Janisse Ray Gives Ann J. Abadie Lecture March 25
It is a homecoming for Janisse Ray, the 2003 John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi, who gives the Oxford Conference for the Book’s keynote Ann J. Abadie Lecture at 6 p.m. March 25 in Nutt Auditorium.
Ray, a naturalist from Georgia, brings powerful stories to life. Her classic environmental memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, chronicled the story of growing up in the disappearing longleaf pine flatwoods. Her most recent book is Journey in Place: A Field Guide to Belonging, which offers 52 weekly explorations that help readers slow down, connect, and ground themselves.
The award-winning author said she looks forward to being back in Oxford to see old friends, walk the paths Faulkner walked, and meander around the Square.
“I am over the moon to be the Ann Abadie lecturer,” Ray said. “Ann was a quiet, powerful force. Her brilliant ideas, combined with a gentle tenacity, helped establish the Center for the Study of Southern Culture as the revered institution that it is. To speak in her memory is a gift to me, and I am delighted beyond measure to do it.”
At her core, Ray believes that stories can change the world.
“I believe that if we find the right stories, and tell them well enough, we can sway culture,” she said. “Stories have always done this. They save things. It is such an important thing to do, because every day we’re awash in stories that are told for us. They’re told by folks in office, in power, in control of resources. Some of them are oppressive. Some encourage us to destroy the planet. The job of a writer, I believe, is to find the stories that uphold dignity, peace, neighborliness, conservation—by which I mean life itself.”
She explores the borderland of nature and culture in her books and popular Substack, Trackless Wild, and earned her MFA from the University of Montana, where she returned as the William Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer.
“I come from a strange and mysterious place, a junkyard in the pinewoods of southern Georgia,” Ray said. “Since I was a child, I’ve been obsessed with place. I bristle when we’re asked to ‘think global,’ because ‘local’ means our daily lives. It means our communities. It means the music we make together. It means the forests around us. During the pandemic, all of us were forced to quarantine in place. I think many people had to face the livability or unlivability of their places. Many folks didn’t know how to feel at home. Lots of habits had been taken from them.”
Ray recognizes how much an actual place can offer a human being.
“It can offer groundedness, meaning, depth, a sense of belonging, an antidote to despair,” she said. “I realized how much people need guidance on how to live in place, how to love a place. This ethos contradicts so many cultural expectations thrown at us, to put the global above the local.”
Ray also serves on the editorial board of Terrain.org and is a lifetime honorary member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. She has been inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame and has won the Georgia Author of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. She has received two honorary doctorates. She lives on a farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and wildflowers, and teaches writing courses online in her Magical Craft series. Journey in Place is her eleventh book.
Following the Abadie Lecture, the annual welcome party at Memory House, which is the conference’s only ticketed event, begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are available here.
Written by Rebecca Lauck Cleary
It is a homecoming for Janisse Ray, the 2003 John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi, who gives the Oxford Conference for the Book’s keynote Ann J. Abadie Lecture at 6 p.m. March 25 in Nutt Auditorium.
Ray, a naturalist from Georgia, brings powerful stories to life. Her classic environmental memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, chronicled the story of growing up in the disappearing longleaf pine flatwoods. Her most recent book is Journey in Place: A Field Guide to Belonging, which offers 52 weekly explorations that help readers slow down, connect, and ground themselves.
The award-winning author said she looks forward to being back in Oxford to see old friends, walk the paths Faulkner walked, and meander around the Square.
“I am over the moon to be the Ann Abadie lecturer,” Ray said. “Ann was a quiet, powerful force. Her brilliant ideas, combined with a gentle tenacity, helped establish the Center for the Study of Southern Culture as the revered institution that it is. To speak in her memory is a gift to me, and I am delighted beyond measure to do it.”
At her core, Ray believes that stories can change the world.
“I believe that if we find the right stories, and tell them well enough, we can sway culture,” she said. “Stories have always done this. They save things. It is such an important thing to do, because every day we’re awash in stories that are told for us. They’re told by folks in office, in power, in control of resources. Some of them are oppressive. Some encourage us to destroy the planet. The job of a writer, I believe, is to find the stories that uphold dignity, peace, neighborliness, conservation—by which I mean life itself.”
She explores the borderland of nature and culture in her books and popular Substack, Trackless Wild, and earned her MFA from the University of Montana, where she returned as the William Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer.
“I come from a strange and mysterious place, a junkyard in the pinewoods of southern Georgia,” Ray said. “Since I was a child, I’ve been obsessed with place. I bristle when we’re asked to ‘think global,’ because ‘local’ means our daily lives. It means our communities. It means the music we make together. It means the forests around us. During the pandemic, all of us were forced to quarantine in place. I think many people had to face the livability or unlivability of their places. Many folks didn’t know how to feel at home. Lots of habits had been taken from them.”
Ray recognizes how much an actual place can offer a human being.
“It can offer groundedness, meaning, depth, a sense of belonging, an antidote to despair,” she said. “I realized how much people need guidance on how to live in place, how to love a place. This ethos contradicts so many cultural expectations thrown at us, to put the global above the local.”
Ray also serves on the editorial board of Terrain.org and is a lifetime honorary member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. She has been inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame and has won the Georgia Author of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. She has received two honorary doctorates. She lives on a farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and wildflowers, and teaches writing courses online in her Magical Craft series. Journey in Place is her eleventh book.
Following the Abadie Lecture, the annual welcome party at Memory House, which is the conference’s only ticketed event, begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are available here.
Written by Rebecca Lauck Cleary
Artwork by Charlie Buckley, Soybean Neon
