Ari Ketzal is a photographer, fiction writer, and essayist seeking the otherworldly among the folds of the everyday. They were honored as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a 2026 Mass Cultural Council grant recipient, and a semifinalist for the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship in Provincetown. Their writing, which often plays with form and image, has been notable in The Best American Essays and has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, West Trade Review, Creative Nonfiction‘s “Sunday Short Reads,” and elsewhere. They grew up in several rural Alabama towns and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
photo: Amanda Miller
Ari Ketzal 