About the Author: Cullen Murphy '74
Current Home:
Medfield, Massachusetts
Place of Birth:
New Rochelle, New York
Education:
St. Mary High School (Greenwich, CT)
Amherst College (1974)
Why did you choose to come to Amherst?
It was small, it was good, and it was the place where my father, who never went to college, always said he would have liked to have gone.
Favorite (most memorable or most influential) class at Amherst:
I was drawn very early to the medieval history classes taught by Fred Cheyette. Fred has been a good friend ever since.
Tips for aspiring writers?
Two things are essential. They're also probably obvious. One is to read as much and as widely as you can. And the other is to write with habit-forming regularity.
Tell us a bit about your path to becoming an author.
In some ways the best preparation was A) working for four years on the Amherst Student, and B) writing a thesis. It would take a while after graduating before I actually wrote my first book, but after Amherst I knew I could do it.
View Cullen's Alumni Profile