Jim Ridings was born in Joliet, Illinois, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1976.

He began his career as a reporter for The Daily Times in Ottawa and The Beacon-News in Aurora. During his newspaper career, he received more than a dozen awards for investigative reporting from the Associated Press, United Press International, Copley Press, the Illinois Press Association, the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association, the Aurora Lions Club, the SDX Society of Professional Journalists, and other organizations.

In 2006, Ridings was awarded the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award bronze medal by the Illinois Humanities Council in recognition of his contributions to preserving and sharing Illinois history.

Ridings is the author of 40 published books on local Illinois history, with ten of his books receiving awards from the Illinois State Historical Society. His work explores true crime, politics, historic disasters, forgotten communities, and the people and events that shaped Illinois.

Selected Published Works: 

• Rialto Square Theatre: Celebrating 100 Years of Curtain Calls and Community (2026)

• Murder at Starved Rock: How the System Framed an Innocent Man (2025)

• Murder in the Fox Valley: The True Story of Serial Killer Bruce Lindahl (2022)

• The Ottawa Tent Colony (2021)

• Western Kankakee County (Arcadia Publishing, 2021)

• The Illustrated History of the 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster (2020)

• The Society of the Living Dead: Ottawa's Radium Dial Scandal (2020)

• Small Justice: The Tragic Murder of Stephen Small and the Shameful Conviction of an Innocent Woman (2014)

• Greetings from Joliet: A Picture Postcard View of Old Joliet (2015)

• Wild Kankakee: Gangsters, Bootleggers, Bank Robbers, Murder and Offbeat Tales of Crime, Tragedy and Bizarre Stories You Won't See in Other Local History Books (2012) — Sold Out

• Greetings From Starved Rock (2011) — Sold Out

• Ottawa (Arcadia Publishing, 2011)

• Chicago to Springfield: Crime and Politics in the 1920s (Arcadia Publishing, 2010)

• Len Small: Governors and Gangsters (2009)

• Cardiff: A Further History of the Ghost Town on the Prairie (2008)

• Greetings from Kankakee: A Picture Postcard View of Old Kankakee (2007)

• Kankakee Makes Good: A Second Volume of Picture Postcards of Old Kankakee (2007)

• Cardiff: Ghost Town on the Prairie (2006)

• Greetings from Ottawa: A Picture Postcard View of Old Ottawa (2006) — Sold Out

• County West Companion: A Further History of Western Kankakee County (2005)

• County West: A Sesquicentennial History of Western Kankakee County (2003) — Sold Out