John Scott Ridgway — Author Biography
John Scott Ridgway is a Chicago‑based novelist, blogger, poet, and multimedia storyteller whose work spans dystopian fiction, political satire, spiritual inquiry, and darkly comic social commentary. A prolific creator for more than two decades, he has published multiple books, written scripts for television and radio, and produced millions of words across an eclectic constellation of blogs. His voice blends the surreal with the intimate, the political with the personal, and the apocalyptic with a persistent, humanistic hope.
Ridgway’s artistic life began early and never narrowed. He studied for nearly fourteen years across several institutions — poetry at the University of Toledo, fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago, and anthropology, sociology, history, and philosophy at Northeastern Illinois University. This unusual academic path shaped a writer equally at home in literary craft, cultural analysis, and philosophical exploration.
His published works include The Collected Writing of John Scott Ridgway, One War, Waking Up Jesus, The Religious Psycho Killer’s Shit List, along with numerous short stories in the small press. His long‑running blogs — including Jesus Talks, The Reluctant Spy Talks, The Elves Attic and Sermons for the End of the World — have cultivated a dedicated readership drawn to his blend of satire, metaphysics, and political critique.
Ridgway’s creative practice extends far beyond the page. He has worked as a fine‑arts painter, mixed‑media artist, comic actor, DJ, and puppet/prop maker for animation projects. In 2006 he created and performed the Chicago improv radio show Peace and Pipedreams, playing more than fourteen characters in a single broadcast. He also ran The Elves Attic, a reading series hosted at It’s A Secret Bar in Roscoe Village, where writers, performers, and musicians gathered for intimate, off‑beat showcases.
His life in Chicago has been as varied as his work. After years in Roscoe Village, he lived on the beach in Rogers Park with his huskies, writing, painting, and developing new projects along the shoreline. He has also volunteered teaching elderly people how to use the internet and has expressed a long‑standing interest in preserving the stories of veterans and hospice residents.
Across all mediums, Ridgway’s work is marked by a restless imagination, a refusal to write in a single register, and a deep belief in the dignity of ordinary people. His stories — whether satirical, spiritual, dystopian, or deeply personal — return again and again to themes of transformation, moral complexity, and the fragile hope that survives even in the darkest worlds.
The AI left out that I am an idiot, but my wife insists my biography is not complete without making this clear.
