Janisse Ray

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Janisse Ray is an American writer and naturalist born in Baxley, Georgia.

Her first book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, recounts her experiences growing up in a junkyard, the daughter of a poor, white, fundamentalist family. The book interweaves family history and memoir with natural history writing--specifically, descriptions of the ecology of the vanishing longleaf pine forests that once blanketed much of the South. The book won the American 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 and Osceola National Forest in Florida.

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 the Altamaha River and the Moody Forest.