Late May & June Events
We host events nearly every night and you will never be turned away from an event at Bluestockings for lack of money. Bluestockings’ events are wheelchair accessible and have seating available for attendees.
Wednesday, May 22nd @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Kerry Coast “The Colonial Present”
Indigenous peoples struggle for self-determination in British Columbia, Canada — or, rather, in spite of those governments. But who really denies their rights? The average voter? “The Colonial Present: The Rule of Ignorance and the Role of Law in British Columbia” is a new book that considers how media, academia and politicians dismiss and deny the indigenous of BC, most of whom have no treaties with Canada. Journalist Kerry Coast, who has has lived in the lands of the Squamish, Líl’wat, St’át’imc, Secwepemc and Sto:lo and has attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues several years running, documents the continuing government policy that demands surrender and assimilation — and the non-native public’s satisfaction.
Thursday, May 23rd @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Marci Blackman “Tradition”
with Silas Howard and T.L. Cowan
Join Marci Blackman for the release of her new novel, “Tradition,” following the story of Gus Weesfree, who witnessed a brutal crime in his hometown of Tradition, Ohio, at the age of 21 and fled, leaving behind the thriving African American community that existed there before and during World War II. Now an old man, he is compelled to confront his past only to find most of his memories buried by urban sprawl. Marci Blackman is an original member of the touring spoken word troupe, Sister Spit, and she co-edited the ground-breaking anthology, “Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco. Her first novel, “Po Man’s Child,” received the American Library Association’s Stonewall award for Best LGBT Fiction and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Best Fiction. Blackman will be joined by filmmaker and Tribe8 member Silas Howard and wanderer, writer, performer and video-maker T.L. Cowan.
CANCELED: Friday, May 24th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Kaya Oakes “Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church”
This event has been canceled by the event organizers.
Saturday, May 25th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Zay D. Green “Christianity and Black Oppression”
It is a widely held view that the black church played a positive role in the “liberation” of blacks. What is seldom critiqued is the fact that in spite of four hundred years of investment in Christianity, the tool that would transform blacks, blacks continue to be perceived as morally and mentally inferior. In exploring these topics, “Christianity and Black Oppression: Duppy Know Who Fe Frighten” contains a comparison with the Dalits (Untouchables) of India that also shows how religion plays a fundamental role in fostering race and class oppression. Zay D. Green grew up in Jamaica, pursued a Bachelor’s Degree and a Diploma in Education at the University of the West Indies, and holds a MA in Psychology from Long Island University and an MLS from Rutgers University. After having worked as a librarian for many years, Green is currently a high school mathematics teacher.
Sunday, May 26th @ 2:30PM – Free
Practical Anarchy Reading Group: “Queering Anarchism”
NYC-based collective Practical Anarchy invites folks of all backgrounds and identities to a monthly reading group exploring what anarchism means in our current context. Together, we discuss historical and contemporary texts, self-organization and mutual aid, in order to work toward a society free of all forms of social domination. This month we’ll be discussing “Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire” edited by Deric Shannon, J. Rogue, C.B. Daring and Abbey Volcano.
Sunday, May 26th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: “Feeling Nostalgic for Things We Can’t Remember”
with Katie Haegele, Annie Soga, Eryn Loeb & Betsy Housten
Three writers and a fine art photographer will present their work exploring the ideas of nostalgia and shared memory and the joys of secondhand junk. Katie Haegele lives in Philadelphia, where she works as a freelance writer and makes zines. Her first book, “White Elephants,” is about going to yard sales with her mom and the weird old things they find there. Annie Soga is an artist from Portland, Oregon whose photographic work explores the intersection of everyday objects, history, and people, inspired by her upbringing with two flea market-dealer parents. Eryn Loeb’s writing on diverse and nostalgic topics has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers, The Awl, The Rumpus, The Millions, Bitch Magazine, and many other publications. Betsy Housten is a Brooklyn-based massage therapist who writes the annual zine “You Know Better.” She’s also the resident zine curator here at Bluestockings.
Monday, May 27th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: “Word Canvas: Garden of Poetics”
with DuEwa Frazier, Monica Hand & Metta Sáma
Join us in celebration of the word with three intriguing women poets reading and discussing their new work. DuEwa Frazier is an educator and the author of “Goddess Under the Bridge” and the forthcoming young adult novel “Deanne in the Middle.” Her work has appeared in Tidal Basin Review, Reverie, Kweli Journal and others. Monica Hand is the author of “Me and Nina.” Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including Aunt Chloe, Black Renaissance Noire, and Naugatuck River Review. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in poetry at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Metta Sáma is a professor, activist, painter, collage artist, fiction and essay writer. She is the author of “South of Here,” and “Nocturne Trio” with visual artist Mihret Dawit. She received her PhD in English at SUNY, Binghamton.
