stories are medicine
Janisse Ray is an American writer exploring borderlands and edges between nature and culture, landscape and story. She has written or edited over a dozen books and has been published in more than forty anthologies. She has received a Pushcart, American Book Award, and many other awards and has been inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.
Announcing
The Woods of Fannin County,
just out!
The Woods of Fannin County,
just out!
upcoming webinar
how to market your book skyward
Join me Sept. 29 at 6:30 pm for a 2.5-hour intensive on book marketing and publicity -- from my father’s silver-bullet theory to
basic online magic & everything in between.
basic online magic & everything in between.
Such a content-rich, enjoyable, and excellent workshop! Janisse Ray packed more into three hours than some instructors pack into a week. |
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You were enlightening; I felt as if you connected with us all, and helped us see, for a short time, what it means to be alive for writing, for telling our truths.
Bless you for this!
stories are offerings to the future
2022
Sept. 15 | Frostburg State University | "How Wild Stories Save Us" | 7:30 ET | Frostburg, Maryland | Live Via YouTube
Sept. 29 | How to Market Your Book Skyward | Webinar | 6:30-9 pm ET | register here
Oct. 10 - Dec. 19 | The Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction | Virtual | Meets biweekly Monday evenings 7-9 pm ET | THIS COURSE IS FULL
Oct. 19 | Cherokee Garden Library Ashley Wright McIntyre Lecture Series | Atlanta History Center | Atlanta, GA | register here
Oct. 29 | Paddle a Cypress Swamp with Janisse | George L. Smith State Park | 10 am ET | Metter, GA | Register here
Nov. 13 | Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah | 11 am ET | Savannah, GA
Nov. 15 | Literary Guild of St. Simons | organized by Cary Knapp | 10 am ET | St. Simons Island, GA | register here
Nov. 17 | Georgia Museum of Art | Lecture "The Art of a Place Called Longleaf" | 5:30 ET | Athens, GA
Nov. 18 | Georgia Museum of Art | Workshop in Ekphrastic Poetry of Longleaf | 11 am ET | Athens, GA
2023
Jan. 2 - March 27 | The Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction | Virtual | Meets biweekly Monday evenings 7-9 pm ET | Register Here
March 17-18 |Native Plant Society of Tennessee Conference, Chattanooga, TN
May 13 | Write Your Birth Story | Webinar| 11am-1:30 pm | Register here
May 20 | 50th Anniversary Celebration | Sandy Creek Nature Center | Athens, GA
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Sept. 29 | How to Market Your Book Skyward | Webinar | 6:30-9 pm ET | register here
Oct. 10 - Dec. 19 | The Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction | Virtual | Meets biweekly Monday evenings 7-9 pm ET | THIS COURSE IS FULL
Oct. 19 | Cherokee Garden Library Ashley Wright McIntyre Lecture Series | Atlanta History Center | Atlanta, GA | register here
Oct. 29 | Paddle a Cypress Swamp with Janisse | George L. Smith State Park | 10 am ET | Metter, GA | Register here
Nov. 13 | Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah | 11 am ET | Savannah, GA
Nov. 15 | Literary Guild of St. Simons | organized by Cary Knapp | 10 am ET | St. Simons Island, GA | register here
Nov. 17 | Georgia Museum of Art | Lecture "The Art of a Place Called Longleaf" | 5:30 ET | Athens, GA
Nov. 18 | Georgia Museum of Art | Workshop in Ekphrastic Poetry of Longleaf | 11 am ET | Athens, GA
2023
Jan. 2 - March 27 | The Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction | Virtual | Meets biweekly Monday evenings 7-9 pm ET | Register Here
March 17-18 |Native Plant Society of Tennessee Conference, Chattanooga, TN
May 13 | Write Your Birth Story | Webinar| 11am-1:30 pm | Register here
May 20 | 50th Anniversary Celebration | Sandy Creek Nature Center | Athens, GA
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stories are prayers
stories are magic
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upcoming 14-week course
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I wanted to say thank you again for your wonderful online writing workshop. One of the essays I worked on in your class is going to be published! I just received word this morning of its acceptance. Thank you for your guidance and teaching. It made quite an impact on me and my writing!
stories change us permanently
PAPERBACK RELEASE AUG 2022
WILD
SPECTACLE
Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans
Ray repeatedly sets out to immerse herself in wildness, to be wild, and to learn what wildness can teach us. From overwintering with monarch butterflies in Mexico to counting birds in Belize, the stories in Wild Spectacle capture her luckiest moments—ones of heart-pounding amazement, discovery of romance, and movement toward living more wisely. In Ray's worst moments she crosses boundaries to encounter danger and embrace sadness. Wild Spectacle explores our first home, the wild earth, and invites us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities.
Please support your favorite indie bookshop.
WILD
SPECTACLE
Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans
Ray repeatedly sets out to immerse herself in wildness, to be wild, and to learn what wildness can teach us. From overwintering with monarch butterflies in Mexico to counting birds in Belize, the stories in Wild Spectacle capture her luckiest moments—ones of heart-pounding amazement, discovery of romance, and movement toward living more wisely. In Ray's worst moments she crosses boundaries to encounter danger and embrace sadness. Wild Spectacle explores our first home, the wild earth, and invites us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities.
Please support your favorite indie bookshop.
Get letters regularly from Janisse by signing up for her newsletter below. She sends it straight to your inbox.
stories change the world
PRAISE FOR RED LANTERNS
Janisse Ray gently prods us, through the beauty of her imagery and language, to open our eyes to the wonders of the natural world and to our purpose and place in it. This book is nothing short of a great blessing.
--David Bottoms, Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch
With great and rare heart, Red Lanterns sings with soil, grit, and an integrity of vision and practice—I love the poems in this book.
--Thorpe Moeckel, Making a Map of the River
Ray has the rare talent of melding herself with the sounds and motions, the insistent, conflicting mayhem of the life and weather around and within her. Red Lanterns is an evocative and lyrical feast of language indeed.
--Pattiann Rogers, Quickening Fields
Ray says My heart is a culvert in this debut collection of poems—through which internal waters run crystalline, jubilant like a sudden red bloom of cardinal in the dooryard quince, or turbid & fierce in the overflow of storm.
--Sean Sexton, May Darkness Restore
In the glow of Red Lanterns, sicklefin redhorse and river trout shine like raw jewels left, miraculously, to adorn the earth. These poems commune in our shared grievances even as they gather papery red seedpods into wide open hands and offer them up like a heart.
--Amy Wright, Everything in the Universe
Janisse Ray gently prods us, through the beauty of her imagery and language, to open our eyes to the wonders of the natural world and to our purpose and place in it. This book is nothing short of a great blessing.
--David Bottoms, Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch
With great and rare heart, Red Lanterns sings with soil, grit, and an integrity of vision and practice—I love the poems in this book.
--Thorpe Moeckel, Making a Map of the River
Ray has the rare talent of melding herself with the sounds and motions, the insistent, conflicting mayhem of the life and weather around and within her. Red Lanterns is an evocative and lyrical feast of language indeed.
--Pattiann Rogers, Quickening Fields
Ray says My heart is a culvert in this debut collection of poems—through which internal waters run crystalline, jubilant like a sudden red bloom of cardinal in the dooryard quince, or turbid & fierce in the overflow of storm.
--Sean Sexton, May Darkness Restore
In the glow of Red Lanterns, sicklefin redhorse and river trout shine like raw jewels left, miraculously, to adorn the earth. These poems commune in our shared grievances even as they gather papery red seedpods into wide open hands and offer them up like a heart.
--Amy Wright, Everything in the Universe
stories save us
stories make a difference