Author, Naturalist Janisse Ray Speaks at Keene Public Library
KEENE, N.H. 3/1/05 - Author and naturalist Janisse Ray, Keene State College’s writer-in-residence, will read from her new book, Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land, at Keene Public Library on Monday, March 7, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
In Pinhook, which is set for release in April, Ray writes about contemporary ecological thought and how to keep hope alive in discouraging times. Ray’s memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, was the College’s 2004 Summer Reading Program title.
Ray grew up in a junkyard in Baxley, Ga., along U.S. Highway 1. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood tells how a childhood spent in rural isolation grew into a passion to save the almost vanished longleaf pine ecosystem.
She earned a graduate degree in creative nature writing from the University of Montana, where her chapbook, Naming the Unseen, won the 1996 Merriam-Frontier Award. She has been an assistant editor at Florida Wildlife, has taught English in Colombia and has served as a writer in residence at the University of Mississippi.
Ray has published essays and poems in Wild Earth, Hope, Tallahassee Democrat, Alaska Quarterly Review, Missoula Independent, Natural History, Orion, Orion Afield, Florida Wildlife, Florida Living and Georgia Wildlife, among others. She has been a nature commentator for Georgia Public Radio. She recently moved to Brattleboro, Vt.
For more information, call William Stroup, assistant professor of English at KSC, at 603-358-2692.
