We host events nearly every night. Bluestockings' events are wheelchair accessible and have seating available for attendees.
Wednesday | November 13 |7:00pm
Breathless: An American Girl in Paris
launch + reading + signing with Nancy K. Miller
Nancy K. Miller’sBreathless is a provocative coming-of-age memoir about one young woman’s unconventional journey of self-discovery when she moves to Paris in the 1960s, an era when women were expected to embrace domesticity. After graduating from Barnard College, Nancy K. Miller sailed to Paris to study French literature and complete a master's degree. She is now a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where she teaches classes in memoirs, graphic novels, and women's studies.
Thursday |November 14 |7:00pm
Nefarious & Purpose and Devil Piss
reading with Emanuel Xavier and Robert Siek
The poets Emanuel Xavier and Robert Siek will be reading from their new books: Nefarious, Xavier’s latest collection, and Purpose and Devil Piss, Siek’s first full-length collection. Emanuel Xavier is the author of the poetry collections Pier Queen, Americano, and If Jesus Were Gay and Other Poems, and the novel Christ Like. He lives in Brooklyn. Robert Siek’s poems have appeared in journals such as The Columbia Poetry Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Court Green, Mary, and Assaracus. His short story, “Sixteen,” appears in the anthology Userlands and another is forthcoming in the journal Jonathan. He lives in Brooklyn.
Friday | November 15 | 7:00pm
The Democratic Republic of Congo
reading + discussion with Michael Deibert
Join us for an evening with journalist and author Michael Deibert as he discusses his groundbreaking new book The Democratic Republic of Congo –a must-read book for anyone interested in contemporary Africa. Deibert is a journalist, author and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University. His writing on Latin America and the Caribbean has appeared in Newsday, The Miami Herald, Salon and The Guardian. He is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti.
Saturday |November 16 |7:00pm
ACROBADDICT
discussion with Joe Putignano—Cirque du Soleil Star, Gifted Athlete, Homeless Drug Addict
Joe will discuss his journey from the US Olympic Training Center to homeless shelters to shooting heroin on the job to being declared dead. He’ll describe how the same energy, obsession, and dedication that can create an Olympic athlete can also create a homeless drug addict. Putignano is a performing artist and contortionist who has toured with Cirque du Soleil, starred in stage productions with the Metropolitan Opera, and competed in the Junior Olympics National Championships.ACROBADDICT is his first book. He lives in NYC.
Sunday |November 17 |4:00pm
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!
Sunday |November 17 |7:00pm
Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency
discussion with Kristian Williams
Kristian Williams will discuss the new collection, Life During Wartime, outlining the basics of counterinsurgency and its domestic application. Williams is the author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, and co-editor of Life During Wartime.
Tuesday |November 19 |7:00pm
Anarchists Against the Wall: Resisting the Israeli Occupation On the Ground
discussion with Eran Efrati and Maya Wind
In their talk, Efrati and Wind will share their experiences of joint Palestinian-Israeli struggle for justice and equality. They will discuss direct action and protest in the West Bank and efforts to educate the Israeli public about the occupation. They will also share their experiences of growing up in segregated Jerusalem and of their Zionist and militaristic education. Eran Efrati, served in the Israeli Defense Force in the West Bank. After he was discharged he worked as chief investigator for Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veteran organization working to raise awareness about the reality in the Occupied Territories. Maya Wind, joined the Shministim movement and helped to establish the 2008 refusenik group. She refused to serve in the IDF and was sentenced to military prison and detention. After her release she co-lead the Jerusalem alternative education program of New Profile, the feminist movement for the demilitarization of Israel.
Friday | November 22 | 7:00pm
Strategies of Resistance in Nuyorican and Latina Coming-of-Age Stories
discussion with Jane Heil Usyk
This discussion will deal with a type of coming-of-age story that is more complicated than many: Nuyorican and other Latina women's stories. These books--by Esmeralda Santiago, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Irene Vilar and others--examine the complexity of dealing with two countries and two languages, with women's relational approach to telling stories, and with the stress of dealing with cultural notions of purity and obedience. Jane Heil Usyk has been a freelance writer and editor for many years. She worked on staff at Vogue, Fitness, and New Woman magazines. She taught at New York City colleges for fifteen years. Her stories and poems are currently in “And Then” Magazine and online on “Forum of World Cultures.”
Saturday |November 23 |7:00pm
Fire Year
reading with Jason K. Friedman
Jason K. Friedman reads from his debut collection Fire Year, listed by Publishers Weekly as one of The Big Indie Books of Fall 2013, with intimate, sinuous prose that creates a vivid and moving picture of the trials religious, cultural, and sexual minorities experience in Georgia and the Deep South. Friedman’s work has appeared in Best American Gay Fiction and he won the Karma Foundation-Moment Magazine Short Fiction Prize for “Blue,” the first story in Fire Year. Jason works as a technical writer in San Francisco, where he lives with his husband, filmmaker Jeffrey Friedman, and their dog, Lefty.
Sunday |November 24 |2:30pm
Anarchist Reading Group
The Anarchist Reading Group discusses historical and contemporary texts to promote the study of self-organization and mutual aid in order to help realize a society free of all forms of social domination. This group is a project of Practical Anarchy, which believes that – in the struggle to create a liberatory society from below - everybody is capable of taking direct action to help shape their lives and their communities.
Sunday |November 24 |5:00pm
Food Justice Reading Group
The food justice reading group meets the last Sunday of every month at 5 pm. This group will read and discuss works that look at the ever important role that food plays in our lives and how our global food system impacts the environment, labor and health. This group will also look at ways to take action to change and improve the problems of our current food system.
Tuesday |November 26 |7:00 pm
Women's / Trans' Poetry Jam & Open Mike
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. Visitvittoriarepetto.wordpress.com for more information.
Check out Bluestockings' Safer Space Policy for guidelines on how to help Bluestockings be a supportive environment during events and at all times.
