High Vistas is the first anthology devoted to nature and descriptive writing from Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains, inclusive of the Tennessee side of the present day Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Arranged chronologically with annotations, the twenty-one selections in this second of two volumes display the variety and development of nature and descriptive writing in the region during the twentieth century through today.
George and Elizabeth Ellison live in the mountains of Western North Carolina adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.
Columns written by George 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, Smoky Mountain Field School, and North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
Elizabeth has owned and operated Elizabeth Ellison Watercolors, a gallery-studio on the town square in Bryson City, North Carolina, since 1976. She has exhibited and sold her art widely throughout the United States. Utilizing both traditional and oriental techniques, she depicts the varied plants, animals, human inhabitants and landscapes of the Smokies region and beyond. She is the cover artist for Niche Gardens of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, an award-winning nursery, and was the real-life watercolorist for the character "Alice" in the movie Songcatcher filmed in Western North Carolina.