George Ellison

Writer-naturalist George Ellison has lived near Bryson City, North Carolina, since 1973. He has written extensively about Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Horace Kephart. For more than 30 years he conducted natural history workshops for the park's Smoky Mountain Field School. As part of the park's centennial celebration, Ellison was designated one of the "the 100 most influential people in the history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park." Since 1987, he has written the Nature Journal column for the Asheville Citizen-Times in Asheville, North Carolina. In 2012 he won the Wild South Roosevelt-Ashe award for "Outstanding Journalism in Conservation." In 2016 he and his wife, the artist Elizabeth Ellison, were named "Blue Ridge Naturalists of the Year."