Tuesday, May 28th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Women’s / Trans’ Poetry Jam & Open Mike
Feature Writers: Geri De Luca & Deborah Hauser
Hosted by Vittoria Repetto – the hardest working guinea butch dyke poet on the Lower East Side – the jam has showcased the famous, the infamous, the unknown for over a decade. Come out and deliver (up to) 8 minutes of your poetry, prose, songs and spoken word. Visit vittoriarepetto.wordpress.com for more. Deborah Hauser’s poetry chapbook “Ennui: From the Diagnostic and Statistical Field Guide of Feminine Disorders” is a satirical take on the current status of women and the “woman question.” Her poetry seeks to (dis)enchant the reader and dismantle the happily ever after myth. Geri De Luca states that novelists only invent plots they can resolve. They ask the questions they can answer. They ultimately have to trust their own knowledge, experience and curiosity, and keep going deeper into the plots and questions they already have.
Wednesday, May 29th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Molly Weatherfield “Carrie’s Story”
Brilliant, bold and exquisitely kinky, “Carrie’s Story” is an American “Story of O” at the head of the class, with a heroine who is a Ph.D. candidate in comparative lit. If that’s not sexy enough, she has plenty of darker desires, fully imagined and elegantly expressed. Bestselling romance writer Molly Weatherfield will captivate you with this journey into a world of secret sensuality. Weatherfield is also the author of “Safe Word,” the sequel to “Carrie’s Story.” A prolific romance and erotica writer, she has penned many sexy, literate, historical novels.
Thursday, May 30th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Michelle Tea “A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek” & Ali Liebegott “Cha-Ching!”
Michelle Tea & Ali Liebegott join forces to celebrate the release of their newest books! New from City Lights’ Sister Spit imprint, Ali Liebegott’s “Cha-Ching!” is a tender story about being young and broke in America, and the conjoined hearts of love and addiction. Michelle Tea’s first young adult novel, “A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek,” is a modern-day fairytale with an unforgettable heroine. Ali Liebegott is the author of the award-winning books “The Beautifully Worthless” and “The IHOP Papers.” Michelle Tea is the author of four memoirs, a novel, a book of poetry, and is Editor for the City Lights/Sister Spit imprint.
Thursday, May 30th – Store Closing Early
Bluestockings will be closing early on May 30th, at 9PM, for a staff event.
Friday, May 31st @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Lane Heymont “The Freedman and The Pharaoh’s Staff”
Join Lane Heymont to celebrate his literary debut. “The Freedman and The Pharaoh’s Staff” is a thrilling time travel adventure set in post-Civil War Louisiana, following two former slaves battling Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan and Voodoo magic for an ancient Pharaoh’s staff powerful enough to unleash a war to end the world. Heymont’s work addresses the lack of minority characters in the fantasy genre by introducing a diverse palette of characters, all torn between encrusted beliefs, self-hatred and fear on one hand, and the possibility of freedom, redemption, and human dignity on the other. Heymont’s short stories have been published in various literary reviews; his story “The Lost Continent” was recommended for a 2012 Bram Stoker Award.
Saturday, June 1st & Sunday, June 2nd, noon to 6PM – Free
Bluestockings’ Birthday Book Bonanza!
Bluestockings Bookstore is celebrating 14 years of literature, feminism, activism and community with a fun-filled weekend! We’ll be hosting acoustic music, food, and public collaborative art projects culminating in a celebration Sunday night. On the sidewalk, you’ll find a veritable book blowout with hundreds — perhaps thousands! — of used books, all on sale for only $2-$7. Whether you are searching for tomes to casually grace your coffee table, manuals to fight the power, or handbooks to send to your cool aunt who loves herbalism, you will find it at the Bluestockings Book Bonanza. And you’ll find great company, tunes, and community to boot! Find updated details here. Happy Birthday, Bluestockings!
Sunday, June 2nd @ 2:30PM – Free
Feminist Book Club: Susan Faludi’s “Backlash”
The Feminist Book Club reads and discusses feminism. We make no claims to any particular feminist platform. We read theoretical texts, literature and primary works. All are welcome inclusive of gender, political persuasion, and familiarity. We meet on the first Sunday each month. For more information, email feministbookclubnyc@gmail.com. This month’s book, available at Bluestockings, is Susan Faludi’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.”
