We all love something — but maybe not quite in the way that DePaul alum Jack Murphy loves The Beatles. 

When Jack Murphy studied secondary education at DePaul as an undergrad, he never really pictured himself teaching a high school class about The Beatles. He also never pictured himself publishing a book of poems and drawings inspired by the Beatles, yet here he is, with that very book now out for sale.

The book, titled “Beware of Napkins,” is written by Murphy and illustrated by Melanie Jeanne Plank, who is also a recent DePaul graduate. Murphy and Plank met at an open mic night in the Student Center when they were both freshmen at DePaul.

Murphy loves talking about The Beatles, and used to do exactly that in the high school class he taught. When the school closed down, Murphy didn’t have the class to look forward to anymore.

“I didn’t have The Beatles class anymore, so I wrote a poem about it,” Murphy said of all the creative inspiration he draws from The Beatles.

Always the writer, Murphy attended the Writers Guild at DePaul University, where he first started workshopping his Beatles poems with other professors and writers in the DePaul community. These professors, along with others, encouraged him to eventually publish the book.

“Writing groups offer writers a safe place to try out new ideas or to take intellectual risks with work,” according to DePaul’s Writing Center website.

This quarter, the Writers Guild meets every Wednesday and Thursday in SAC 212 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Just as professors helped him at the Writers Guild, so does Murphy help students in his Beatles class.

“I thought the class was such a great thing in my life, to be able to share something that I love with these kids, and without this sort of ‘this is gonna get you a job, this is gonna be good on your resume’ kind of thing,” Murphy said. “No, this is just something that is great and that you’ll love, something that you can hold onto forever. I got to have that experience, which is amazing.”

Murphy was not inspired to write the book just from The Beatles’ music, but also that great experience described. However, the process of actually putting a book together for publishing can be much more taxing and tedious.

For Murphy, writing the book was the easy part. He would keep Google Documents open, and whenever he felt a bit of inspiration, whether he was listening to The Beatles on lunch break or driving to work, he would write it down. Plank, the illustrator of the book, had access to the document, and would go in and look as it was being written.

“Jack and I have watched each other grow as artists over the past eight years, so the book seemed like a natural progression for both of us,” Plank said.

“Beware of Napkins” caught the eye of an online blog for book reviews, Centered on Books.

“While Murphy’s poetry wraps the reader in sentiment, nostalgia and comedic relief, Plank’s illustrations are the perfect aesthetic and emotional accompaniment,” Jaclyn Bauer, a writer for Centered on Books said.

They didn’t always determine which drawings should be made for each poem, but that was what was so beautiful about it; Plank might have had an idea for an illustration that Murphy didn’t even understand at first, but they all went together in the end.

“You’re gonna be influenced by something — it’s kind of like, you wanna be influenced by beautiful things,” Murphy said.