Celebrating the release of Scorcher issue #7 (“Valedictorian”), published by Birdsong Micropress, please join Max Steele at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division for an evening of readings by: Max Steele, Tommy Pico,  Anthony Thornton, Kayla Morse, and Sam McKinniss.

Cover drawing of Scorcher issue #7 (“Valedictorian”) by Julia Norton.

Tommy “Teebs” Pico is the founder and editor in chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that publishes art and writing, and the author of Absent Mindr—the first chapbook app published for iOS mobile/tablet devices (VERBALVISUAL, 2014). He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, and has been published in BOMB, [PANK], and the Best American Poetry blog. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn.

Anthony Thornton is an American poet living and working in New York. He has read at numerous venues (CULTUREfix, Envoy Enterprises, The Spectrum, the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division, Starr Space) and private salons, and is editing his forthcoming second poetry collection, New Directions.

Kayla Morse is settling into that kind of cool, level-headed maturity that women of a certain age enjoy.  PSYCH.

Max Steele is a performer and writer living in Brooklyn. He has presented work at Dixon Place, the New Museum, Deitch Projects, BAM, Joe’s Pub, Envoy Enterprises, PPOW Gallery, UPenn’s Kelly Writers’ House, the Afterglow Festival and the Queens Museum of Art. He writes the psychedelic porno poetry zine Scorcher, and his writing has been featured in Dossier Journal, Spank, East Village Boys, Birdsong, Vice, Noisey, and Best Gay Stories 2014. He has been an Artist in Residence at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange since 2012.

Sam McKinniss is an artist and writer in New York. His paintings have been on view recently at envoy enterprises and Good Work Gallery in New York as well as at Galerie Thomas Fuchs in Stuttgart. His writing has appeared in Adult Magazine, DIS Magazine, the Library at Dirty Looks NYC and Pastelegram.org.