Tuesday, June 4th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Robin Marty & Jessica Mason Pieklo “Crow After Roe”
Since 2010, anti-choice activists have begun an active, aggressive battle to end access to abortion and birth control. Join Robin Marty & Jessica Mason Pieklo, authors of “Crow After Roe: How ‘Separate But Equal’ Has Become the New Standard In Women’s Health And How We Can Change That,” in a discussion about how each law serves as a chance to overturn Roe, and how poor, minority and rural women are caught in the middle. Robin Marty is RH Reality Check’s senior political reporter, focusing primarily on state legislation restricting women’s reproductive rights. Jessica Mason Pieklo is a senior legal analyst at RH Reality Check and the former Assistant Director of the Health Law Institute at Hamline University School of Law.
Wednesday, June 5th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: “Double Fist: An Evening with Jeanne Thornton and Chavisa Woods”
Jeanne Thornton’s debut novel, “The Dream of Doctor Bantam,” features Julie Thatch, a tough-as-nails, chainsmoking, wise-cracking 17-year-old Texan. Her idol, her older sister, jogs headlong into the lights of an approaching car and dies. And Julie falls in love with a girl who both is and isn’t an echo of her older sister, a long-limbed Francophone named Patrice — who is also a devotee of the Institute of Temporal Illusions, a Church of Scientology-like cult. Chavisa Woods’s second full length work of fiction, “The Albino Album” follows a technicolored vision of rural girl’s adolescence — a fiery, unhinged, growling, big-hearted country girl in a dirty black tutu and combat boots who travels along all the bizarre yet familiar byways of human desire from the cornfields of Louisiana and the big brass sound of Mardi Gras to the heights of the Empire State Building. Woods presents a new land of contemporary misfits including fire-dancers, pseudo-Nazis who breed albino animals, Catholic workers, horse thieves, and the archangel Gabrielle. Join Thornton and Woods as they read from their work, and take questions about anything at all in this universe.
Thursday, June 6th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Peter Kuper “Drawn to New York”
Peter Kuper will be joined by fellow artists and activists from World War 3 Illustrated to celebrate the release of his new book, “Drawn to New York: An Illustrated Chronicle of Three Decades in New York City.” With comics, illustrations, and sketches, this work of art portrays everything from the low life to the high energy that has long made people from around the world flock to the Big Apple. Kuper’s illustrations and comics have appeared in Time, New York Times, and MAD where he has written and illustrated “Spy vs. Spy” monthly since 1997. He is the cofounder of World War 3 Illustrated and has remained on its editorial board for over 30 years.
Friday, June 7th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: “Catastrophism”
with Sasha Lilley, David McNally, Eddie Yuen & James Davis
Join activists Lilley, McNally, Yuen & Davis as they probe the reasons why catastrophic thinking is so prevalent, and challenge the belief that it is only out of the ashes that a better society may be born. The authors of “Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth” argue that those who care about social justice and the environment should jettison doomsaying — even as it relates to indisputably apocalyptic climate change. Far from calling people to arms, they suggest, catastrophic fear often results in passivity and paralysis — and, at worst, reactionary politics.
Saturday, June 8th @ 8PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: Stephanie McMillan “Capitalism Must Die!”
Stephanie McMillan, the cartoonist behind “Minimum Security” and “Code Green,” presents a basic, easy-to-understand introduction to what capitalism is, how it works, and why it’s evil. This talk is accompanied by cartoons and illustrations. Stephanie McMillan is an organizer with the anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist group One Struggle.
Sunday, June 9th @ 12:30PM – Free
Radical Educators Meetup: Ira Katznelson’s “When Affirmative Action Was White”
Join a group of educators engaged in inquiry of critical texts for a meetup and collaborative discussion of pedagogical values and practices. For our June meeting, we will continue reading Chapter 4 through the end of Ira Katznelson’s book “When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America,” available at Bluestockings. Please contact bluestockingsraded@gmail.com for more information.
Monday, June 10th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: Olivia Koski “Making Multimedia Comics with Creatavist”
You’re invited to the 47th Meeting of the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium. Olivia Koski of the Atavist will showcase a new publishing tool called Creatavist that allows comics artists to add sound and other interactive elements to their work. And she will give us a behind-the-scenes look at Josh Neufeld and Tori Marlan’s “Stowaway,” an incredible true story of exploitation, bravery, and survival. Koski is the Senior Producer of the Atavist, a media and software company enabling the next generation of multimedia storytelling, reaching readers across mobile devices and the Web.
