scares, a website dedicated to gay male horror.

David Swatling grew up in New York, studied theatre, and escaped to Amsterdam in 1985. He produced arts & culture programs for Radio Netherlands, winning numerous international prizes. His debut thriller Calvin’s Head was a 2015 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and Corpus Calvin will be out in May 2016.

J.L. Weinberg was born and raised in San Francisco. He moved to New York City to become a film critic, but was sidetracked by stints as a model and actor. He returned to movie journalism, writing for New York, Premiere, The Village Voice, Interview, American Cinematographer, The Advocate, and The New York Native. True Religion is his first novel.

Tran 9 From Outer Space- A Trans Poets Workshop Halloween Special
2015-10-31 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
We have come from outer space to read you transsexual poetry and wear silly outfits. We expect this will raise an army of poetry enthusiasts and queers who will make us victorious over weak and pathetic humankind. Come drink beer with us, and hear work from our latest zine “Your Authentic Self Is Embarrassing”. Afterwards we will go out and destroy this puny undefended city. Featuring all your favourite grotesque bloodthirsty alien monsters.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Celebration Launch WSQ's "The 1970s" and EqualityArchive.com
2015-11-04 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Reception celebrating the publication of “The 1970s,” a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly, by The Feminist Press. And a toast to the launch of equalityarchive.com–a digital theater for the history of sex and gender equality in the United States.
At 7PM, we’ll host panel conversation, “Sex, Gender and Equality” to explore the promise and the problems for LGBT communities conceptualizing sex and gender equality in the 21st century.

To reserve a copy of The 1970s issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Mike Albo and Brontez Purnell: Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Was A Hornito?
2015-11-05 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Published 14 years apart Mike Albo’s Hornito (2001) and Brontez Purnell’s Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger (2015) are a literature pairing made in queer heaven. Both have as their driving force the yearnings, learnings and explorations of sweet, funny, unapologetically horny protagonists on the hunt for community, love, and dick. Each providing an insider view into the cultural context in which they were written: Hornito’s late 90s white gay-centric queer New York, and Johnny’s contemporary black Bay Area queer punk activist scene.

Worthy of enjoyment independent of each other, the book club will provide ample time for both to be discussed in their own right, while also setting aside time to reflect on what they offer when read together. The authors have indicated a love of each’s other’s work and in reading them in tandem it is exciting to consider the similarities and differences in the work and the worlds each book invites the reader to enter.

Albo and Purnell will read from their books, come together in conversation, and then take questions.

Purchase both books from the Bureau! Write us to have us hold copies for you: contact@bgsqd.com

Hosted by Theodore (Ted) Kerr and William Johnson

Mike Albo is a writer and a performer. He is the author of the novels “Hornito” (HarperCollins), “The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life” (Bloomsbury), “The Junket”, a Kindle Single and newly released, “Spermhood: Diary of a Donor”, a Kindle Single. His solo shows include “Please Everything Burst”, “My Price Point”, and “The Junket”, which appeared Off Broadway at the Lynn Redgrave Theater in 2014.

Brontez Purnell is a zinester, writer, dancer and musician, who lives in California. He is the author of “The Crusing Diaries”, “Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger”, and “Fag School”. He is a member of the punk band Younger Lovers and has appeared in the films “I Want Your Love”, and “Together People”.

William Johnson is the online editor of the Lambda Literary Review.

Canadian born Theodore Kerr is a Brooklyn based writer and organizer with a focus on HIV/AIDS.

NO HOUSE TO CALL MY HOME--A Reading and Discussion about LGBTQ Youth Homelessness
2015-11-06 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, & Other Transgressions, will talk about his work in New York City as a caseworker for LGBTQ teenagers in foster care, especially those who are about to age out of the child welfare system. Berg begins this account of LGBTQ teens in the NYC foster care system with statistics that are at once shocking and painfully familiar: Children placed in foster care are more likely than veterans of war to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. LGBTQ teens make up 40% of homeless youth and are especially vulnerable. 70% of LGBTQ youth in group homes reported violence based on LGBTQ status.
A panel discussion with Ryan Berg will follow. Participants include Kate Barnhart of New Alternatives, Joey Lopez of The Ali Forney Center, and Ziggy Keyes of The True Colors Fund.

