This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2013) |
Janisse Ray | |
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Born | Baxley GA, US | February 2, 1962
Occupation | Professor, environmental activist |
Language | English |
Education | BA, Florida State, 1984; MFA, Montana, 1997 |
Period | Contemporary |
Genre | memoirs |
Subject | nature, conservation, the American South |
Notable works | Ecology of a Cracker Childhood |
Notable awards | American Book Award, Southern Book Critics Circle Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern environment |
Spouse | Raven Waters |
Children | Skye |
Janisse Ray (born February 2, 1962) is an American writer, naturalist, and environmental activist.
Ray was born Baxley, Georgia to Franklin D. and Lee Ada Branch Ray.[ citation needed ] Ray’s ancestors were listed in the first census in Appling county in 1820 and the town of Baxley was named for an ancestor as well.[ citation needed ] From 1980 to 1982, she attended North Georgia College where she found her passion for ecology, which led her to her career.[ citation needed ] She received a Bachelor of Arts from Florida State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Montana.[ citation needed ]
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (1999) recounts Ray's experiences growing up in a junkyard, the daughter of a poor, white, fundamentalist Christian family.[ citation needed ] In the book she surveys the ecological web she experienced as a child; including plant species (Longleaf Pine, Cypress Swamp, Wiregrass, Meadow Beauty, Liatris, Greeneyes) and animal species (Flatwood Salamander, Bachman's sparrow, Pine Warbler, Carolina Wren, Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Eastern Bluebird, Brown-Headed Nuthatch, Yellow Breasted Chat, Red-headed woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Common ground dove, Quail, Gopher Tortoises) along with how she fits into this world as part of the human species. 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 also was chosen for the "All Georgia Reading the Same Book" project by the Georgia Center for the Book.[ citation needed ]
In Wild Card Quilt (2003) she relates her experiences moving back home to Georgia with her son after attending graduate school in Montana. Pinhook (2005) tells the story of Pinhook Swamp, the land that connects the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and Osceola National Forest in Florida. Drifting into Darien, published in 2011, describes her experiences on and knowledge about the Altamaha River, which runs from middle Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean at Darien.[ citation needed ]
Ray published a book of poetry, A House of Branches (2010) and has 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 Swamp.[ citation needed ]
She previously taught in the Chatham University Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. Currently, she is a visiting professor and writer-in-residence at universities and colleges across the country. She lectures nationally on nature, agriculture, seeds, wildness, sustainability, writing, and politics of wholeness. [1]
She has a son, Silas Ausable, who attended the University of Massachusetts and studied landscape architecture. She lives a simple, sustainable life in southern Georgia on Red Earth Farm with her husband and daughter. She is an organic gardener, tender on farm animals, slow-cook food, and seed saver. She is very active in her local community. [2]
Baxley is a city in Appling County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 4,942. The city is the county seat of Appling County.
Darien is a city in and the county seat of McIntosh County, Georgia, United States. It lies on Georgia's coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River, approximately 50 miles south of Savannah, and is part of the Brunswick, Georgia metropolitan statistical area. It is the second-oldest planned city in Georgia and was originally called New Inverness. The population of Darien was 1,460 at the 2020 census, down from 1,975 in 2010.
The Altamaha River is a major river in the U.S. state of Georgia. It flows generally eastward for 137 miles (220 km) from its origin at the confluence of the Oconee River and Ocmulgee River towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it empties into the ocean near Brunswick, Georgia. No dams are directly on the Altamaha, though some are on the Oconee and the Ocmulgee. Including its tributaries, the Altamaha River's drainage basin is about 14,000 square miles (36,000 km2) in size, qualifying it among the larger river basins of the US Atlantic coast.
The longleaf pine is a pine species native to the Southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from East Texas to southern Virginia, extending into northern and central Florida. In this area it is also known as "yellow pine" or "long leaf yellow pine", although it is properly just one out of a number of species termed yellow pine. It reaches a height of 30–35 m (98–115 ft) and a diameter of 0.7 m (28 in). In the past, before extensive logging, they reportedly grew to 47 m (154 ft) with a diameter of 1.2 m (47 in). The tree is a cultural symbol of the Southern United States, being the official state tree of Alabama. This particular species is one of the eight pine tree species that falls under the "Pine" designation as the state tree of North Carolina.
The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern Colonies in colonial-era British America. In 1775 it was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to support the American Revolution.
The Apalachicola River is a river, approximately 160 miles (260 km) long, in the state of Florida. The river's large watershed, known as the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint (ACF) River Basin, drains an area of approximately 19,500 square miles (50,500 km2) into the Gulf of Mexico. The distance to its farthest head waters in northeast Georgia is approximately 500 miles (800 km). Its name comes from Apalachicola Province, an association of Native American towns located on what is now the Chattahoochee River. The Spanish included what is now called the Chattahoochee River as part of one river, calling all of it from its origins in the southern Appalachian foothills down to the Gulf of Mexico the Apalachicola.
