Morgan Murray was born and raised on a farm near the same west-central Alberta village as figure-skating legend Kurt Browning (Caroline). He now lives, works, plays, writes, and builds all sorts of crooked furniture in Cape Breton. In between, he has been a professional schemer, a farmer, a rancher, a roustabout, a secretary, a reporter, a designer, a Tweeter, and a student in St. John’s, Calgary, Prague, Montreal, Chicoutimi, and Paris. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies from the University of Calgary, a Certificate in Central and Eastern European Studies from the University of Economics, Prague, a Master of Philosophy in Humanities from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a participation ribbon for beef-calf showmanship (incomplete) from the Little Britches 4-H Club.

“Fortune or misfortune? Fate or coincidence? Genius or idiocy? Ah, the polarity that runs rampant throughout this highly entertaining and adventurous love story where passion keeps sprinting headlong into reality, learning nothing from the crashes. I love this amusing story, which reminds me a lot of the one time I met Leonard Cohen, whom I thought was very, very nice?” - Vish Khanna, Kreative Kontrol

“In Dirty Birds Morgan Murray has magnificently created one of my favourite narrative perspectives: the diffident anti-hero. This book is Tom Robbins, with grotesquely entertaining characters, dancing between sex and death, sometimes in the same scene. It’s John Irving with a protagonist that draws attention to just how much better everyone else is at everything. And it’s Kurt Vonnegut, carrying you through a quilt of strange scenes that leap from tumble weed to high-speed chase in a single page and have you contemplating the meaning of life. It’s pulls you out of your own world where you are probably doing something interesting and important, and transports you to nowhere-Saskatchewan, where you are hanging off every word of the terrible poetry of an entirely average man-child. It would be a coming of age story, except Milton barely advances. But in that way it is so real, and you love him anyway, rooting for him to become someone you can be proud of. I LOVED this book, and I kind of want a sequel, and the idea of a sequel about a guy who’s arguably learned nothing is maybe a TERRIBLE idea and that makes me love this book even more.” - Jenny Mitchell, Bird City and CFRU Radio, Guelph

“Canadians rejoice! Our Vonnegut has finally arrived! Morgan Murray’s debut is a great, brawling, sprawling, muscular glory of a story. Funny, dark, and wholly original.” - Will Ferguson, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Ltd. Radio

"One of the most fun and dynamic aspects of the book is Morgan’s facility with different dialogues. These include, but are not limited to, the matrix of the prairie junior hockey structure, the non-stop conversation of a Newfoundland taxi driver, academic papers, police files, and, most prominently, Milton’s poetry. These are often decoded and/or annotated in footnotes, a comedic amplification that’s an effective and refreshing device in this fiction. There’s work and care in the writing; the experiences, however foolish, feel earned. At the same time it’s kinetic: the words, like birds, take flight." - Joan Sullivan, The Telegram

"This book would make a great Canadian film starring Michael Cera. Refreshingly backlit with the nostalgia of Obama era planet Earth, riffing on a myriad of contemporary themes including intergenerational tensions and anxieties, global economic frailty and the pursuit of young desire, Dirty Birds is the perfect misfit read for your next layaway, or when you’re down to your last shot of whisky. It provides days’ worth of warm, weird feelings." - Nathaniel G. Moore, Atlantic Books Today

"Morgan Murray’s Dirty Birds is the delightful, literary, hoser middle ground between A Series Of Unfortunate Events and Jackass. The story of Milton Ontario’s poetic aspirations spans over 500 nonsensical pages and, even though you won’t understand a word Noddy or Georgette or Jerry or Gerry is saying, I promise you won’t be bored... this is an impressive debut novel that knows when to joke and when to deliver some actually poetic inner monologue. I can’t wait to see what Murray comes up with next." - Joan Sullivan, Haley Reads Books

“Dirty Birds is absurd and tender, familiar and bizarre, and completely unforgettable.” - Jean Graham, The Northeast Avalon Times

"Satirical, clever... unrestrained and funny, Dirty Birds, is a great read." - Atlantic Book Reviews, Haley Reads Books

- Jean Graham, The Minerva Reader

“Dirty Birds is an absurd novel about absurd subcultures of artists, grad students, and adultescents that author Morgan Murray explores with both laugh-out-loud lunacy and scathing insight.” - Ian Rogers, Shrapnel Magazine

“Dirty Birds is a whip-smart, structurally coherent romp that dresses its satire in the weeds of comic mayhem." - Richard Cumyn, The Fiddlehead

"The narrative voice in Dirty Birds reminds me a bit of the dry comic you find reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only this unfortunate protagonist, named Milton Ontario, (not to be confused with Milton, Ontario) journeys from Bellybutton, Saskatchewan to live in a dirty closet he found on Craigslist - dans le metropolis of Montreal... All so he can be a poet like his hero, Leonard Cohen. Morgan Murray fills his pages with dialogue spoken in hilarious Canadian vernacular, something that so rarely meets the page in popular fiction, interspersed with his own black and white illustrations, and the most epic footnotes detailing facts from Canada's history the way you wish you had heard them in high school." - Ian Rogers, More Books Than Days

“Dirty Birds: one of the funniest things I’ve read since I took home my grade 4 report card.”

- D.R. The Book Guy, Ltd. Radio

"If you ever feel you’re in the mood for something completely absurd, out of this world (but in it), something that will make you laugh, wonder what the heck is going on, and reflect on the author’s wild imagination, Dirty Birds is your book."

- Naomi, Consumed by Ink