Donald Murray (writer) - Personal Life

Personal Life

Murray lived in Durham, New Hampshire with his wife, Minnie Mae. They were married for 54 years. Murray and his wife had three children, Anne, Hannah, and Lee. Daughter Lee preceded Murray in death at 20 years of age and Murray later wrote about the experience in The Lively Shadow: Living with the Death of a Child. Murray encouraged other writers to establish a routine or habit of practicing writing. Through this encouragement, Murray often wrote of his own writing habits which involved waking up at 5:30 in the morning to write every day. He is known for using the phrase "nulla dies sine linea" or "never a day without a line" to motivate his daily writing ritual. He also said of his writing habits, "I am promiscuous--as a writer. I take on too many projects and try to split my writing mornings into two or three tasks...It doesn't work. Each night I write down tomorrow's single writing task on a card, assigning the writing to my subconscious, where most of the writing gets done". Murray died in December 2006 from heart failure. He was 82.