Emanuel County residents and out-of-towners were treated to a visit by award-winning author Janisse Ray on August 17, where she enthralled her audience with riveting stories of how she wrote the novel The Woods of Fannin County. The event was held in The Kalmanson Gallery of Emanuel Arts Council on North Green Street in Swainsboro.
The Woods of Fannin County is a true story. In the fall of 1945 eight children, brothers and sisters, vanished from a small house in Morganton, Ga. The oldest was 10 and the youngest a newborn. They were taken by mule and wagon to a shack on a remote mountain in the Blue Ridge foothills of Fannin County, up where it hugs the North Carolina line. For the next four years they would live mostly alone, without mother or father, roaming the mountains and valleys of what had been Cherokee Territory, scouring for food and scrambling to take care of themselves and each other. Few people ever knew what happened. Over time the children themselves became silent about their childhood, and their story was buried. One day in 2015 the children, long grown and many of them now grandparents, began to reveal the story to Ray.
This novel has since received glowing reviews from numerous publications. Ray told her audience that she first heard of this astonishing story from her father. Ray also took the time to sign her books for the audience, many of whom either brought their own copies or purchased one at the event.
Ray is best known for her 1999 memoir Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, which recalls her life growing up in a junkyard in Baxley, Ga. Other notable books Ray has authored include Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home, Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River, The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food, and Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans. Ray’s writings have been published widely in journals and magazines such as Studies in American Culture, The Georgia Review, Natural History, Wilderness, Audubon, Sierra, Orion, and Georgia Wildlife.
Ray is the recipient of the American Book Award, Southern Book Critics Circle Award, and Southern Environmental Law Center Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern environment. She holds an MFA from the University of Montana and has been awarded two honorary doctorates, one from Unity College in Maine and the other from LaGrange College in Georgia. In 2015, Ray was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.
The event was made possible through a grant from Mill Creek Foundation. Chairs were provided by Swainsboro-Emanuel County Recreation Department. Dianna Wedincamp provided refreshments. Copies of this novel are available on the website, www.janisseray.com.
The Kalmanson Gallery of Emanuel Arts Council is open Tuesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. You can find more information on programming on Emanuel Art Council’s Facebook and Instagram pages or call 478-237-2592.