To reserve a copy of No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, & Other Transgressions please email Greg at contact@bgsqd.com

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Ryan Berg is a Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Writers Fellow and received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature. His work has appeared in Slate, The Advocate, Ploughshares, Local Knowledge and the Sun. Berg has been awarded artist residencies from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. NO HOUSE TO CALL MY HOME is his first book. He’s worked as a youth worker in New York and Minneapolis. He’s currently the program manager for the Minneapolis and Suburban Host Home Programs of Avenues for Homeless Youth.

Topside Press Autumn Invitational
2015-11-07 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Topside Press Autumnal Invitational Features:
Sara Woods (Sara, or the Existence of Fire)
Charles Theonia (Which One Is The Bridge)
Lisa Foad (The Night Is A Mouth)

Additional readings by:
Mia Mikowicz
Bader AlAwadhi
Constance Augusta A. Zaber
Tom Léger
Gabe Evans
Thel Seraphim
Michael Rex
Cat Fitzpatrick

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2015-11-11 20:00 - 22:00 | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We hold our meetings on the second Wednesday of every month from 8-10 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Publish It Forward
2015-11-12 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Learn how a book can succeed in today’s volatile marketplace. A publisher, agent, bookseller, publicist, and cultural critic discuss such questions as: What are editors and publishers looking for? What can an agent sell these days? How do book reviews choose which new titles get reviewed? The panelists will also share tips on the dynamics of publishing professionals working seamlessly together to push a book onto the bestseller list. A vital discussion for writers (both already published and aspiring) and for book publishing professionals. Q&A session after the panel offers their presentations and empirically tested advice. Panelists include Michele Karlsberg (moderator), Greg Newton, Lori Perkins, June Thomas, and Mitchell Waters.
Presented by The Publishing Triangle and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Michele Karlsberg

Greg Newton

Lori Perkins

June Thomas

Mitchell Waters

TELL 18: New York Stories
2015-11-13 19:00 - 22:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
New York Stories is the theme of the eighteenth installment of TELL. Featuring Dusty Childers, Frankie DeLessio, Cecilia Gentili, and Abed Haddad.

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

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

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

Frankie DeLessio is an actor, writer and tenant’s rights advocate. He is the creator of a web series, Just My Luck.

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.

Abed Haddad is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the City College of New York and lives in beautiful Harlem. Abed comes from Jackson, Mississippi where he graduated from Millsaps College. Before that, he lived in the suburbs of Louisiana, having immigrated there from Amman, Jordan at age 14. Abed loves the strong gin and tonics at Julius’, hopefully with a Barbra tune in the background. As a first-time story teller, Abed cut his teeth rambling post-coital musings to strangers and lovers, and gossiping about his large and extended families with aunts of certain age. Abed is excited to share whatever wacky spirit he feels with the fuzzy-warm folks at Tell.

Newfangled 8: Robert Siek hosts Peter LaBerge, Andriniki Mattis, and Angel Nafis
2015-11-14 19:00 - 22:00 | NY
Join us for the 8th installment of Newfangled, poetry readings by emerging poets hosted by Robert Siek. Newfangled 8 will feature Peter LaBerge, Andriniki Mattis, and Angel Nafis.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

PETER LABERGE is the author of the chapbook Hook (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). His recent poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Columbia Poetry Review, Sixth Finch, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Best New Poets 2014, and Indiana Review, as a finalist for the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Bucknell University Stadler Center for Poetry, the co-editor of Poets on Growth (Math Paper Press, 2015), and the founder and editor-in-chief of The Adroit Journal. He lives in Philadelphia, where he is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Visit him online at https://www.peterlaberge.com.

