'A Labor of Love': Local authors share love for pet with others through new book
BRIGHTON — Local authors Amy Murphy and Rob Otto have memorialized their fond memories of their puppy's antics at a long-ago Brighton Holiday Glow in a new children's book centered on the event.
In 1997, the formerly married couple took their Doberman-mix puppy, Oscar, to the Brighton Holiday Glow, where he jumped on the mayor, barked at reindeer and generally had a good time like all kids do.
Murphy and Otto recently published "The Puppy in the Red-Checkered Coat: Meets Santa" as a way of remembering their beloved pet, which has since died.
Murphy said, at the time, Otto worked as the morning DJ for WHMI and acted as the master of ceremonies for the holiday event. Otto was announcing the mayor and a very excited Oscar jumped on the city official, Santa Claus then came on stage and gave Oscar a pat.
The book is based on things Oscar, Otto and Murphy experienced at the Brighton Holiday Glow. In addition to jumping on the mayor, who had a key for the city for Santa, and barking at the reindeer, the dog played with another dog in the street.
Murphy admitted she liked thinking about what Oscar would say and think, and getting those thoughts on paper.
"It's told from his first person, so you know, figuring out that's what he was thinking at that time which is cute because there's different things in the book where he thinks the reindeer are big dogs," Murphy said. "We assumed that's what he always thought the deer in the backyard were. Him thinking Santa was called Santa Paws, because what is Santa Claus, but that's us thinking what the dog was thinking, that was the fun part."
A few months after the 1997 holiday event, she and Otto reminisced about the things that happened.
"When it originally happened, it was really interesting. We said to ourselves, while he was jumping on the mayor, while he was barking at the reindeer and all that stuff, we're just like 'This is like a children's book' and then we went 'Oh my gosh, this is a children's book," Otto said.
So, in 1998 they began working a book and later sent the completed draft to Sleeping Bear Press in Chelsea. At the time, the publishing company wasn't accepting new authors, so they didn't pick up the book. The rejection led the two to table the book.
"Every once in a while, mentally, we would come back to it, but we didn't do anything with it," Otto said.
Oscar passed away at 12 years old; Murphy said he had a wonderful life.
"We wrote it when he was still alive, but what a great way to honor him now because he was a really good dog. A lot of people loved him," she said.
The book sat unpublished for more than a decade, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, Murphy remembered the draft they wrote so many years before.
"I pulled it off the shelf and said, 'We should try to get this published.' As we had some extra time on our hands and so we did research and through some friends we found a publishing company," Murphy said.
Nico 11 Publishing & Design, based in Wisconsin, published the book, illustrated by Diana Jacob, in October 2022, 24 years after it was first written.
"I guess you kind of look at your life and say, 'Am I fulfilling my dreams and my goals?' Being a published author was one of them for me and here I knew we had this cute story," she said. "If you asked me, before the pandemic, would I have done this? I bet my answer would be 'no' because we would have just kept it on the shelf and kept it as something sweet that we wrote in honor of our dog."
Otto added that the original idea, when the book was written, was to take Oscar to events for children to see the puppy, but since the book was published decades later, they lost that opportunity. Otto said that's sad, but the book's a nice legacy for a puppy that was so important to them.
Since October, the duo has been working together to increase awareness about the book, attending the Brighton Holiday Glow and reading the book during the South Lyon Country Craft Show. Otto made his pitch at the Holiday Glow by pointing out the local connection.
"The cool thing is our tent was set up on the Mill Pond on the side and there's this great image in the book of the Mill Pond. You see the statue and the rock and the trench and all that stuff in the background," Otto said. "We'd literally show them the picture from the book and say look over here and it was almost the same distance."
Jacob, on her Instagram page said she was please with her work.
"I am thrilled as the illustrator of this one," she said in a post. "Such a nice print job they have done. (It) feels great to see my collaborative work being bought by people!!!"
What's next for the authors?
Murphy said she and Otto have had discussions about writing other books, specifically about Oscar’s sister, a German shepherd mix named Belle, which the pair adopted a year after Oscar.
"The way we named it, "The Puppy in the Red-Checkered Coat: Meets Santa," so this way if we wanted to do a second one or a third or whatever, it would be "The Puppy in the Red-Checkered Coat: Gets a Sister. We could do it that way," Murphy suggested.
"This book is just a labor of love and something we're really proud of and hopefully we'll write more about his life and his sister that we adopted and who knows?" Murphy said. "Who knows where Oscar can go?"
Murphy has 7 1/2-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, as well as a black Labrador named Olive. She has considered writing a children's book about them as well. She has so many ideas, she also has three other books she's interested in publishing.
"Growing up, the first thing I did was a young adult novel and that's really my passion. I want to get that published next," she said. "That's been in the can for years and then I wrote a second one after that that was probably more in my 20s or 30s."
"The Puppy in the Red Checkered Coat: Meets Santa" can be purchased for $14.99 at Main Street Art in Milford or Amazon and Barnes & Noble for online ordering.
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Amy Murphy, Rob Otto publish children's book for Christmas about pet dog
