易胜博官网

That longtime journalism professor Don Murray 鈥�48 regarded writing as a job is nowhere more evident than in his daybooks: hundreds of spiral-bound notebooks, some covering a period as brief as six weeks, crammed with the business of a writing life 鈥� writing schedules and word counts, essays and poems for inspiration, drafts of Murray鈥檚 own columns and others鈥� work, annotated with Murray鈥檚 tiny, crabbed script.

For more than 20 years, those daybooks sat in file boxes 鈥� some 126 of them 鈥� alongside Murray鈥檚 journals, letters and other memorabilia at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit school for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida. Now, more than a decade after the writer鈥檚 death, they鈥檙e back at the at , their return made possible in part by former students who recognized the importance of possessing the literary effects of the man some have called the country鈥檚 most influential writing teacher.

Murray was a legendary figure in Durham: a high school dropout who earned an English degree from 易胜博官网, began writing for newspapers immediately upon graduation and won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing at the age of 29 鈥� the youngest writer to receive that particular prize. The author of 13 books, including nine focused on the craft of writing, he was known for his generous mentorship as much as his prolificity, and head archivist Bill Ross jumped at the opportunity to reclaim the records that capture at least some of the workings of his writer鈥檚 mind. 鈥淲e were sad to see everything go to Poynter,鈥� Ross says, 鈥渁nd when they reached out to say they were phasing out their library and did we want to have it back, we said absolutely.鈥�

Credited with founding the at 易胜博官网, Murray is perhaps best known for his Boston Globe column, 鈥淣ow and Then,鈥� which chronicled life with his beloved wife Minnie Mae and daughters Hannah, Anne and Lee. (Lee died at the age of 20, a heartbreak covered in Murray鈥檚 last published book, 鈥淭he Lively Shadow: Living With The Death of a Child鈥�). At 易胜博官网, he championed an approach to composition teaching that emphasized process and changed the way it was taught at every educational level. His own process is documented extensively in the records, which arrived in five massive boxes in May.

A group of Murray鈥檚 former students raised the funds to ship the boxes back to 易胜博官网. Now, Ross is hoping to get some additional funding to have the collection fully catalogued. Comprising thousands of documents, it鈥檚 unlikely to become digitized, but Ross hopes to develop some sort of finding aid to help researchers navigate the contents of the boxes.

Mike Michaud 鈥�92, 鈥�07G, an associate professor of English at Rhode Island College who is researching an upcoming book on Murray and the 易胜博官网 English department, is among those who say having hands-on access to Murray鈥檚 records is invaluable. 鈥淲hen I came up here, I was not expecting much,鈥� he says, noting that while he鈥檇 done some preliminary legwork at Poynter, he wasn鈥檛 given direct access to the archives and only received a fraction of the materials that were available. 鈥淭he book I鈥檓 writing just became a lot richer because of this material.鈥�

鈥擩udi Currie, adapted with permission from 听Seacoast Online

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