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Jun 19, 2025
A winner of the Nobel Prize, Toni Morrison’s novels transformed 20th century literature. Her work as an editor was just as visionary. Join African American literature scholar Dana A. Williams with acclaimed poet and novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and publisher Lisa Lucas for a conversation about Williams’ revelatory new book, Toni at Random.
While writing era-defining novels like The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author. As an editor at Random House, Morrison published important authors like Leon Forrest and Lucille Clifton and empowered cultural icons like Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms — ushered in a new generation of Black voices and transforming the American literary landscape. Meticulously researched by Dana A. Williams — who Morrison herself selected to tell this story, offering unprecedented interview access — Toni at Random recounts this remarkable, lesser-known chapter of Morrison’s life: in which a literary genius quietly transformed her cultural landscape by championing a chorus of vital, underrepresented writers.
In a special conversation about Morrison’s life and the complex creative interplay between writing and editing, hear Williams, Jeffers, and Lucas shed new light on the life and work of one our most important writers — and find out how it continues to ripple through American literature today.
“Toni Morrison is best known as one of the world’s most significant novelists, but in this meticulously researched work Dana Williams introduces us to Morrison the literary editor, who shaped American publishing by introducing a generation of new voices and topics to the reading public.” - Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B. Ransford Professor of English & Comparative Literature and African American and African Diaspora Studies
A triumphant account of an underexplored aspect of Morrison’s influence on American literature. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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