Ken Waldman

August, 2026. How did that happen? So much has been going on that it's been hard to keep up. 

After a busy 2025, 2026 has been wild: gigs in Pennsylvania, New York, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, Colorado, California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Texas, Louisiana again, North Carolina again, Virginia, Indiana--and that doesn't include the big winter ice storm that played havoc with Ken's Oxford MS residency (and shut down the university for two weeks), nor big, busy conferences in New York City, New Orleans, and Baltimore. It also doesn't include the transmission rebuild in Louisiana, a second transmission failure in Utah, and other car problems. 

But, hey, Ken has been at this awhile, and he's even managed to prepare a new book for fall publication. It's a memoir about money, making art, and survival. He invites you to read the first chapter of the book and then to contribute to the project. The Kickstarter campaign reached its goal mid-March, but Ken is taking pledges through summer (and pledging ensures you get the book before the official October publication date). 

What's next? After July hangouts in Nashville TN, Trumansburg NY, Clifftop WV, Ken is playing house concerts in Massachusetts and Maryland. His new memoir is set to go. And beginning Labor Day, there's a four-week residency in Alleghany County, Virginia which includes public events, school visits, and plenty more.  

By the way, this page shows the kind of work Ken continues to provide. (And if you want the really deep dive into Ken's days, click this.) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

His twelve CDs of old-time Appalachian-style string-band music include two for children.

His twenty-five books consist of seventeen full-length poetry collections, two memoirs about his life as a touring artist,
three volumes of acrostic poems for kids, a short story collection, and a hybrid book that's part creative writing manual,
part memoir, part full-length collection of poems (about writers and writing). And there's also a novel.

A former college professor with an MFA in Creative Writing, he's been a visiting writer at over 100 colleges and universities,
a visiting artist at over 260 schools in 35 states, and has led workshops from Alaska to Maine.

As a performer, he's played from the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage to the Woodford Folk Festival (Queensland, Australia),
occasionally as a soloist, more often as leader of one of his ever-changing troupes of nationally recognized musicians.

Here's more about the music, the writing, the children's programs, and how they're all coming together under the broader
umbrella of Nomadic Productions.

Highlights? His essay in the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue of Poets & Writers magazine, an essay from over a decade ago, continues                                                                   to feel current (acrostic poems from that piece are in some of the 2025 collections).

2017-2021, Ridgeway Press of Michigan published an eight-volume series of Ken's books. It's a special project.

Below, a pair of  8 1/2-minute video samplers featuring eight acts from his 2016 and 2017 Manhattan to Moose Pass roots
music variety shows, an evening he produces annually in conjunction with January's APAP conference in NYC. In the middle,
Ken Waldman with Willi Carlisle as part of a Ken Waldman & The Wild Ones show at Chico Performances in spring 2019
where Ken was joined by four other musicians. That Willi Carlisle--he's been going places. Check him out!