'Ecology of a Cracker Childhood' Author Janisse Ray to Visit U.Va. April 21 and 22

April 6, 2011 — Born in a junkyard in South Georgia, Janisse Ray grew up to become a champion for environmental causes in the American South. Author of the award-winning book, "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," Ray will discuss sustainability and the lures of 21st-century technology in "Lessons from the Lost Glaciers: Technology, Capitalism and Nature," on April 21 at 5:30 p.m. in the University of Virginia's Jefferson Hall (Hotel C on the West Range).

Ray, whose visit coincides with Earth Day, will also give a poetry reading on April 22 at 5:30 p.m. in the Ivy Creek Natural Area Education Center.

Ray is the final speaker for the 2010-11 Brown College Visiting Environmental Writers and Scholars Lecture Series. The New York Times labeled Ray "the South's Rachel Carson" for her poetry and prose about the exquisite – if often fragile – ecologies of the South. She has been described as a scholar of "mobile homes, junked cars, pine plantations and lost forests."

Brown College, located on Monroe Hill in U.Va.'s Central Grounds, is U.Va.'s earliest residential community, and is home to approximately 300 undergraduate and graduate students.

For information about the visiting writers series, contact Bart Elmore at bje5d@virginia.edu or 434-924-7859.

— By Anne Bromley

Media Contact

Anne E. Bromley

Office of University Communications