About Richard Thomas Murray
I was born and raised on the north shore of Long Island and attended public schools there. I received my B.A. through the residential undergraduate program at the experimental Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, where I studied with poets Marvin Bell, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Barry Goldensohn, Lorrie Goldensohn, Paul Nelson, and (informally) with Louise Gluck, as well as fiction writer Jack Pulaski. Twenty years after graduating from Goddard I received my M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, where I studied with poet and writer Rachel Hadas and poet and novelist John A. Williams.
My first book of poetry, Edisonia, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022. My poems have appeared or are forthcoming in leading national and international journals such as The Dark Horse, The Moth, The Seventh Quarry, Poetry East, The Main Street Rag, Rattle, Slipstream, The Bitter Oleander, Santa Fe Literary Review, and additional magazines.
I love teaching creative writing and began doing so with high school students at the United Nations International School in New York City, where I also worked as assistant director of admissions for several years. I subsequently directed undergraduate international admissions at Rutgers University, and a decade later switched to admissions web and print communications. I have also taught creative writing to undergraduates at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey since 2007.
I was a member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Folk Festival for about a decade and have worked extensively with New Jersey’s Native American nations to promote awareness of their existence, history, and culture, culminating in their being the festival’s focus community in 2018. As a member of Rutgers University’s Chancellor’s Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations in Rutgers’ History and through my contacts in the Apsaalooke (Crow) Nation in Montana, I was able to obtain a large grant and brought a leading Native American (Apsaalooke/Crow) rapper/hip-hop artist, Supaman, to headline the 2018 New Jersey Folk Festival that honored New Jersey’s Native American nations.
In addition to my educational employment, I have had a diverse work history as a caddie, snack bar manager, golf driving range worker, musician, grocery store clerk, warehouseman, film distributor, silk-screen printer, mail clerk, and secretary. I am also the father of three children.