Born in 1962, Janisse Ray grew up in the coastal plains of southern Georgia—near Baxley. Ray’s book of poetry, Naming The Unseen, won the 1996 Merriam-Frontier Award from the University of Montana where she also earned a creative writing degree. A naturalist, Ray has written essays and poems in a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and several books.
In Ecology, Ray describes growing up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, near the Okefenokee Swamp and the Florida state-line. Ray’s childhood playground was the parameters of the wild geography surrounding her father’s junkyard. Her stories reveal ways of life, hardships and the awesome ecosystem where they lived preserving a rare glimpse into a way of life most people never experience. Ray writes about facts indigenous to South Georgia, which even includes folklore, biology and comedic strands of storytelling that capture’s the reader’s attention.
Chapters in Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood include memorable descriptions of pine farms, her family tree, black & white photos, origin of the term ‘Cracker’, poverty, poisonous snakes, salamanders, the Altamaha River, music, her mother, recipes, a plethora of birds, religious beliefs, wildflowers, and local history. A true gem.
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