Thursday, June 13th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: “Queer Comix”
Join us for a night of NYC queer cartoonists discussing their work, how they came to it, their influences, styles and approaches, and the impacts they have been able to create through this form of popular media, in support of constructing counterpublic communities. All this and sizzling, hot comix on display, too! Participants TBA very soon.
Friday, June 14th @ 5PM – Free
Bluestockings Prisoner Letter Writing Group
“The communication between two humans concerning their hopes, ideas and their plights is what allows them to bond in resistance against a system that affects everyone in many different ways,” says Colorado prisoner Rachel Galindo (in a letter published in Resistance Behind Bars). Join a new Bluestockings-based group committed to communication and resistance by writing to prisoners. We’ll be focusing on folks who tend to receive less attention and mail, including LGBTQI-identified prisoners, women, and youth. Pens, paper, writing guidelines and encouragement will all be provided!
Friday, June 14th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: George Ciccariello-Maher “We Created Chávez”
Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chávez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. In “We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution,” George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chávez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution. By examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chávez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chávez’s rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it. Author George Ciccariello-Maher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Drexel University.
Saturday, June 15th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Kristin Lieb “Gender, Branding, and The Modern Music Industry”
Kristin Lieb’s “Pop Tarts and Body Parts: The Social Construction of Female Popular Music Stars” offers readers a backstage pass to the rigid packaging process that transforms female artists of various genres into contemporary female pop stars. The book uses interviews with music industry professionals and theoretical frameworks from multiple disciplines to explain and explore the sociological forces that drive female artists into patterned representations, the industry mechanisms that keep them there, and the ramifications on artists’ career lifecycles and audiences. Lieb, an assistant professor of marketing communication at Emerson College, will present key findings from her book, using video clips, photos, and frameworks to illustrate her ideas. She will also deconstruct Lady Gaga’s brand in five minutes flat.
Sunday, June 16th @ 2PM – Free
Radical Librarians Book Club: Shiraz Durrani’s “Information and Liberation”
The Radical Librarians Book Club is a group of aspiring librarians, current librarians, and other folks who are invested in re-envisioning the traditional library. We seek to examine issues of librarianship from a radical, politically-focused perspective, and build community within the field. This month we will be discussing “Information and Liberation: Writings on the Politics of Information and Librarianship” by Shiraz Durrani, focusing on page 140 through the end of the book.
Sunday, June 16th @ 4PM – Free
Knitting: Dyke Knitting Circle
Come in and knit, make new friends, drink some tea, and learn a craft at a self-help and member-led group. The Dyke Knitting Circle is open to all levels of queer experience and all levels of knitting proficiency. Bring yarn and needles. Join us any third Sunday of the month.
Monday, June 17th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: Jen Ferguson “Winners, Losers and Voyeurs: Drawing at the Race Track”
At the 48th meeting of the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium, Brooklyn-based artist Jen Ferguson takes us to the most exotic of local places, Aqueduct and Belmont race track, to observe, draw, and occasionally blend in with the railbirds and speculators who congregate there. In this talk she will discuss her working style, drawing at the track, and the inspiration that setting has provided. She will also present drawings from her book “Railbirds: My Life at the Track” and “Out of Luck,” based on HBO’s series LUCK which she currently illustrates.
Homoground Music Panel “The Music Industry from a Queer Perspective”
Wednesday, June 19th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Homoground, a site devoted to promoting queer visibility in music and art, brings you this storytelling panel in which LGBT music-industry insiders discuss their experiences in the business. There will be an Q&A discussion so bring your questions! For more information visit homoground.com/queermusicpanel.
Thursday, June 20th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Presentation: Kay Turner “Queer Fairy Tale Hour”
Gather for a queer fairy tale hour with Kay Turner based on her and Pauline Greenhill’s recent book, “Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms.” Turner will read from and discuss the queer tendencies in obscure Grimm tales such as “Goose Girl at the Spring, “ “The Three Spinners,” and more. A perfectly Prideful exposition on the Gay Grimms! Discard your overblown Cinderella and your slushy Snow White! Discover Frau Trude and Clever Gretel. And find out why fairy tales are truly the queerest of them all. Book signing to follow. Kay Turner is an artist working across disciplines, including writing, music, performance, and folklore scholarship. She is adjunct professor in Performance Studies at NYU and folklorist for the borough of Brooklyn, based at the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Saturday, June 22nd @ 7PM – Free
Reading: antoinette nora claypoole “Ghost Rider Roads: American Indians, FBI and the Radicalization of Spirit”
antoinette nora claypoole presents a reading, discussion, and activist rant honoring American Indian Movement leaders and activists, and celebrating the release of her new book. “Ghost Rider Roads: American Indian Movement 1971-2011″ is a “white woman’s ride through Indian Country,” chronicling claypoole’s time with various members of the American Indian Movement. This event particularly commemorates the Oglala FBI Shoot out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975, where one Indian and two FBI agents were killed. claypoole is an author and poet from Oregon and New Mexico. She recently received a fellowship award from Oregon Literary Arts for her current work in Literary Non-Fiction on the lost works of Louise Bryant (1885-1936), suffragette and Socialist War correspondent.
