The wisdom and writing advice of the late Don Murray '48, a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor emeritus of English, has been edited and collected by two UNH English professors, Tom Newkirk and Lisa Miller. The book, The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America's Greatest Writing Teacher (Heinemann, 2009) was a "labor of love," says Newkirk. "Don was special because he made himself so public— he showed us all what it means to make writing. We could see his drafts, his false starts, his revisions, those obsessive word counts he made. We could see it was a human process, not some superhuman ability. Don was a worker, at his desk early in the morning, and I always thought that he saw himself as a laborer, like a plumber or electrician. He had a job to do, he was a professional."
