Donald Morison Murray (September 16, 1924December 30, 2006) was an American journalist and English professor. He wrote for many journals, authored several books on the art of writing and teaching, and served as writing coach for several national newspapers. After writing multiple editorials about changes in American military policy for the Boston Herald, he won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. For 20 years, he wrote the Boston Globes "Over 60" column, eventually renamed "Now And Then". He taught at the University of New Hampshire for 26 years. Early life and education Murray was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up nearby in Quincy. He graduated from Tilton School, a college preparatory school in Tilton, New Hampshire. A paratrooper during World War II, he attended the University of New Hampshire, graduating with a degree in English in 1948. He got his start as a copyboy at the Boston Herald and became a staff reporter in 1949. After working briefly for Time magazine and as a freelance writer in the 1950s, Murray joined the University of New Hampshire faculty in 1963. On writing Murray chronicled his relationship with writing until the day he died. In a column published just before his death, he wrote, "Each time I sit down to write I don't know if I can do it. The flow of writing is always a surprise and a challenge. Click the computer on and I am 17 again, wanting to write and not knowing if I can". His final column was published in the Boston Globe five days before his death. Throughout his book, Crafting a Life, Murray demonstrates his writing process and provides guidelines for readers developing their own writing. He notes authors who have provided inspiration for his personal writing like Graham Greene and George Orwell. Orwell's essay Why I Write is especially apparent in Murray's motivation to write. When considering how to begin his own writing, Murray said, "I remembered them as being unexpected but true to what happens in the essay". In Crafting a Life, he lists and explains his manifesto: I write to say I am, discover who I am, create life, understand my life, slay my dragons, exercise my craft, lose myself in my work, for revenge, to share, to testify, to avoid boredom, and to celebrate. Murray compared a writer's voice in language to music and deemed its significance as the key