Janisse Ray grew up in a Georgia junkyard along U.S. Highway 1. A naturalist, environmental activist, and winner of the 1996 Merriam Frontier Award, she has also published her work in Wild Earth, Orion, Florida Naturalist, and Georgia Wildlife and has been a nature commentator for Georgia Public Radio.

She is the author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt, and Pinhook. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood won the American Book Award, Southern Book Critics Circle Award, Southeastern Book Sellers Award for Nonfiction, Southern Environmental Law Center Award, and was chosen as the "Book Every Georgian Should Read" by the Georgia Center for the Book.

Ray lives in rural Georgia and Vermont.