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.

Success is the theme of the twenty-fifth installment of TELL. Featuring Marcus Hicks, Roni Laytin, Larry Darnell Penn Whitfield, Ashley Young, and Judy Yu.

$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.

Marcus Hicks is a designer/performer living in Brooklyn NY. Originally from Ca. SDNBrooklyn.com

Roni Laytin is an actress, writer, mover, shaker, improviser and lover of story. She graduated from Pace University with a BFA in Acting and additionally pursues film production. Recent credits include “Mother May I?”, “Be Our Guest” feature film, “Mad Full of Dreams” and most proudly a laundry detergent B2B where her hands did all the talking. She’d like to thank Drae for this awesome opportunity and everyone else that is allowing others a glimpse into their world tonight. You can read about creative updates as well as contact her at ronilaytin.com.

Larry Darnell Penn Whitfield is a NYC based actor, writer, singer and aggressive mover. He is creator of Confessions of a Plussizetwink a one man cabaret series. Southern and sassy roots govern his everyday creativity. Live. Love. Create.

Ashley Young is a Queer feminist poet, author and teacher. Her work has been published in three anthologies, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press), All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color (University of Wisconsin Press) and Glitter and Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy (Portland Studio). She a contributor at Elixher magazine and has been featured in various online magazines, such as Autostraddle, Rvkvry Journal and more. She is a 2010 Voices of Our Nation’s Foundation Poetry Fellow and a 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation Nonfiction Fellow, to return summer of 2016. She has taught her biomythography workshop at the Fire and Ink Conference in 2015 and at the Northeast Queer and Trans Conference at NYU. She performs her work at various readings throughout the country and will be reading at her first solo show at Bluestockings Bookstore, Cafe and Activist Center in New York City. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and prose entitled Chronicles of Bipolar Living and is completing her first novel, a biomythography entitled The Liberation of the Black Unicorn. Ashley lives in New York City with her wife, four wild cats and her sweet service dog.

Judy Yu writes stories on the number 2 or 3 train from Brooklyn to Harlem, and advocates for LGBTQ youth in the youth justice system at the Juvenile Justice Project of the Correctional Association of NY. She has lived in New York for over 20 years and calls Brooklyn home. She has an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence and an MPH from Hunter.