Book Talk | The Club at Sea Palms | St. Simons Island, GA

This event is free and open to the public. However, please register at the link shown.

Janisse Ray is an award-winning American author who has gained a following of earth-conscious readers who appreciate her heart-centered approach, her courage, and her well-crafted stories.

Ray’s bestselling first book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, created a flurry when it was released in 1999. It garnered a full-page story in the New York Times and was listed as a New York Times Notable. It’s a memoir about growing up in the disappearing longleaf pinelands and is credited with starting a national movement to restore an iconic landscape.

That book was followed by eleven others. Ray won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Booksellers Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award, among many others. Her collection of essays, Wild Spectacle, received the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, which carries a $10,000 prize. Her books have been translated into Turkish, French, and Italian.

Ray earned an MFA from the University of Montana and has accepted two honorary doctorates. She serves on the editorial board of terrain.org; is an honorary member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment; and has been writer-in-residence on many university campuses. She leads writing workshops on magical craft, where she teaches not only writing technique but how to access the duende, or spirits, that make writing great. She is the creator of “The Wild Spectacle Podcast.”

Ray lives on an organic farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and anything in flower. Find out more at her website, janisseray.com or via her Substack newsletter, “Trackless Wild.”