Flatwoods, pineywoods, pine savannas and longleaf pine–wiregrass ecosystem are terms that refer to an ecological community in the southeastern coastal plain of North America. Flatwoods are an ecosystem maintained by wildfire or prescribed fire and are dominated by longleaf pine, and slash pine in the tree canopy and saw palmetto, gallberry and other flammable evergreen shrubs in the understory, along with a high diversity of herb species. It was once one of the dominant ecosystem types of southeastern North America. Although grasses and pines are characteristic of this system, the precise composition changes from west to east, that is, from Texas to Florida. In Louisiana, savannas even differ between the east and west side of the Mississippi River. The key factor maintaining this habitat type is recurring fire. Without fire, the habitat is eventually invaded by other species of woody plants.
The Oconee River is a 220-mile-long (350 km) river in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its origin is in Hall County and it terminates where it joins the Ocmulgee River to form the Altamaha River near Lumber City at the borders of Montgomery County, Wheeler County, and Jeff Davis County. South of Athens, two forks, known as the Middle Oconee River and North Oconee River, which flow for 55–65 miles (89–105 km) upstream, converge to form the Oconee River. Milledgeville, the former capital city of Georgia, lies on the Oconee River.
Asclepias incarnata, the swamp milkweed, rose milkweed, rose milkflower, swamp silkweed, or white Indian hemp, is a herbaceous perennial plant species native to North America. It grows in damp through wet soils and also is cultivated as a garden plant for its flowers, which attract butterflies and other pollinators with nectar. Like most other milkweeds, it has latex containing toxic chemicals, a characteristic that repels insects and other herbivorous animals.
A wet meadow is a type of wetland with soils that are saturated for part or all of the growing season which prevents the growth of trees and brush. Debate exists whether a wet meadow is a type of marsh or a completely separate type of wetland. Wet prairies and wet savannas are hydrologically similar.
Asclepias purpurascens, the purple milkweed, is a herbaceous plant species. It is in the genus Asclepias, making it a type of milkweed. It is native to the Eastern, Southern and Midwestern United States similar to the range of the common milkweed. The plant gets its name from the flowers that first develop a pink color but then turn darker purple as they mature. Unlike common milkweed, purple milkweed prefers some shade and is considered a plant of partial shade. It is also considered an indicator of oak savanna, especially in Wisconsin. The species rarely produces seed pods which are smooth, instead of the rough warty ones produced by common milkweed.
Fort King George State Historic Site is a fort located in the U.S. state of Georgia in McIntosh County, adjacent to Darien. The fort was built in 1721 along what is now known as the Darien River and served as the southernmost outpost of the British Empire in the Americas until 1727. The fort was constructed in what was then considered part of the colony of South Carolina, but was territory later settled as Georgia. It was part of a defensive line intended to encourage settlement along the colony's southern frontier, from the Savannah River to the Altamaha River. Great Britain, France, and Spain were competing to control the American Southeast, especially the Savannah-Altamaha River region.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist, author, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).
H. Emerson Blake is an ecologist, writer, and editor of many books. He was formerly the editor-in-chief at Orion Magazine, executive director of the Orion Society, and editor-in-chief at Milkweed Editions.
Milton Newton Hopkins Jr was a farmer in southern Georgia, in the south-eastern United States, as well as a conservationist, naturalist, and author, who had a long association with the Georgia Ornithological Society (GOS).
Laura Pritchett is an American author whose work is rooted in the natural world. Known for championing the complex and contemporary American West and giving voice to the working class, her books have garnered the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, and others. Both her fiction and nonfiction often focus on issues of ecology, conservation, climate change, and social justice issues.
Butler Island Plantation was a former rice plantation located on Butler Island on the Altamaha River delta just South of Darien, Georgia. It was originally owned by Major Pierce Butler (1744–1822) and was also owned by Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston and then R. J. Reynolds Jr. The plantation is managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
Butler Island is a 1,600-acre (647.5-hectare) island in the Altamaha River in McIntosh County, Georgia, United States. Part of the Altamaha River Delta, the island is located 1 mi (1.6 km) south-southeast of Darien, Georgia.
Dixon Memorial State Forest is a state forest in Brantley and Ware counties, located 10 miles southeast of Waycross, Georgia bordered by the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to the south. The forest is approximately 35,000 acres and is the largest state forest owned and managed by the Georgia Forestry Commission. The forest is mostly made up of pine plantations consisting of slash pine, longleaf pine, and loblolly pine as well as wetlands consisting of pondcypress, swamp blackgum, sweetbay magnolia, loblolly bay, and other various hardwoods.
Herbert Lee Stoddard was an American naturalist, conservationist, forester, wildlife biologist, ecologist, ornithologist, taxidermist, and author. In the 20th century he earned a reputation for being one of the American Southeast's most prominent conservationists and a pioneering forest ecologist. He is most well known for his seminal book, The Bobwhite Quail: Its habits, preservation, and increase (1931). He is also widely credited with advocating for the practice of prescribed fire as a tool for wildlife management. He was married to Ada Wechselberg, with whom he had one son, Herbert "Sonny" L. Stoddard Jr.
Source: Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2005.