Book Launch—Blood, Sweat & Queers: Vampiric Love Stories (in person & live-streaming)

Name: Book Launch—Blood, Sweat & Queers: Vampiric Love Stories (in person & live-streaming)
Start: 2025-10-04T17:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-04T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Bureau of General Services-Queer Division

Schedule

Sat Oct 04 2025 at 05:00 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Bureau of General Services-Queer Division | New York, NY

Join author Mae Murray (I’m Sorry if I Scared You), author Andi Astra, editor Margaret Hall (GEMIGNANI: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond), and editor Jamie Ryu as they crack open the coffin and unleash the vampire with Blood, Sweat & Queers, a collection of 8 LGBTQ+ vampire stories. A portion of every purchase of Blood, Sweat & Queers is being donated by the publisher to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that provides crisis counseling, advocacy, and research for LGBTQ+ lives.

To reserve a copy of Blood, Sweat & Queers: Vampiric Love Stories (Contrarian Publishing, October 7, 2025, paperback, $19.99) please write to us at [email protected] with “please reserve Blood, Sweat & Queers for October 4 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Blood, Sweat & Queers on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
https://bookshop.org/a/14040/9781965422076

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 on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a 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
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!
https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/bgsqd
Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Mae Murray is a writer and editor hailing from Arkansas, now living in eerie New England. She occasionally contributes essays and film criticism to Fangoria.com and Dread Central. She is the recipient of the 2022 Brave New Weird Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. The Book of Queer Saints Volume I was her editing debut and a 2023 British Fantasy Award nominee in the Best Anthology category. Her debut novel, I’m Sorry If I Scared You, released in 2024.

Margaret Hall is a scholar of vampire literature, an author, a teacher, a director, and a theatre historian. Margaret is a staff writer for Playbill Magazine, the pre-eminent theatre publication in the United States, as well as a teacher at various accredited programs, including Juilliard and New York University. She is the youngest known nominator in the history of the Drama Desk Awards.
Her debut biography, GEMIGNANI: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond, explored the life of esteemed Broadway music director Paul Gemignani. An unflinching advocate for the societally marginalized, Margaret is an autistic woman, and the founder of the non-profit Autistic Theatremakers Alliance. She has received both a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama, and a Masters in Musical Theatre History from New York University. Grá a bhfuil grá agat dó.

Jamie Ryu worked for Big 5 powerhouse publishing companies like Macmillan and HarperCollins before forging her own path as the founder of Contrarian Publishing. With ample editing experience and a degree in Comparative Literature from New Yor University, she is well-equipped to help writers unlock the full potential of the stories they’re meant to tell and aid them in pursuing their goals, whether that be traditional publishing or indie publishing. She is a proud, queer Korean American woman, and is sadly married to a man (a wonderful man, but a man nonetheless).

Andi Astra is a queer, multidisciplinary illustrator and creative based out of Hilo, Hawaii. While studying English Literature at Eastern Michigan University in 2015, Andi began creating science fiction and alien centric art under the name Spooky Girl, using these themes to explore their own identity and relationship with femininity. Since then, Andi has built a successful career as an illustrator, and has begun to expand their universe by writing stories that explore the strange, queer and ethereal.