Vince Sgambati, IPPY Award winning author, will read from his latest novel, Sanctuaries––a tender story of caring and personal healing, set against the larger turmoil of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Stonewall, and the lingering ashes of the Holocaust. Gabriel Garcia Roman, artist, craftsman, and creator of the Queer Icon series, will share images from the series. Vince and Gabriel will discuss how Catholic imagery influenced their work and invite participants to join their conversation with questions and comments. Vince will sign copies of Sanctuaries.

Planning to purchase a copy of Sanctuaries (Standing Stone Books, 2023, paperback, $18) 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 Sanctuaries”  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.

Vince Sgambati’s debut novel, Most Precious Blood, received an IPPY Award, a KIRKUS star review, was a Foreword Indies Finalist in literary fiction, a Central New York Book Awards Finalist, and was listed as recommended reading by the Working Class Studies Association. His short story collection, Undertow of Memory, includes stories awarded by the Katherine Ann Porter Prize for Fiction and the Saints and Sinners Fiction Contest. His fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in the anthology Queer and Catholic, North American Review, Nimrod International Journal, Voices In Italian Americana, Saints and Sinners: New Fiction From The Festival, Off the Rocks, The Journal of GLBT Family Studies, and Lavender Magazine where he wrote a Queer parenting column. Sanctuaries is Vince’s second novel.

Gabriel Garcia Roman is a multi-disciplinary artist and craftsman who examines and decodes the politics of identity through intricate and process-based work. His art has been acquired by the International Center of Photography and has been shown at the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA), Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York, NY), the Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY), and numerous other institutions and galleries. He was a 2018 recipient of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture’s artist grant and in 2019 was commissioned by the Leslie-Lohman Museum to bring his Queer Icons series into the streets for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots where 100 Queer Icons flags were marched down the World Pride route. In 2022 he was one of 7 artists whose work was featured in collaboration with Target’s Mas Que campaign for Latinx Heritage Month.