Dead bodies, decapitated heads, and the person that keeps them company.

In a sometimes wrenching, often irreverent collection of “death snacks,” debut author Morgan Moran captures her fascination with death and its inner workings in her book, Call Me Morgue.

The book is based on the author’s blog, which chronicles her journey into death work as a mortician’s apprentice after a 12-year career in advertising.

Call Me Morgue is the fifth title from The Teaching Press at UW-Green Bay.

Press Director Dr. Rebecca Meacham happened upon Moran’s blog in early 2021, and realized it was the perfect teaching tool for the Press and its interns to tackle. Over summer and fall 2021, fourteen interns participated in various aspects of the production process, and The Teaching Press’s very own former intern Ali Juul, a 2021 Writing and Applied Arts BFA graduate, returned as the Call Me Morgue illustrator, helping this blog-turned book to spring to life through comic-book style illustrations.

“Moran’s hilarious voice, and its mix of the profane and the sacred was astonishing,” Meacham says. “I knew her wit, self-deprecation, and insights had to be a book.”

Meacham has long had confidence in Moran who graduated from UWGB in 2006 with BA in English. “Moran was freelancing for magazines in her sophomore year,” she says. “It’s a delight to bring her gorgeous words to our current writing majors and, as a book, to new audiences everywhere.”

For more information,  check out the Call Me Morgue page here!