Whitecroft resident writes children’s book

A local community member will soon be a published author after writing a children’s book inspired by his own experiences with his dogs.

Whitecroft resident and Sun Peaks Rotary Club member Alex Morrissey has worked with Okanagan Publishing House over the last year to print his first-ever book.

“The book is called Garbage Guts Gets Adopted,” Morrissey said. “It’s about a dog with an unusual diet that comes back to bite him, so to speak.”

Morrissey said the idea to write a children’s book came by accident, inspired by his own dog’s behaviour. During a virtual meeting last year, Morrissey was showing off his new pups to his work team when one of them started throwing up.

After the dog was sick several more times, Morrissey realized he had thrown up two socks and a dish sponge.

“He puked three or four times in the course of one afternoon, and there were all these odd items in there,” Morrissey said. “I had no idea how they got into his digestive system. It’s just a silly, goofy thing that happened, and I wrote it.”

Morrissey said the name for the book also came from personal experience. The author grew up in Australia with a chihuahua who his dad nicknamed ‘Garbage Guts’ because he would chomp down any food put in front of him.

“When this event [with my current dog] happened 15 or 20 years later, it just reminded me of my dogs back home,” he said. “I was like, ‘Garbage Guts sounds like a great name for a kids book character. What could possibly go wrong?’”

Morrissey said once the book was finished, Okanagan Publishing House picked it up quickly. 

The book is illustrated by Chilliwack, B.C. resident Marcela Gonzalez. Although the illustrations tell a great story, Morrissey said he’d love to take the visual aspect a step further.

“Immediately after I finished the book, I started getting this notion that this would make a great animation. So I ended up writing a screenplay too,” Morrissey said. “Hopefully someone picks it up and can take it to the races.”

Garbage Guts Gets Adopted is now available on Amazon or through Okanagan Publishing House.