The Essential Don Murray ─ Lessons from America's Greatest Writing Teacher

This book is a collection of writings by Don Murray (1923-2006), a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and long-time educator in English. Editors Newkirk and Miller (U. of New Hampshire) chose carefully from the volume of Murray's essays and thoughts on writing, drawing, daybook entries, and handouts. The varied topics explore writing from several perspectives, such as teaching writing as a process and not a product, understanding the writing process, and generally demystify the process that baffles many would be writers. As Murray said, "The writer is a person who writes." Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lisa C. Miller is coeditor (with Thomas Newkirk) of The Essential Don Murray, which gathers the most important insights about writing and teaching writing from "America's Greatest Writing Teacher."For nearly 60 years Donald Murray was a tireless explorer, chronicler, and advocate of writers, writing, and the teaching of writing. "We are coaches, encouragers, developers, creators of environments in which our students can experience the writing process for themselves," he wrote in 1972. Through the years and over numerous books, academic articles, newspaper columns, classroom handouts, writing conferences, and warm collegial conversations, thousands of students, writers, and teachers benefited from Don's work. Millions more continue to benefit by the wide circle of his influence over the fields of writing, writing instruction, journalism. Some of Don's most important insights about writing and teaching writing are collected in the Heinemann's The Essential Don Murray (edited by Thomas Newkirk and Lisa Miller). A Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, Don was a columnist for The Boston Globe and Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. He was also a writing coach for several national newspapers, wrote poetry for many journals, including Poetry, and authored several books on the craft of writing and teaching writing, including Learning by Teaching, Expecting the Unexpected, Shoptalk, and Crafting a Life in Essay, Story, Poem, and Writing to Deadline. Read article on seacoastonline.com featuring Don Murray ?Thomas Newkirk is the author of numerous Heinemann titles, including Minds Made for Stories, The Art of Slow Reading, The Performance of Self in Student Writing (winner of the NCTE's David H. Russell Award), and Misreading Masculinity. For almost three decades, Tom taught writing at the University of New Hampshire where he founded the New Hampshire Literacy Institutes, a summer program for teachers. In addition to working as a teacher, writer, and editor, he has served as the chair of his local school board.