Photograph by Julieta Salgado
ANDRINIKI MATTIS is a poet from and living in Brooklyn with a BA in Political and Poetic Resistance. Currently they are working on their first book, Meditations on the Black Body. Andriniki is a 2015 Emerging Poets Fellow at the Poets House. Their work has appeared in Cortland Review and Nepantla and is forthcoming in the Pariahs Anthology.

ANGEL NAFIS is a Cave Canem Fellow and Ruth Lilly Dorothy Sargent Finalist. Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, MUZZLE Magazine, The Rumpus, and Poetry. She has represented the LouderArts Poetry Project at both the National Poetry Slam and the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2011. She is an Urban Word NYC Mentor and the founder, curator, and host of the quarterly Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon reading series. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/New School Poetics, 2012). Facilitating writing workshops and reading poems across the United States and Canada, she lives in Brooklyn.

ROBERT SIEK is the author of the poetry collection Purpose and Devil Piss (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and the chapbook Clubbed Kid (New School University, 2002). He works at a large publishing house in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn.

True Religion: Novelist Christopher Bram in Conversation with J.L. Weinberg
2015-11-15 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
A reading and discussion of True Religion, J.L. Weinberg‘s debut novel about the supernatural and spirituality in the New Age, with a distinctly gay twist.
An unexpected encounter with an otherworldly spirit at a holiday party in the Orenda Valley sends Seth Davis, a gay journalist from Manhattan, on a profound religious journey. Along the way, Seth stumbles into a quarreling coven of witches in the charming tourist town of Hope Springs, Pennsylvania, formerly known as Hell’s Ferry, and one of the most haunted destinations in America. As Seth learns more of the town’s remarkable history, he also uncovers his own shocking past, and in order to seek peace for his troubled soul, he must determine the fate of the coven, the town, and the entire Orenda Valley. True Religion is a genre-bending fusion of paranormal horror, spiritual therapy, American history, and New Age enlightenment.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please let us know if you would like the Bureau to reserve a copy of True Religion: contact@bgsqd.com

J.L. Weinberg was born and raised in San Francisco. He moved to New York City to become a film critic, but was sidetracked by stints as a model and actor. He returned to movie journalism, writing for New York, Premiere, The Village Voice, Interview, American Cinematographer, The Advocate, and The New York Native. “True Religion” is his first novel.

Christopher Bram is the author of eleven books including the novel that became the movie “Gods and Monsters.” His most recent book is “Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America.”

Celestial Body 2: Entering the secret rooms: BDSM, Underground Sexuality . . . and God
2015-11-18 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Moderated by Perry Brass (The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love, Belhue Press), Celestial Body 2 is part two of a three-part series of discussions, readings, and even demonstrations on this intriguing, often controversial topic. Feel free to attend one, two, or all three Celestial Body meetings.
Joining the conversation at Celestial Body 2: the Rev. Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) on submission to God; Craig Cullinane, honoring the Sacred Intimate (“Cosmic Orgasm”); Christopher Trevor on Deep Fetishes; and Gymnos Alitheia on ecstatic nakedness.
Let’s separate spirituality from religion and discuss the question: IS GOD STILL A LOT KINKIER THAN YOU THINK, OR WHAT ARE THE SECRET ROOMS IN YOUR HOUSE?
The third and final session will take place on Wednesday, December 16, 7 to 9:30 PM.

Perry Brass’s books are available for purchase at the Bureau.
For more information: belhuepress@earthlink.net, or contact@bgsqd.com.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Perry Brass has published 19 books, including poetry, novels, short fiction, science fiction, plays, and bestselling advice books (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, The Manly Art of Seduction, The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love). Active in the movement toward lgbt rights (gay equality) since 1969, Brass’s work continuously deals with issues of sexual freedom, personal authenticity, and personal politics coming out of his involvement with the movement for gay liberation. He is especially interested in that connection between sexuality and spirituality; with the world of the body, the mind, and a deeper “soul” consciousness connecting the two. Aside from his books, poetry, plays, and essays, he also regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. For more information: www.perrybrass.com

