R.D. Symons was a cultural giant, and this book presents his life and art for a new generation of readers. Featuring an illuminating essay on his life and art practice by esteemed curator and painter Terry Fenton, Robert David Symons, Countryman also features thirty exceptional water colours. Homeschooled in an artistic family in England, Symons emigrated to Canada at the age of sixteen to work as a cowboy in south-west Saskatchewan. As an artist, Symons worked primarily on paper, frequently in watercolours, drawing upon direct observation and a prodigious visual memory. He greatly influenced many contemporary nature writers, including award-winning Saskatchewan authors, Trevor Herriot and Candace Savage. Robert David Symons, Countryman presents a comprehensive view of one of western Canada's most gifted artists. Symons was an artist and writer who was deeply devoted to the Canadian west, throughout his adventurous and well-documented life.

Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery's profile page

Terry Fenton is a painter and writer based in Saskatoon. His landscape and still life paintings are collected in national and international collections. he is in demand as a critic, curator and author of articles and books on Canadian and international artists. He is former Director of the Edmonton Art Gallery, the Leighton Foundation in Calgary, and the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon. Fenton contributed the cover art and colour plates to the award winning poetry book When Light Falls From The Sun by Allan Safarik (2005). His most recent book is Reta Summers Cowley (2006) from University of Calgary Press which was nominated for the Sasktoon Book Award in 2007.

Terry Fenton's profile page

TREVOR HERRIOT is a grassland conservationist and naturalist who writes about human and natural history on the northern Great Plains. His last book, Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds was a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and one of Quill & Quire's 15 Books That Mattered Most in 2009, and it was shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Nonfiction).

His first book, River in a Dry Land: a Prairie Passage (2000), received several national awards and a nomination for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. His second book, Jacob’s Wound: a Search for the Spirit of Wildness (2004), was nominated for several awards, including a short-listing for the Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

Trevor's writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Canadian Geographic, as well as in several anthologies. He has written two radio documentaries for CBC's Ideas and is a regular guest on CBC Radio Saskatchewan’s Blue Sky.

He and his wife, Karen, have four children and live in Regina.

Trevor Herriot's profile page

• Short-listed, Saskatchewan Book Awards: Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport Publishing Award