About this Event
About the book:
A dynamic portrait of one queer, Black boy's experience in 1970s Cincinnati.
Sixteen-year-old Cliffy Douglas's life is leveling up. An academic superstar on an accelerated path, he's about to put high school behind him for college on the West Coast. His mentally ill father seems committed to seeking help for both his bipolar disorder and the PTSD brought back from the war in Vietnam. Cliffy even has a boyfriend—a summer romance that just might be the real thing.
But Cliffy's life is flung into dangerous limbo after a vicious personal assault leaves him hospitalized, and with a terrible secret that threatens to ruin his escape from his claustrophobic family into a larger, more open world. As he recovers from his brutal attack, Cliffy must gather the complicated courage to face his assailant, demand justice, and fight off an encroaching despair that threatens his future.
With Days Running, novelist Shawn Stewart Ruff has created yet another dynamic portrait of one queer, Black boy's experience in 1970s Cincinnati—chaotic family ties, the friction of shame and self-preservation, devastating violence, unexpected allies, and the desperate desire to break free.
About the author:
Shawn Stewart Ruff is the author of three novels, including Finlater, 2008 winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction and a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award. He is also the editor of the landmark Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African American Writers (1996).
Shawn Stewart Ruff will be in conversation with Marcia Chatelain.
Marcia Chatelain is a historian and writer based in D.C. Her 2020 book Franchise won the Pulitzer Prize in History and the James Beard Award for Writing.
About the publisher:
DOPAMINE IS A QUEER LITERARY ORGANIZATION THAT AIMS TO ELEVATE LGBTQI+ WRITING AND WRITERS THROUGH PUBLISHING, READING SERIES, LITERARY TOURS AND WORKSHOPS. WE LOOK TO PROMOTE AND NURTURE QUEER WORK THAT FALLS OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM OF EVEN LGBTQI+ STORYTELLING: WORK THAT IS EXPERIMENTAL, BY WRITERS RESISTING ASSIMILATION; WORK THAT STRETCHES THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT DEFINES ‘QUEER,’ BY WRITERS WITH INTERSECTING IDENTITIES; WORK THAT IS RAW, BY WRITERS WHO ARE SELF-TAUGHT. DOPAMINE HONORS THE OUTLAW HERITAGE OF QUEER ARTISTS AND LOOKS TO WRITERS WHO ARE NOT COMPLACENT, COMPLICIT OR GENTRIFIED, AND WHOSE WORK CHALLENGES THE STATUS QUO THROUGH VOICE, CONTENT, OR EXISTENCE. INSPIRED BY DARING PUBLISHERS SUCH AS HIGH RISK, HANUMAN, BLACK SPARROW, GALLIMARD, OR BOOKS, THE FEMINIST PRESS, SEMIOTEXT(E), AKASHIC BOOKS AND OTHERS, DOPAMINE IS DEDICATED TO STYLISTIC STORIES OF UNVARNISHED QUEER EXISTENCE.
Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with questions.
Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar [email protected] con cualquiera duda.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Lost City Books, 2467 18th Street Northwest, Washington, United States
USD 0.00
