Janisse Ray
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Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Ray's first book, rocketed her onto the American literary scene. She is known best for her writing on nature.

Ecology, a memoir about growing up on a junkyard in the disappearing longleaf pine ecosystem, was published by Milkweed Editions in 1999. The book looks hard at family, mental illness, poverty, and fundamentalist religion. Wendell Berry called the book “well done and deeply moving.” 
The New York Times said of Ray, “The forests of the South find their Rachel Carson.” 

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Ray’s second book, Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home, published in early 2003. Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land, the story of a 750,000-acre wildland corridor between south Georgia and north Florida, appeared in 2005. Drifting into Darien, a personal and natural history of the Altamaha River, came out in 2011. Her latest, on open-pollinated seeds and the global food supply, The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food  (Chelsea Green), published in 2012 to wide acclaim. Ray has published a collection of poetry and edited many other books. She is anthologized widely.

Janisse has been writer-in-residence at Hollins College, the University of Montana, the University of Mississippi, among others. She has taught at   Keene State College, Coastal Carolina University, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Green Mountain College. 
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Janisse lives on an organic farm with the artist Raven Waters and their teenage daughter. She lectures widely.

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