Originally posted on July 6, 2012

by Caroline Ailanthus

Janisse Ray’s new book, The Seed Underground, is due out on August 1, 2012.  Janisse is a two-time contributor to Whole Terrain, having given us “Towards a Real Earth Day,” in Volume 14, 2005/2006, Celebration and Ceremony, and “Revolution: Beauty and the Coming Apart of Beauty, Becoming Beauty Again,” in Volume 16, 2008/2009 ((r)e)volution. Janisse has also appeared in the pages of such notable publications as National Geographic Wildlife and Orion. She is the author of several books, including Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land. Her newest book, The Seed Underground, is a fond and lyrical introduction to seed savers, the ordinary and often eccentric people working to preserve our fading heritage of heirloom plant varieties.