Launch for THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE
2015-11-19 19:00 - 20:00 | NY
John Whittier Treat will speak on his debut novel about the early years of the AIDS epidemic in Seattle, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE (Big Table Publishing Company, 2015).
Reading at 7 PM
Email the Bureau to reserve a copy of The Yellow House: contact@bgsqd.com

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Click here to read the Kirkus Review of The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House
Click here to read Ted Kerr’s review of The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House on Lambda Literary Review
Check out this short essay by John Whittier Treat in Out Magazine, “Why We Still Need Novels That Tell the Story of AIDS.”
Author photograph by Steve Shelton
John Whittier Treat is Professor Emeritus at Yale University. He is now based in Seattle where he writes fiction about the Pacific Northwest. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YELLOW HOUSE is his first novel. He is currently at work on FIRST CONSONANTS, the story of a stutterer who saves the world.

Opening Reception for The Uses of Anger
2015-11-20 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Download a PDF of the press release.
How do we use our rage? When confronted with injustice after injustice, what do we do with our anger? Audre Lorde, using an excerpt from one of her poems in her 1981 talk “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” argues

everything can be used
except what is wasteful
(you will need
to remember this when you are accused of destruction.)*

Lorde went on to say “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.”

The Uses of Anger is an exhibition of activist materials born of rage in response to a variety of injustices, including: physical and psychological violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, and others who do not conform to established gender conventions; police violence against people of color; efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortions; the failures of governmental and medical institutions to adequately address the AIDS/HIV crisis. These posters, flyers, tee shirts, and other materials give voice to the anger that these injustices inspire. The Uses of Anger includes materials from the following groups:

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)
Anonymous Queers
Black Lives Matter. NYC Shut It Down: The Grand Central Crew
Camp Out
Fierce Pussy
Gran Fury
Homocult
Lesbian Avengers
Occupy Wall Street
Queer Nation
Lee Schy – Extended Family series
WHAM! (Women’s Health Action and Mobilization)

The Uses of Anger is organized by Charlie Welch and Greg Newton with help from Elsa Waithe. On view at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from November 20, 2015 through January 17, 2016.
Opening reception on Friday, November 20, 6 to 9 PM.

*From “For Each of You,” first published in From a Land Where Other People Live (Broadside Press, Detroit, 1973), and collected in The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1997), 59.
“The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press, Berkeley, 1984), 124-133.

Thanks to the following people for providing materials for the exhibition:
Ed Ball
Andy Fair
Joe Ferrari
Avram Finkelstein
Lisa Guido
Elizabeth Meixell
Emily Nahmanson
Elsa Waithe

The Bureau will host the following events in conjunction with the exhibition:

Friday, November 27, 7 PM
Affirmative Laughter: African American Friday Edition
Affirmative Laughter is back and we’re reclaiming BLACK Friday. Each month host Elsa Waithe (aka Elsa Just Elsa Comedy) brings you a comedy show dedicated to hilarity and diversity. This month we are taking over the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and featuring NY’s best QTPOC comics, plus special guests.
Comics:
Calvin S. Cato
Wanjiko Eke
Alex English
Gloria Shantae Butler
Special Guest/Affirmative Hire:
Joel Palilla

Sunday, December 6, 6 PM
Screening of United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (2012, 93 minutes). Following the screening director Jim Hubbard and producer Sarah Schulman will engage the audience in discussion. This event is co-presented by The LGBT Community Center and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in room 301 of The Center.

Thursday, January 7, 7 PM
HIV/AIDS activist Kyle Bella reports on his recent visit to South Africa. Details forthcoming.

Friday, January 15, 7 PM
Screening of Tongues Untied (1989, 55 minutes). Directed by Marlon Riggs. Followed by a panel discussion led by Sean Apparicio. Details forthcoming.

TARNISHED GOLD HOLIDAY KICKOFF PARTY & BOOKSIGNING
2015-11-21 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
In celebration of TARNISHED GOLD, Book Two in Ann Aptaker‘s Cantor Gold Crime Series, an evening of food and entertainment, featuring a fabulous Tarnished Gold performance and an author signing!

