Dean Morrissey

I have been making pictures and telling stories my whole life. As a kid I worked,along with my brothers, for my father who was a carpenter and I seriously thought about taking that direction but I loved to draw and cartoon. At 20 I went to work as a Power Lineman for Edison. I would stay up all night, draw and paint, then get up and go to work. Eventually this became untenable so I quit the paying job in favor of this great unknown-illustration. I went down to New York to seek my fortune. Eventually I worked as a freelancer for 18-20 publishers. I consider this whole illustration period as my art school. I had lots of ideas for stories to illustrate and so I decided to write and illustrate my own children's book. That book turned out to be "Ship of Dreams". "Ship" was wonderfully received, won awards, and sold over 450,000 copies! I enjoyed a 40 city book tour as I could share this book that I loved with so many others.

Now, 22 years later, I have pulled Ship of Dreams out of mothballs and decided to re-publish it. "Ship of Dreams" is now available for a whole new generation of readers. Needless to say, I'm very excited about the book. Maybe I'll see you at a signing somewhere in the Fall. Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you for your interest in my work. Cheers, Dean Morrissey