Raised in Bath, Elena Bateman knew from a young age that she wanted to tell stories. Her primary school headteacher told her that she’d one day be an author, after it came out that she’d been spinning tall tales about her life to the entire school.

Unfortunately, after using a Rimmel red lip liner to annotate her poems during her Oxford University interview (she’d forgotten a pen), the dream took a brief pause. She founded a YouTube channel, Ellbat, where she has since accumulated over 60 million views and over 700k subscribers doing just about anything to avoid getting a real job.

In 2021, whilst locked in a two-week solitary confinement covid facility in South Korea, she wrote and published a satirical poetry book in 24 hours. This book became a number one bestseller on the Amazon poetry chart, with all the revenue generated going to BookAid.

She began making unhinged recaps of popular fantasy books (starting with Fourth Wing) in 2024. These videos have since accumulated millions of views, and prompted Elena to pivot into BookTok with the creation of new Instagram and TikTok channels. Both of these platforms have amassed 90k followers (growing daily) and generate millions of monthly views.

She holds a BSc in politics and economics from the University of Bath, and regularly uses her platform to raise money and awareness for social justice initiatives, as well as mental health charities and disability rights groups. She was diagnosed with CFS/ME in 2018.

Elena uses she/they pronouns and is LGBTQ+.

The culmination of her lifelong loves, OF STONES AND WILDFLOWERS is her debut novel and a sequel is well underway.