Three Authors, One Evening: An Evening with James Stewart III, Brock Clarke & Brian Trapp

Join us for an evening of fiction with a trio of authors presenting their new books from UC’s Acre Books.

About Defiant Acts

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. 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.

About Special Election

In Special Election, ingenious fictions target our all-too-familiar preoccupations and vulnerabilities—belonging, (dis)engagement, the struggle for self-worth, the difficulty of loving and being loved, the banality and absurdity of existence. Brock Clarke’s rapier wit, inexhaustible imagination, and brilliant leaps of illogic transform his characters’ desperation and distress into tragicomic delight.

About Range of Motion

Twin A and Twin B. That’s what Michael and Sal’s neuroscientist father irreverently calls them. The boys are born moments apart, but baby Sal’s brain scan shows a bleed. He has severe cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. Told through multiple perspectives—Gabe, the boys’ father; Hannah, their mother; and Michael—this debut novel follows the Mitchell family from the boys’ infancy to the cusp of adulthood as they all try to interpret what Sal, who speaks only eight words, is thinking and feeling. Transforming perceptions of disability and interdependence through tender attention to detail, Range of Motion is wrenching, beautiful, and sharply comic.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Joseph-Beth Cincinnati.

About James Stewart III

James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts, is forthcoming from Acre Books in May 2025. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Lampblack, Zone 3, Midwest Review, The Forge, and 580 Split. He is a co-founder of the reading series and artist collective Exhibit B. Stewart earned an MFA from SAIC, 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.

About Brock Clarke

Brock Clarke is the author of nine previous books, including the bestselling novel An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England and the award-winning essay collection I, Grape. He lives in Portland, Maine, and is the A. LeRoy Greason Professor of English and Creative Writing at Bowdoin College.

About Brian Trapp

Brian Trapp is director of disability studies at the University of Oregon, where he also teaches fiction and nonfiction. His work has been published in the Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Longreads, Brevity, and elsewhere. He has been a Steinbeck Fellow, a Borchardt Scholar, and an Elizabeth George grant recipient. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, with his twin brother, Danny.