- Janisse Ray
Janisse Ray (born
1962 ) is an Americanwriter ,naturalist , andenvironmental activist .She attended
North Georgia College , 1980-82;Florida State University ,B.A. , 1984; and theUniversity of Montana ,M.F.A. , 1997.Her first book, "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," recounts her experiences growing up in a junkyard, the daughter of a poor, white, fundamentalist Christian family. The book interweaves family history and
memoir withnatural history writing--specifically, descriptions of theecology of the vanishinglongleaf pine forests that once blanketed much of the South. The book won theAmerican Book Award , the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, and the Southern Environmental Law Center Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern environment. It was also chosen for the "All Georgia Reading the Same Book" project by the Georgia Center for the Book.Ray's second book, "Wild Card Quilt," recounts her experiences of moving back home to Georgia with her son after attending graduate school in
Montana .Her third book, "Pinhook", tells the story of Pinhook Swamp, the land that connects the
Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia andOsceola National Forest inFlorida .Ray has also been a contributor to "Audubon," "Orion," and other magazines, as well as a commentator for
NPR 's "Living on Earth ". An environmental activist, she has campaigned on behalf of theAltamaha River and the Moody Swamp.She teaches in the
Chatham University Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.She was born on
February 2 inBaxley, Georgia the daughter of Franklin D. and Lee Ada Branch Ray. She has a son, Silas Ausable.Books
* "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood", memoir (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2000).
* "Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home", memoir (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2003).
* "Between Two Rivers: Stories from the Red Hills to the Gulf", (Co-editor, with Susan Cerulean and Laura Newtown) nonfiction (Tallahassee: Heart of the Earth, 2004).
* "Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land,", nonfiction (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2005).References
Source: Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2005.
External links
* [http://www.milkweed.org/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage/product_id,66/category_id,15/option,com_phpshop/Itemid,8/* ] Milkweed Editions webpage for "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood"
* [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2562 Georgia Encyclopedia] entry for Janisse Ray
* [http://www.wholeterrain.org/bio.cfm?Contributor_ID=305 Whole Terrain] link to Ray's articles published inWhole Terrain
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
