Janisse Ray Filled The Room!!!

I dreamed of Janisse Ray last night. No matter which way I turned in bed, I dreamed of her all night and the fantastic event we had right here in the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library. If you weren't able to attend, you missed a great evening with a highly popular Georgia writer.
In fact, if you weren't able to attend, you didn't see that Janisse Ray filled the room. We had people wall to wall and standing in the hallway, crowded up close to the double doors leading to the auditorium, straining their ears to not miss a single word she said.
And she said lots of words...
She quoted from her books Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wildcard Quilt. She talked about growing up in a junkyard, finding old lipsticks in junked cars to try on with her sister, and learning about trees and flowers from her favorite school teacher.
Of course, with her husband, Raven, close by, she admitted that he gave her permission to read about the 'gator guys she knew when she was still single. And we all laughed at her description of the guys. We even felt the fear she had felt as they roped a 'gater late one night, while she sat in the middle of the aluminum boat and saw the water splash high from the thrashing 'gater.
Oh, she knows how to tell a story!
Janisse Ray has won a Southeastern Booksellers Award in 1999, an American Book Award in 2000, the Southern Environmental Law Center 2000 Award for Outstanding Writing, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award in 2000. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood was a New York Times Notable Book and was chosen as the Book All Georgians Should Read. Anne Raver of The New York Times said of Janisse Ray, "The forests of the South find their Rachel Carson."
Her essays have appeared in dozens of anthologies. She's been a radio commentator for Vermont and Georgia public radio. She's been a visiting professor at Coastal Carolina University, scholar-in-residence at Florida Gulf Coast University, and writer-in-residence at Keene State College and Green Mountain College. She was the John and Renee Grisham writer-in-residence for 2003-04 at the University of Mississippi.
I listened with the over 125 attendees last night to a tall, slender, dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman as she passionately talked about the longleaf pines, the rivers and mountains of Georgia, and how we as individuals should be working to save our world.
Now you know why I dreamed about Janisse Ray last night.