New Beginnings in Writing with Jack Ridl
February 26, 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET
Tuition: $75
Materials Fee: N/A
Jack believes that making art and writing brings about realizations and valuable experiences that can happen no other way. With decades of experience in “de-threatening” the art-making process this workshop offers that for participants. He hopes that you will leave at home any notions of departing Ox-Bow with something completed; instead, he will encourage you to start many things – written pieces, creative notions, seeds of ideas. He strives to create an instant community where conversation throughout the day is stimulating, a joy, and worthwhile.
Plan to bring: Writing utensils and paper or notebook and memorable tokens from your life that may inspire writing and collaboration.
Location: Please note that this workshop takes place at Ox-Bow House, located at 137 Center Street, Douglas, Michigan 49406.
Participants gather on the Ox-Bow porch for Jack’s 2025 Art on the Meadow workshop. Photo by Nolan Zunk, 2025 Summer Fellow
Jack Ridl, Poet Laureate of Douglas, Michigan (Population 1100), is the author of All At Once (CavanKerry Press) and Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press). His Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (WSUPress, 2013) was co-recipient of the National Gold Medal for Best Collection of Poetry by ForeWord Reviews. His collection Broken Symmetry (WSUPress) was co-recipient of The Society of Midland Authors best book of poetry award for 2006. His Losing Season (CavanKerry Press) was named the best sports book of the year for 2009 by The Institute for International Sport. Then Poet Laureate Billy Collins selected his Against Elegies for The Center for Book Arts Chapbook Award. Individual poems have been published in The Georgia Review, Poetry, Colorado Review, Rattle, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Field, Poetry East, and elsewhere.The students at Hope College named him both their Outstanding Professor and their Favorite Professor, and in 1996 The Carnegie (CASE) Foundation named him Michigan Professor of the Year. More than 85 of Jack’s students have earned their MFA degree and over 100 are published, several of whom have received First Book Awards, national honors. Every Thursday Jack hosts and posts on YouTube his monologue “The Sentimentalist.” Poetry and Song: A Concert with Carrie Newcomer and Jack Ridl is available on YouTube. For further information about Jack, his website is www.ridl.com.