Rebel Satori Press

Julian's Debut Book Launch at the Bureau
2025-03-20 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Brian Alessandro’s new novel, Julian’s Debut—his fifth book and third novel—explores the ethical gray area that comes with writing memoirs. What right do writers have to the private lives of friends, family, lovers, and acquaintances when writing memoirs?
Brian will read from Julian’s Debut and discuss its themes, inspirations, and plot with the award-winning author of 2022’s Greenland, David Santos Donaldson. Copies of Julian’s Debut will also be sold and autographed during the event.

To reserve a copy of Julian’s Debut (Rebel Satori Press, March 18, 2025, paperback, $21.95), please write to us with “please reserve Julian’s Debut for March 20th event” 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 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

Julian’s Debut synopsis:

Julian Sorrento is a giver. Throughout much of his life he served his large, dysfunctional family at the expense of his own needs and desires. Drawing from his experiences as his family’s crutch, therapist, and bank, as well as his career as a clinical social worker of homeless youths, Julian writes a New Yorker article titled My Mighty Meekness, about altruism, sacrifice, and how putting others first could be pleasurable and rewarding, which is published to a surprising amount of attention.

Following the article’s publication, Julian’s family comes after him with a righteous fury. They claim he has exaggerated and distorted facts, making himself look like a victim and a hero and them the villains. His agent encourages him to expand the article into a book and portions of the article are also optioned by The Darlington Brothers, independent filmmakers, who hire Julian to adapt the work into a cable series for HBO (now MAX). They are interested exclusively in his anthropologist aunt who inadvertently incited a small civil war in Northeastern India, her husband, who builds bombs for Raytheon, and their son who punishes them both by inviting homeless people to live with them.
As Julian meets with each member of his family to hear their grievances, he also seeks—or sometimes makes up whole cloth—additional damning secrets about them to include in his memoir. Throughout the interminable filial reckoning, Julian leaves his job with social services, and develops the cable series with the assistance of Raul, his ex-fiancé, who makes vague allusions to sabotaging the media empire he works for as a programmer.

“An inventive, wildly entertaining novel, which revolves around the hazards of writing a memoir about one’s family. What a cast of characters Brian Alessandro has brought to life, through sparkling dialogue and vivid, often comical scenes. I enjoyed ‘Julian’s Debut’ immensely!” – Bill Hayes, author of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me

“By turns comic, wrenching, appalling, bewildered, shrewd, never nice, and always alive, Julian’s Debut is a powder keg of a book that explodes and explodes.” —Paul Lisicky, author of Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell

Brian Alessandro has written for Interview Magazine, Newsday, PANK (co-founded by Roxanne Gay), Huffington Post, Galerie (Wes Anderson’s cult film streaming app) Lambda Literary, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Kirkus Reviews, and The Florida Review, and has recently co-adapted Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story into a graphic novel for Top Shelf Productions. Additionally, Brian co-edited Fever Spores: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs, an anthology of essays and interviews about Burroughs for Rebel Satori Press. Brian is also the co-founder and editor in chief of the literary journal, The New Engagement. His first novel, The Unmentionable Mann, was published in 2015 by Cairn Press and his first feature film, Afghan Hound, was produced by Maryea Media in 2011, and is streaming on Plex, Tubi, and Amazon. Julian’s Debut, his fifth book, will be published by Rebel Satori Press in March 2025. Brian also has a feature film and a limited series in development with an Academy Award-winning producer.

David Santos Donaldson was raised in Nassau, Bahamas, and has lived in India, Spain, and the United States. He attended Wesleyan University and the Drama Division of the Juilliard School, and his plays have been commissioned by the Public Theater. He was a finalist for the Urban Stages Emerging Playwright Award and has worked as the Artistic Director for the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts in Nassau, Bahamas. Donaldson is currently a practicing psychotherapist, and divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Seville, Spain. Greenland is his first novel.

Saints & Sinners Literary Festival
2025-03-28 - 2025-03-30 | Hotel Monteleone, 214 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA, 70130, United States
Come party with the literati in the heart of New Orleans’s French Quarter.
Rebel authors in attendance include Jerry Wheeler (Mercedes General), Jewelle Gomez (We Three), Brian Alessandro (Performer non Grata and Julian’s Debut), Jeffrey Round (The English Tutor), Tom Cardamone (Fever Spores), Sven Davisson (Breeding Devils in Chaos, The Desire Line, and Puck You!) and others.

Jeffrey Round in Toronto
2025-04-06 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | The Staircase, 27 Dundurn St N, Hamilton, Ontario, L8R 3C9, Canada
LitLive is a monthly literary reading series based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Featuring Jeffrey Round, author of The English Tutor.

