Jim Ridings has written twenty-five books of Illinois history, and several have won awards from the Illinois State Historical Society. He was presented with a Studs Terkel Award from the Illinois Humanities Council in 2006. Ridings worked as reporter for daily newspapers in Ottawa and Aurora, Illinois, and he won more than a dozen awards for investigative reporting at both newspapers. His most significant books have been Small Justice, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters, Wild Kankakee, County West: A Sesquicentennial History of Western Kankakee County, and Cardiff: Ghost Town on the Prairie.