Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers

Donald M. Murray is a Pulitzer Prize Winning Writer who publishes novels, poetry, a newspaper column, and textbooks on writing and teaching writing. Murray is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Hampshire where he inaugurated a journalism program, helped establish a graduate program in Composition Studies, and served as show more director of Freshman English and English Department chairperson. He twice won awards for his teaching and was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by the University of New Hampshire in 1990, Fitchburg State College in 1992, and New Hampshire College in 1997. As a journalist, Murray won a number of awards including the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in the Boston Herald in 1954. He was an editor of Time and has served as writing coach for several newspapers, including the Boston Globe and the Providence Journal. In 1991 Boston magazine and in 1996 Improper Bostonian magazine selected him best columnist in Boston. In 1997 the University of New Hampshire opened the Donald M. Murray Journalism Library. He received recognition for Lifetime Achievement during the New Hampshire Literary Awards in 2001. In 2003 Writing on the Edge established the Donald M. Murray Prize. This award is given to the author of the best work of creative nonfiction on the subject of writing published the previous year. show less