New Orleans Poetry Festival
2025-04-12 - 2025-04-13 | New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude, New Orleans, LA, 70117, United States
Rebel Satori will be at the fest’s Small Press Book Fair!
The mission of the New Orleans Poetry Festival and Small Press Fair is to create a space for an inclusive and diverse group of writers to collaborate, share and influence each other while also being immersed in the distinctive literary culture of New Orleans. Our goal every year is to bring in poets and performers from across the globe to share their work and research in topics not only specific to writing but to all aspects of the Humanities, including cultural, political, ecological and historical disciplines relevant to contemporary New Orleans, Louisiana, and the world. We showcase the best writers New Orleans has to offer to our visitors, and to the local community we try to offer the most compelling authors from across the nation and the globe. The Festival is highly participatory with events ranging from workshops where you will be generating writing to open mics where you can share your work, from formal readings and panels to the most informal and collegial interactions and collaborations. For both locals and visitors we invite the active inspiration of four days of poetry immersion and collaboration, hopefully fostering further explorations and creations that continue beyond the time spent here in New Orleans.

Frank Pizzoli Signing
2025-04-18 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | LGBT Center of Central PA, 1323 N Front St., Harrisburg, PA, 17102, United States
Enjoy a special evening with the LGBT Center and Frank Pizzoli, who will be reading from and signing his new book, Passionate Outlier: Gay Writers and Allies on Their Work.
The LGBT Center will also be celebrating the new History Project Exhibit, which examines the origins and development of the LGBT Center’s History Project, its accomplishments, and its impact on the region’s LGBTQ+ community and the public over the last 12 years. The exhibit will be on display through July 17.

Noel Alumit @ LA Times Festival of Books
2025-04-26 08:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | NY
Defining Moments: Novels About Identity, Desire, and the Turning Points in Our Lives – Tickets Required

One moment can change everything in a person’s life—but more often, these big moments are comprised of many choices that seemed much smaller as they were happening one by one. Two of these propulsive, smart novels follow lives abruptly changed and forever redirected, while the third plays out more like a slow burn, exploring the ramifications of choice and secrets over decades, familial generations, and international borders.

Noel Alumit is a multidisciplinary artist who received a COLA grant, the James Duggins Mid-Career Prize and named one of Out Magazine’s “Out 100.” He wrote “Letters to Montgomery Clift” and his LA Times bestselling novel “Talking to the Moon” will be reissued later this year. His most recent book is the short story collection “Music Heard in Hi-Fi” (Rebel Satori). Noel acted in the forthcoming short film “Pearls Lost,” written/directed by Rebecca Ocampo and produced by Ryan Shrime. Noel co-founded the artist-run space OFFUS located in the Bendix building in downtown Los Angeles.

Carol Lee Campbell in Richmond
2025-04-27 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Abi’s Books and Brews, 1212 1/2 W Cary St,, Richmond, VA, 23220, United States
Hey Richmond! Carol Lee Campbell will be in Richmond, Virginia for a book event at Abi’s Books & Brews on April 27th at 2 pm, located on Cary Street. This free event will feature a discussion about their latest fiction, The Rebel Rose. Carol would love to see you there—be sure to stop by!

Rainbow Book Fair
2025-05-10 | LGBT Center, 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Stop by this amazing event and stop by our table.
The Rainbow Book Fair is back! For our 13th Fair, the theme is “Queer Resistance Now: No Stopping Us!” As we face an increasing array of transphobic, racist, misogynist, and homophobic actions by the federal government, the RBF has joined the resistance! The Rainbow Book Fair celebrates LGBT culture and queer joy — nothing can get in the way of our commitment to justice, access, and great books. Our featured readers address the struggles and pleasures of living in community with each other and being our authentic selves. And get ready for panels that explore all kinds of LGBT resistance: political, gendered, sexual, and literary.
AND… don’t forget our annual Drag Story Hour, a celebration of gender fabulousness for children of all ages.
PLUS, we’ll be hosting the Come Hear! poetry marathon and a wide roster of short readings in every genre.

