Columbus State University has named Georgia writer Janisse Ray the winner of its 2021 Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence award for her collection of essays, Just Visiting This Planet. 

Ray is an American writer whose subject most often falls into the borderland of nature and culture. She has published five books of nonfiction and a collection of eco-poetry. She has won an American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, Southern Bookseller Award, Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, and an Eisenberg Award, among others. Her first book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, was a New York Times Notable Book. She has been inducted into the Georgia  Writers Hall of Fame and lives on an organic farm near Savannah. Red Lanterns, Ray's second book of poetry, is coming this spring.

The prize carries a $10,000 award for an unpublished novel, and seeks manuscripts that engage a reader with upholding human values, such as trust, generosity, love, gratitude, or responsibility. The contest receives numerous submissions from across the U.S. that are reviewed and judged by a committee of CSU faculty and prominent authors.

The competition is made possible through an endowment from local author and businessman, Donald L. Jordan. In addition to supporting the literary prize, his endowment also benefits CSU’s Department of English and The Donald L. Jordan Study Abroad Service Learning Program, which supports a group of up to 10 students and two faculty members to travel to a developing country for two weeks and engage in a humanitarian project.

As the winner, Ray will also receive a publishing contract with DLJ Books and Just Visiting This Planet will be nationally distributed.