George Ellison lives near Bryson City in the mountains of western North Carolina adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.

He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Southern Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders (Knoxville TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1976; originally published 1913) and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (Asheville NC: Historical Images, 1992; originally published 1900).

A collection of his essays, Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina, was published in 2005 (Charleston SC: The History Press) and has gone into its fourth printing. 

In 2006, the same press published A Blue Ridge Nature Journal: Reflections on the Appalachians in Essays and Art, a large format volume that includes 30 of George’s essays on the natural areas, flora and fauna of the southern mountains, as well as 40 full-color watercolors and 30 illustrations by his wife, Elizabeth Ellison. It was among the final four books nominated for the SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) non-fiction book of the year award. A smaller format edition of that volume was published in 2007 as Blue Ridge Nature Notes: Selections from Blue Ridge Nature Journal.

The Ellisons are currently editing and illustrating a two-volume collection titled High Vistas: An Anthology of Nature and Descriptive Writing from Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains. Volume I (1540-1900) will be published by the History Press in spring 2008; volume II (1901-2007) in spring 2009.   

George writes the Nature Journal column for the Asheville Citizen-Times and the Botanical Excursions column for Chinquapin: The Newsletter of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society, both illustrated by Elizabeth. He also writes the Back Then column for Smoky Mountain News, a regional newsmagazine published in Waynesville NC.

He conducts extended natural and human history workshops for the North Carolina Arboretum, the “Native Plant Conference” at Western Carolina University, the University of Tennessee’s “Smoky Mountain Field School,” Great Smoky Mountains Association, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Southwestern Community College, The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center, The Wilderness Society, Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the "Landscaping and Gardening with Native Plants Conference" at the Highlands Biological Station, Intentional Growth Center, Center for Life Enrichment, and other facilities.