Drought Book Launch
2025-06-03 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Red Eye, 355 W 41st St, New York, NY, 10036, United States
Join author Scott Alexander Hess to celebrate the launch of his novel Drought.
About the book:
When Parnell, a recluse from Newark, New Jersey, inherits a dilapidated tobacco farm in Kentucky from his estranged Uncle Willy, he moves to the farm hoping to jump start his empty life. Such begins an odyssey igniting a dual narrative as Uncle Willy shares from the grave about his deep love for a man named Phil, and a violent curse born from hate and intolerance. In Kentucky, Parnell befriends Darl, who works at the Sonic, and John, an eccentric preacher who guides him to learn the twisted fate of his Uncle Willy. Parnell discovers there are more than tobacco leaves buried in the fields. As he unearths a long-hidden crime, to his surprise, he gains a new sense of self.
“Drought is as full of compassion for its characters–and humanity, in general–as it is unexpected in its storytelling. Hess has written a novel that manages to be simultaneously tender, macabre, and transcendent.” –Brian Alessandro, author of Performer Non Grata and Julian’s Debut
“Drought is an intricate, moving novel about a lonely farmer who wrestles with his uncle’s past and learns what it means to belong.” –Foreword Reviews

Christine Vartoughian at KGB
2025-06-25 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Christine Vartoughian reads from her new story collection, The Only Way Out Is Through. Signed copies will be available for purchase.

Rebel Satori Annual Pride Reading NYC
2025-06-28 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join a slate of Rebel Satori’s authors at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division for our second annual pride reading.
Authors in attendance will include Tom Cardamone, Sven Davisson, and Scott Hightower.
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, on the unceded land of the Munsee Lenape, now known as New York City. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting readings, performances, film screenings, book discussion groups, and workshops. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing. The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division welcomes you.

Christine Vartoughian at Word Books, Brooklyn
2025-07-08 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Word Books, 126 Franklin St., Brooklyn, NY, United States

Stories & Sparkles at 3rd & B'zaar, NYC
2025-07-23 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | 3rd & B’zaar, 191 East 3rd Street, New York, NY, United States
Christine Vartoughian reads from her new story collection, The Only Way Out Is Through. Signed copies will be available for purchase. Also featuring themed jewelry popup from Snootie Seconds. Drinks and sips for socializing.

Scott Alexander Hess in St. Louis
2025-07-24 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Chicago) | Left Bank Books, Facebook Live, St. Louis, MO, United States
Join author Scott Alexander Hess to celebrate his new novel Drought.
About the book:
When Parnell, a recluse from Newark, New Jersey, inherits a dilapidated tobacco farm in Kentucky from his estranged Uncle Willy, he moves to the farm hoping to jump start his empty life. Such begins an odyssey igniting a dual narrative as Uncle Willy shares from the grave about his deep love for a man named Phil, and a violent curse born from hate and intolerance. In Kentucky, Parnell befriends Darl, who works at the Sonic, and John, an eccentric preacher who guides him to learn the twisted fate of his Uncle Willy. Parnell discovers there are more than tobacco leaves buried in the fields. As he unearths a long-hidden crime, to his surprise, he gains a new sense of self.
“Drought is as full of compassion for its characters–and humanity, in general–as it is unexpected in its storytelling. Hess has written a novel that manages to be simultaneously tender, macabre, and transcendent.” –Brian Alessandro, author of Performer Non Grata and Julian’s Debut
“Drought is an intricate, moving novel about a lonely farmer who wrestles with his uncle’s past and learns what it means to belong.” –Foreword Reviews

Scott Alexander Hess in Louisville
2025-07-30 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Carmichaels, 2720 Frankfort Avenue, Louisville, 40206

Book Signing with West Ambrose
2025-08-02 12:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Indigo – Kingston, 945 Gardiners Road, Unit Y011, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Meet author West Ambrose at our book signing event and grab your signed copy of The Last Boys on Earth.

Author and performer West Ambrose will be in-store signing copies of their exciting adventure, The Last Boys on Earth.
Read more about it here: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-last-boy-on-earth/9781608643714.html

Christine Vartoughian at Bluestocking
2025-08-07 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Bluestocking Bookstore, 116 Suffolk St., New York, NY, United States

Thomas Moore in London
2025-08-13 18:30 - 21:00 (Europe/London) | Trisha’s, 57 Greek St., Soho, London, W1D 3DX, United Kingdom
Thomas Moore (author of In Their Arms) will be reading in London alongside Audrey Szasz, Jane Dabate, and Casper Kelly. Organized by Danny Profit and TC Hell.
To attend, please send RSVP to dannyprofit94@gmail.vom

Christine Vartoughian - Moving Body Salon NYC
2025-08-15 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Moving Body Salon, 112 W. 27th St., New York, NY, United States

Scott Alexander Hess at the New School
2025-09-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | The New School, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, United States
Scott will discuss his latest novel Drought at The New School in New York City.

