LAKE EFFECT: Black Voices from Chicago to Detroit

This event is produced by Exhibit B: A Literary Variety Showcase

Purchase Defiant Acts (Acre Books) on bookshop.org or at Book Suey bookstore

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Drawing on the author's experiences, this debut novel follows an interracial blended family living in Chicago in the 1990s.

James Stewart III's powerful debut novel documents the life of a working-class interracial couple and their children in a Chicago suburb in the early 1990s. The father, Jim, is a Black man married to Connie, a white woman with two white sons from a previous marriage. Connie and Jim have three more children together, and the entire family lives in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in a well-to-do, predominantly white community.

Defiant Acts follows the Stewarts through a year in which Jim fights to earn a promotion, the adolescent boys struggle to find themselves, one of the younger children becomes gravely ill, and the parents try to stay afloat in a shaky economy. Within the walls of the Stewarts' home, race doesn't factor, but when the family interacts with the outside world, it is inescapable, a basis for identity and inclusion as well as a spur for exclusion and abuse.

Rooted in the tradition of Black authors from Chicago and drawing on the author's own experiences, Defiant Acts eschews a conventional plot, presenting a series of captured moments--past and present--and multiple perspectives to build a mosaic of the family's lives. In clear, concise prose, Stewart focuses on the complexities of human relationships and on race relations both in and outside the domestic space, placing emphasis on the values that bind this tight-knit family together: solidarity, care, and hope.

AUTHOR BIOS

James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts (Acre Books, 2025), has been named one of Chicago Magazine’s “Summer’s Required Reading” picks and was recently featured in the Chicago Reader. He was also named to Newcity’s 2025 Lit 50 list, recognizing influential voices in Chicago’s literary culture. His writing has appeared in journals including Lampblack, The Forge, and Midwest Review. Additionally, he is a co-founder of the reading series and artist collective Exhibit B. Stewart holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MA from North Central College, and a BA from Columbia College Chicago. He lives with his wife and daughter at the end of DuSable Lake Shore Drive. www.jamesstewart3.com.

Faylita Hicks (she/they) is a poet, Grammy-nominated recording artist, and spirit-led creative strategist. They are the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket, 2024), winner of the 2025 Midwest Book Award, and HoodWitch (Acre, 2019), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Their debut memoir, A Body of Wild Light, is forthcoming in 2027.
Founder of The Craft Career Studio™, Hicks helps artists build intuitive, liberation-centered careers through ritual and strategy. A 2025 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow and board chair of The Guild Literary Complex, their choreopoem “Bar for Bar” is a 2025 finalist for Definition Theatre’s Amplify Series.

I.S. Jones is the author of , chosen by Nicole Sealey as the winner of the 2025 APR / Honickman First Book Prize and the chapbook , selected by Newfound in 2021 for their Emerging Writers Series. Currently, she is a Senior Editor for Poetry Northwest, where she runs her column, The Legacy Suite, a three-part interview documenting the journey of writers publishing their debut poetry collections. Her works have appeared in Granta, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. While she has lived in many places across the U.S., she gratefully calls Chicago home.

Host or Publisher Book Suey