James Prosek is an artist and writer living in Easton, Connecticut. He is the author of many books, including Trout: An Illustrated History and Eels: An Exploration from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish. His latest book (Ocean Fishes, Rizzoli, 2012) is a collection of paintings of 35 Atlantic fishes, all of which were painted life size based on individual specimens he traveled to see. Prosek has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Compleat Angler. His paintings have been shown in galleries across the country, and he is cofounder, with Yvon Chouinard, of the conservation initiative World Trout.