Author. Educator. Organizer.
JAMES STEWART III
Welcome to my website. As a professional Writer, I aim to create a better understanding of the world and our place in it. Read some of my work below, including published articles and short stories.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Stewart III is a Black writer from Chicago whose debut novel, Defiant Acts, is forthcoming from Acre Books in May 2025. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lampblack, Midwest Review, Zone 3, The Forge, 580 Split, Pangyrus, Cleaver, and Another Chicago Magazine. He earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA from North Central College. He also co-founded the reading series Exhibit B, which hosts programming in Chicago, New York City, and Online. www.jamesstewart3.com
PROJECTS
Defiant Acts
Forthcoming May, 2025 (Acre Books)
This powerful debut novel by James Stewart III 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.
Exhibit B
A Bi-Monthly Reading Series
James is a co-founder of the text-based performance series Exhibit B, which pushes artists to think beyond the typical limitations of a reading and develop new ways to bring their work into the world. Partnering with the Guild Literary Complex for shows online and in Chicago, Exhibit B is proud to be a paying market for artists. The series hosts performances throughout Chicago, online, and in New York City.
PUBLISHED WORK
Silent Killer
Cleaver: Philadelphia's International Literary Magazine
Issue 32: December 18, 2020
Stronger
The Forge Literary Magazine
June 23, 2021
The Black Ranger
The Fourth
Midwest Review 10
Summer 2023
Rodney
Lampblack
Labour Issue - Fall 2023
Dead Ends
Hawaii Pacific Review · Literary Journal of Hawaii Pacific University
The Paint
North Dakota '84
Cowboy Jamboree (Print)
March 2024
Flooding
Another Chicago Magazine, July 2020
Fresh Cut
580 Split - Issue 24: Push Black
Fnewsmagazine 2018
"ANY HUMAN POWER CAN BE RESISTED AND CHANGED BY HUMAN BEINGS. RESISTANCE AND CHANGE OFTEN BEGIN IN ART."
Ursula K. Le Guin
GET IN TOUCH
One of the greatest perks of my job is getting feedback and interacting with readers. Contact me if you’ve got any comments or questions for me, I’d love to hear from you.