Scott Alexander Hess @ The New School
2025-09-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | The New School, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, United States
I am thrilled to be back at my MFA in Fiction Alma Mater The New School to read from and talk about my new queer novel DROUGHT! The New School was where I first had the thought that I might be able to write a novel and here we are 8 novels later!

I will be giving away a free copy of my book and a special T-shirt at the reading. Drop in! It’s free and will be fun!

Info and Register (you can also just show up).

Fall of Freedom
2025-11-25 20:00 - 21:30 (America/Chicago) | Bar Redux, 801 Poland Ave., New Orleans, 70117, United States
Bar Redux and Unlikely Stories present a night of pro-democracy, anti-fascist art in support of the nationwide Fall of Freedom movement (see https://www.falloffreedom.com/ ). Presenting writing and music by NaTRILL Dizaster, music by Josh Benitez, a musical performance by the No-Law Solidarity Choir, and literature by Andy Young, Daniel W.K. Lee, Cid Galicia, Rel Farrar, Scythe Sylvia, Briana Augustus, and Russ Mercado. There will be a silent procession for free speech and a literary open mic, so come and share your pro-democracy, anti-fascist work. Tuesday, November 25, 8pm in New Orleans!

4th Annual Rebel Satori World AIDS Day Reading & Book Launch
2025-12-03 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Library of Homosexual Congress, a Rebel Satori imprint, is proud to reissue two seminal novels from the AIDS crisis: Bo Huston’s Remember Me and Sacred Lips of the Bronx by Douglas Sadownick.
Tom Cardamone from the Rebel Satori imprint, The Library of Homosexual Congress, will read from Bo Huston’s work.

To reserve a copy of Remember Me (Library of Homosexual Congress, November 11, 2025, paperback, $17.95) and/or Sacred Lips of the Bronx (Library of Homosexual Congress, November 4, 2025, paperback, $23.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Remember Me and/or Sacred Lips of the Bronx for December 3 event” in the subject line, and in the body of the email let us know which book you’d like to purchase or if you’d like to purchase both.
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 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!

Remember Me by Bo Huston
This elegiac novel, first published in 1991, is the story of smalltown friendship, longing, and the impact of AIDS on a young gay writer’s now fleeting artistic ambition. In prose poetic yet uncompromising, Huston’s work brings a life from the margins to the forefront like no other novel from an era of overwhelming prejudice, fear and powerful resilience.
A three-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, Bo Huston (1959 – 1993) was the author of two novels and two short story collections. A columnist for the San Francisco Times, he was a co-founder of the LGBT literary conference Out/Write and participated in the first March on Washington DC. Huston received his HIV diagnosis in 1988 and in diminishing health orchestrated his own exit on May 24th, 1993.

Sacred Lips of the Bronx by Douglas Sadownick
“Sadownick’s ambitious first novel combines AIDS activism, Jewish folklore, New Age therapies, kinky sex, and some extraordinary passages about life in contemporary Venice, California, and the Bronx of yesteryear. At the center is Michael Kaplan, an AIDS journalist living in post-riot Los Angeles. Sadownick juxtaposes the ghosts of Michael’s adolescence in the Bronx –his Polish grandmother Frieda, his jazz musician brother, and his Puerto Rican teenage lover –against his current struggles in L.A., particularly his deteriorating 10-year relationship with Robert, an AIDS activist and performance artist.”
-Publishers Weekly

Douglas Sadownick was born on Shakespeare Avenue in the Bronx, where he first encountered the allure of gay desire amidst the gritty sensuality of urban life. His intellectual journey took him to Columbia College, where he studied Plato and Baldwin, developing a lifelong fascination with homosexual Eros. He later earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and founded the nation’s first LGBT Specialization in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University in 2006. He also established the Colors LGBTQ Youth Counseling Center.
In addition to Sacred Lips of the Bronx (1994), he’s the author of Sex Between Men: An Intimate History of the Sex Lives of Gay Men Postwar to Present (1996) and Healing Gay Sex and Love: A Group Experience (2025).

Ryan Schulte in NYC
2026-03-22 16:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Word Up Community Bookshop, 876 Riverside Drive, Washington Heights, NY, United States
Ryan Schulte author of I Dreamed I Saw Augustine will read at the Word Up Community Bookshop in Washington Heights.
“Dance Yrself Clean” The fourth year in a row – another year, another reading across literary genres and named after an LCD Soundsystem song. Come hear five exciting new voices work out their ideas and find an audience among friends. In years past, they’ve read about new film, psychoanalysis, the Fall of Man, and growing up in New York City. Who knows what this time around will bring.
In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.
Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.
