Mackey Chair Reading

By ELLIE REPINSKI

On Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 p.m., Beloit College Mackey Chair of 2025 Janisse Ray held her keynote reading. 

The night started with a speech from Professor Chris Fink, with a reminder of how the Mackey Chair program started with a love story. Eighty four years ago, two Beloit students, Bill Mackey and Lois Wilson, were stunned by the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In response, like many students, Mackey enlisted in the Marines. During the war, the two kept in contact through letters, and when the war ended, they finished college and got married. 

It was Mackey’s donation in the 80’s, in honor of his wife, that started the Mackey Chair program. Each year, the college invites one author to teach a half-semester or semester-long advanced creative writing course. They are then invited to read pieces of their choosing at a keynote address.  

This year’s Mackey Chair is Janisse Ray. Janisse Ray is a naturalist, environmental activist, and author from southern Georgia who writes about the places she grew up and the destruction of the beautiful natural world she loves. She has many published books, including “Wild Spectacle,” “The Woods of Fannin County,” and “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood.” 

Janisse Ray started her keynote with “Forcefield,” a piece composed of flash essays she has worked on during the Mackey Chair Class. It was a beautiful composition on the appearance and disappearance of all the living creatures in the world, and the delicate balance between nature and man. 

She then shared her current environmental stance, including her thoughts on the choices that capitalism gives us all. Capitalism gives us many choices, but it doesn’t allow us to choose the things that are most important. She gives an example that “climate change has been chosen for us,” which is a tragedy for the earth and the people living on it.

We have further “been robbed of the choices outside of the box,” which is where the solutions to climate change and institutional issues lie. Janisse Ray wishes for more meaningful choices in the world. She ends this commentary with a warning. She warns us to ask ourselves a question when considering a choice presented to us in the world — “Is this a choice masking a lack of choice?” 

She continued on with a chapter called “Las Monarcas” from her book “Wild Spectacle.” This chapter details a trip to Mexico, where low temperatures killed a large portion of the butterflies living there. She then finished the night with gratitude and a beautiful, short poem about gathering bluebells. 

Although Janisse Ray will be leaving campus in a few weeks, leaving behind a dozen creative writing students, her newest book, “Craft and Current,” is a manual full of tips for aspiring writers. So, even if you didn’t get to meet her at any of the events or want to learn more about her writing process, her book is a perfect place to begin. 

_{Featured image: Atlanta Magazine}