Wes Phillips

Donald M. Murray died on Saturday, December 30. On Friday, he filed his last column. The Boston Globe ran his final column today.

Last week's column on writing was pretty fine, too.

Murray won a Pulitzer in 1954 and, as he pointed out in his December 26 column, kept turning down "promotions" to editor in order to remain a writer. In both newsrooms and classrooms, he taught the craft of writing.

From his obituary: "'What Don did was take the mystique and myth out of writing for so many in newsrooms and elsewhere who thought you just had to wait for inspiration to come,' said Chip Scanlan, who teaches writing at the Poynter Institute and was working for The Providence Journal when he met Mr. Murray. 'He did this with a simple but powerful message: Good writing may be magical, but it's not magic. It's a process, a rational series of steps and decisions that all writers take.'"