Janisse Ray is an award-winning literary author who explores the borderland of nature and culture. She writes the popular Substack, TRACKLESS WILD, a newsletter that documents, defends, and lionizes the natural world. She is a sought-after and highly praised teacher of writing. She leads both in-person and online writing workshops, including a summer memoir course online, WRITE YOUR OWN STORY. Those can be found on her website, under courses. Her newsletter for writers is SPIRAL-BOUND, janisseray.substack.com. Janisse's first book was an environmental memoir, "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," published in 1999 and now considered an American classic. It chronicled the story of growing up in the longleaf pine ecosystem, now 99% gone. The book was named a "New York Times" Notable, was widely read, and is credited with starting a movement to restore an iconic American landscape. Her first book was followed by many others, all published by traditional, third-party publishers. However, in 2023, Ray released "The Woods of Fannin County" as an indie publisher. That was followed by "Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing" (2024) and "Journey in Place: A Field Guide to Belonging" (2025.) She has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Booksellers Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, Nautilus Award, and Eisenberg Award, along with many others. She 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. Janisse holds an MFA from the University of Montana. She has been the Grisham Fellow at the University of Mississippi; the Rubin Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University, and the William Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Montana. among many others. Janisse 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 was 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 in the Southern U.S. on a farm inland from Savannah, Georgia. She loves dark chocolate, the blues, and wildflowers. Her first love, however, is teaching writers how to make a story come alive.