Featuring:

Ann Aptaker, Author of Criminal Gold & Tarnished Gold.
Arnie Mazer, noted actor (Law & Order, Swift Justice, etc).
Producer Allan Neuwirth, Producer (What’s the Name of the Dame, Drawing Home, etc.)

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve a copy of Tarnished Gold please write to contact@bgsqd.com.

Rebel Friendships
2015-11-22 17:00 - 20:00 | NY
Author Ben Shepard writes:
Rebel Friendships: “Outsider” Networks and Social Movements is a book inspired by the world of organizing we have all created, along with the lovely and messy ways organizers go about creating change through our own invisible committees, affinity groups, and networks of comrades. Some of the chapters I’ve been drafting for years now. The work covers my experiences with the first person I know to die of AIDS, my godfather Fred, who worked at Keller’s bar on the West Side of Manhattan, my recollections of towel snapping and high school football, identify blurring AIDS activism in San Francisco, drag marches in New York, anarchist bikers, Occupiers, and universal stories of friends still taking care of each other and their friends coping with premature losses, overdose, and struggles over what we hope our world can be.
Rebel Friendships considers the interplay between individuals and their friendships with social movements. The intersections between individual and community, the ways we experiment with social change, explore, create, and reduce the harms of modern living are the work of social movements. Yet, the process is rarely simple. Through auto-ethnographic reflections of experiences with the Beats, ACT-UP, Occupy Wall Street, anti-consumer, queer rights, and non-polluting transportation movements Shepard explores the way friendship infuses social movements with the social capital necessary to move bodies of ideas forward. Such innovation is rarely seen in more institutionalized social arrangements. Rebel Friendships offers a new take on the ties between friends who are connected through affinity and efforts aimed at social change.
Two ACT UP/NY veterans, Jay Blotcher and Andrew Velez, will join Shepard to discuss our experience of the magic of activist friendships and esprit de corps.

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Praise for Rebel Friendships:
“A daring and innovative approach to social movements – Shepard’s book is a treasure and tool. Taking on the importance of affect, friendship, care and trust in movements he at once teaches the reader and entertains simultaneously. This trailblazing book addresses an area of social movements studies woefully under researched and does a stupendous job of capturing theory, history and feeling – all the while using a narrative form that makes the reader not want to put down the book.”
Marina Sitrin, author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina and co-author of – They Can’t Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy.

“Rebel Friendships delves deep into a phenomenon that every activist, and student of activism, is aware of, but not enough of us acknowledge: at the core of every collective and at the center of every social movement are individual friendships – radical friendships. Kudos to Benjamin Heim Shepard for writing this perceptive and moving book!”
Stephen Duncombe, Professor of Media and Culture, NYU, and Co-Director, Center of Artistic Activism

“In Rebel Friendships Benjamin Shepard continues and extends the project that has engaged him during the eighteen years of our friendship. That project is an ongoing social activism and a growing body of writing, a politics and an esthetics. It believes deeply in people as the ultimate repository of worth, a community but also a collection of frail, flawed, uniquely amazing individuals. Both Ben and his writing are good.”
Jim Eigo

“Benjamin Shepard book Rebel Friendships is a masterpiece, weaving together the lived experiences of activists critical to important movements for social justice. In lucid prose, Shepard vividly details the dialectical interplay among key individuals engaged in activism through friendships – the magical elixir of sustainable movement making. This compelling analysis is a must read!”
Ron Hayduk, Professor of Political Science, Queens College/CUNY and rebel friend among activists from global justice to immigrant rights, Occupy to the Lower East Side Collective

“Friendship is a central social and psychological force in people’s lives. Yet it also has political dimensions, as Ben Shepard so vividly demonstrates. Through his own personal stories, and interviews and biographies of friends, Shepard gives meaning to the oft-quoted feminist phrase that ‘the personal is political.’ In Rebel Friendships, we experience the many profound ways friends create community activism, develop families of choice, mentor each other, and perform rituals. This is indeed the book that illustrates the transformative political and personal power of friendships.”
Peter M. Nardi, PhD, author of Gay Men’s Friendships: Invincible Communities