Monday, June 24th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Amy Hoffman “Lies About My Family”
“Lies About My Family” is a memoir about the stories that are told and those that are not told; about how the meanings of stories change through the generations. It is about memory and the spaces between memories, and about alienation and reconciliation. The story traverses research in the Ellis Island archives along with interviews with family members which reveal that the real lives of these relatives were far more complicated than their documents might suggest. It examines growing up as observant Jews in a heavily Catholic New Jersey suburb, as political progressives in a town full of Republicans, as readers in a school full of football players and their fans. And ultimately, it explores the reverberations of history from her Jewish grandparents’ immigration to America in the early 20th century to Hoffman’s own life as a Jewish lesbian. Hoffman is the writer of several books, the editor in chief of Women’s Review of Books, and teaches in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College.
Tuesday, June 25th @ 7PM – $5 Suggested
Women’s / Trans’ Poetry Jam & Open Mike
Feature Writers: LuLu LoLo & Tammy Remington
Hosted by Vittoria Repetto – the hardest working guinea butch dyke poet on the Lower East Side – the jam has showcased the famous, the infamous, the unknown for over a decade. Come out and deliver (up to) 8 minutes of your poetry, prose, songs and spoken word. Visit vittoriarepetto.wordpress.com for more. LuLu LoLo will perform excerpts from two of her plays: “38 Witnessed her Death, I Witnessed her Love: The Lonely Secret of Mary Ann Zielonko (Kitty Genovese Story)”; forty years after the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese, Mary Ann Zielonko breaks her silence and reminisces about gay life in NYC in the 60’s, her life with Kitty, the murder, the trial, and its aftermath and “OBITS: An Exercise In Limitation” a series of monologues based on obituaries from The New York Times written while an LMCC writer in residence. Tammy Remington, a 2011 Pushcart nominee, has been a featured reader here at Bluestockings twice before as well as being a frequent open mic participant. She will be reading her story “The Last Risk” which was published in Takahe Magazine in New Zealand last year and she’ll be reading her new story “Giving Ground” in June. Both stories tug at our ideas of what’s real and what’s imaginary with unexpected outcomes.
Wednesday, June 26th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Annie Lanzillotto “L is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir”
Lesbian storyteller and performance artist Annie Lanzillotto’s sharp new memoir “L is for Lion” tells the story of a 1960s Bronx tomboy learning how to survive her brutal but humorous Italian family and all the rest that life throws her. From the stoops of the Bronx to cross-dressing on the streets of Egypt, from the cancer ward at Memorial Sloan-Kettering to NYC’s gay club scene of the ’80s, this poignant and authentic story takes us from underneath the dining room table to the stoop, the sidewalk, the street, and, ultimately, out into the wide world of immigration, gay subculture, cancer treatment, mental illness, gender dynamics, drug addiction, domestic violence, and a vast array of Italian American characters. Lanzillotto has been a NY performance artist since 1993 and has received grants, awards, and commissions from Franklin Furnace, Dixon Place, Rockefeller Foundation, Puffin Foundation, The Field, and New York Foundation for the Arts. She will be joined by special guests reading their favorite passages from this long-awaited memoir.
Sunday, June 30th @ 2:30PM – Free
Practical Anarchy Reading Group: Milstein & Ruin’s “Paths toward Utopia”
NYC-based collective Practical Anarchy invites folks of all backgrounds and identities to a monthly reading group exploring what anarchism means in our current context. Together, we discuss historical and contemporary texts, self-organization and mutual aid, in order to work toward a society free of all forms of social domination. This month we’ll be discussing “Paths toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism” by Cindy Milstein and Eric Ruin.
Check out Bluestockings’ Safer Space Policy for guidelines on how to help Bluestockings be a supportive environment during events and at all times.