George Ellison lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. His columns appear in the Asheville Citizen-Times; Chinquapin: The Newsletter of the Southern Appalachian; and the Smoky Mountain News. He conducts annual natural and human history workshops for the North Carolina Arboretum, Native Plant Conference at Western Carolina University and the Smoky Mountain Field School.