“Rebel Friendships is a necessary contribution to contemporary radical social movements and the literatures that discuss them. Part memoir, part scholarly analysis, and part political assessment, in this book Ben Shepard reminds us, earnestly, that productive struggles from below require the engines of trust, love, and mutual aid that define “friendship.” Throughout the case studies and reflections here, Shepard offers powerful examples of the ways that friendship has played a decisive role in radical social struggles throughout recent history, and how friendship will be the foundation of our efforts toward building a better future.”
Craig Hughes, Team Colors Collective

“Shepard’s big-hearted book is a galvanizing reminder that the search for and maintenance of human connections lie at the center of any valid fight for change. Through well-researched historical analysis and engaging personal anecdotes, Shepard reimagines community organizing by simply reminding us who we have been, who we are, and who we can become. This book makes me want to befriend everyone.”
Rev. Micah Bucey
Associate Minister, Judson Memorial Church

“A impressively researched and starkly confessional examination of interpersonal bonding at the so-called edges of society — and how the power of friendship can incrementally reframe notions of normality. Ben Shepard delivers exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary study more social science scholars should be engaged with in order to understand the essentially activist components of our evolving human nature.”
Rob Magnuson Smith, author or The Gravedigger and The Scorper, teaches English and Creative Writing at Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall.

By day, Benjamin Shepard, PhD, LMSW, works as an Associate Professor of Human Services at City Tech/CUNY. By night, battles to keep New York from becoming a giant shopping mall. To this end, he has done organizing work with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), SexPanic!, Reclaim the Streets, Times UP, the Clandestine Rebel Clown Army, Absurd Response, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Housing Works, More Gardens Coalition, Times UP!, Right of Way, and Occupy Wall Street.
He is also the author/editor of several books: White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic (1997), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (2002), Queer Political Performance and Protest (Routledge, 2009) The Beach beneath the Streets: Contesting New York’s Public Spaces (with Greg Smithsimon, SUNY Press) and Play, Creativity, and Social Movements: If I Can’t Dance, Its Not My Revolution (Routledge, 2011), and Community Projects as Social Activism: From Direct Action to Direct Services (Sage).
In 2010, he was named to the Playboy Honor Role as one of twenty professors “who are reinventing the classroom.”
A social worker, he has worked in AIDS services / activism for two decades, joining ACT UP Golden Gate in the early 1990’s, opening two congregate facilities for people living with HIV/AIDS, serving as deputy director for a syringe exchange program, all while remaining active in efforts to bridge the gap between direct action and direct services. Today, he remains involved in organizing efforts around transportation, HIV/AIDS, labor, public spaces and environmental policy.

Closed for Thanksgiving Day
2015-11-26 | NY

Affirmative laughter: African-American Friday Edition
2015-11-27 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Affirmative Laughter is back and we’re reclaiming BLACK Friday. Each month host Elsa Waithe brings you a comedy show dedicated to hilarity and diversity. This month we are taking over the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division (in conjunction with the Bureau’s exhibition The Uses of Anger) and featuring NY’s best QTPOC comics, plus special guests.
Comics:
Calvin S. Cato
Wanjiko Eke
Alex English
Gloria Shantae Butler
Special Guest/Affirmative Hire:
Joel Palilla

Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
We will also pass a hat to collect donations for the performers.
Please note: The Center and the Bureau will open at 5 PM on Friday, November 27th.

Nowhere Slow - a reading with Bertie Marshall
2015-11-28 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
A reading from Bertie Marshall’s NOWHERE SLOW- collected writings (1994-2014)… containing poems, plays, chapbooks, memoirs and a reprint of his 1997 debut novel Psychoboys.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Check out Bertie Marshall’s discussion of Nowhere Slow in OutThere.

Photograph by Joe Ray
Bertie Marshall is the author of Berlin Bromley (his critically acclaimed memoir about his life as part of The Bromley Contingent- and mid 70s pre punk London) his other books include Psychoboys, a novel and Nowhere Slow, collected writings. The British Library have recently acquired Marshall’s archive.
