A collection of tales, illustrations, and musings where crows are the messengers, but the story is human.
Living in the city, they were the birds I had. Not rare, not exotic...just present. They allowed me to practice my skills as a photographer. This book grew out of those everyday encounters. It’s part photo journal, part love letter to the ordinary. If you’ve ever paused to watch a sparrow fluff its feathers or squabble with a neighbor, you might find something familiar in it.
You can find it on Amazon if you're curious
I’m honored to share that Seahorses in the Olive Jar received a five-star review from Readers’ Favorite. Their kind words and thoughtful take on the story truly meant a lot to me — here’s the full review below:
Seahorses in the Olive Jar by Barb Kirpluk follows Walter, a puppet
crow unable to fly, who struggles deeply with acceptance and
emotional vulnerability. He develops a strong, idealized devotion to
Gypsy, a real crow introduced to him by Dervish, a bold and scheming
puppet crow who often stirs trouble with his antics. Walter’s
artistic expression and emotional world revolve around his
complicated feelings for Gypsy, who carries her burdens and affects
Walter’s life in unpredictable ways. Meanwhile, the flamboyant Hank
provides support within the chaos. Walter attempts to connect with
Gypsy, juggle the consequences of Dervish’s disruptive behavior,
and cope with loneliness and rejection while surrounded by a mix of
quirky characters and legal battles. Throughout, Walter confronts his
inner fears and desires while managing his relationships and artistic
identity.
Barb Kirpluk’s Seahorses in the Olive Jar is a
sharp, playful book that mixes a large helping of whimsy, balanced by
some moments of genuine feeling. Among the quirky cast, Dervish
steals the show with his massively unpredictable and disorderly
conduct made me laugh the most. I mean, he made a certain bombastic
real-life TV attorney come across as reasonable and levelheaded,
which is no small feat. On the flip side, Loki, the endearing
Shetland sheepdog, quietly won my heart with her gentle persistence
and loyalty, becoming the very tender counterpoint to the madness.
Barb Kirpluk’s talent shines in crafting a wide range of characters
who feel alive and flawed, with hilarious interactions. In her bag of
humor, subtle social commentary, and offbeat scenes, Kirpluk proves
that there are no limitations to storytelling when it is done well,
and there is no question she succeeded here. Very highly recommended.
Review by Asher Syed, Readers' Favorite
When a few people buy your book and the world stays quiet, you push the project to the back of your mind. You tell yourself you did all you could. You finished something. That has to be enough.
And then, the first review comes in. There’s a moment of fear, that it’s a one-star review, that maybe you really are just a person with no business pecking out words on a keyboard. But will you stop? No. This is just what you do. You’ll heal, and you’ll move on to the next thing.
So it is with real relief—and joy—that my very first review turned out to be thoughtful, generous, and insightful. I’m honored that my book was chosen as the debut for a new project called First Past the Post, where the reviewer seeks out books with no reviews and becomes the first to share their thoughts.
“The thing I enjoyed most overall, however, was just the sheer joy and passion radiating from every word in this book.”
“It is so clear that Kirpluk writes from a place of pure creative pleasure and truly loves the characters she has created.”
“What a weird, wacky, silly, lovely gem to stumble upon for the first review of this new series.”
Dervish and Walter are both trial junkies, glued to every new courtroom circus. This week’s obsession? The Karen Read trial. Walter tends to stick to plausible theories—he’s sympathetic to Karen, suggesting if she did do it, she doesn’t know it. He leans toward a fight in the house, maybe an accident, and a cover-up masterminded by Jen McCabe.
Dervish, naturally, has other ideas. His theories exist mostly to get Walter spun up, then he leaves the room grinning to himself while Walter yells facts into the void.
Here’s Dervish’s version of events:
Neither Karen nor anyone in the house did it. The real culprit? Lucky, the tow truck driver. According to Dervish, John drunkenly set off to confront Karen after she “left him out in the cold.” Hours later, lost and hypothermic, he sat on a curb and began to feel “strangely warm.” Enter Lucky with his plow. Trying to avoid a coyote (Dervish insists Lucky is an animal lover), he swerved and clipped John in the head with the plow blade.
Panicking, Lucky dumped the body on the lawn of his longtime nemesis and ex-pizza shop boss, Brian Albert—because if anyone deserved blame, it was that guy. To cover his tracks, Lucky later claimed he passed by and saw no body.
As for the scratches on John’s arm? Not a dog—just John slicing tomatoes for salsa while conducting Tchaikovsky in the kitchen. Dervish says it’s a well-known fact: John loved classical music, especially after a few Coronas and lemon.
The illustration, compliments of a park squirrel named Picaso-so shows Dervish in a mock cross-examination of the trial judge, Bev Cannone. He originally tried to lure the real judge with a pitcher of his specialty cocktail, “White Claw Crimson” (red Kool-Aid and White Claw), but when she refused, he substituted a Mrs. Beasley doll—citing her uncanny resemblance thanks to her yellow yarn hair.
Apparently, I was the courtroom sketch artist for the O.J. Simpson trial. I say "apparently" because I only found this out last week—when Dervish gave an unsolicited interview to a New York Times reporter who had called to ask about Sea Horses in the Olive Jar. Instead of discussing the book, Dervish launched into an elaborate story about how I sat in the courtroom for months, diligently drawing scenes from the trial, only to have all of my work rejected because, and I quote, “her sketches looked like raccoons caught in a wind tunnel.”
When the reporter asked if any of these alleged sketches still existed, Dervish waved the question off and said, “They were classified. National embarrassment. Marcia Clark sent a cease and desist letter written entirely in highlighter.”
I wasn’t mad. This is just Dervish doing Dervish—deflecting, spinning, and somehow promoting the book in the most counterintuitive way possible. And now that he’s planted this false memory in my head, I’ve decided to draw Marcia Clark anyway. For closure. Or maybe because I finally want credit for something I never did.
What do wet cats and graffiti in the park have in common?
Well, for starters… Dervish.
The cats didn’t run, and the crow had a hose. I wish I could say this was an isolated event, but it wasn’t even the strangest thing that happened that week.
Chapter 27 of Sea Horses in the Olive Jar finally explains why a bunch of scraggly feral cats were willingly lining up to be hosed down by a crow who thinks rules are for birds who don’t know how to hold a Sharpie.
All of it is connected.
Read the chapter. Then maybe you’ll understand why the crows are always watching.
I had been playing a lot of Santana CDs when I heard Dervish singing, “I got a Black Magic Marker,” and I knew—deep down—I should’ve been more concerned.
But I was preoccupied with the basement flooding. Dervish had opened the door to let a few of his squirrel friends ride out the storm indoors. I was too busy mopping up after them to notice he’d slipped out.
Unfortunately, by the time I caught up with him, he’d already been thrown out of the grocery store. Again.
This time, for writing phrases of anarchy on the eggs. Some of his egg-inspired manifestos included:
Bite the Power
Make Cake, Not War
Poach the Rich