An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.

A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.

Toni Morrison herself had great enthusiasm about Dana Williams's work on this story, generously sharing memories and thoughts with the author over the years, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison’s contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.

BIO

Dana A. Williams is the dean of the Howard University Graduate School. A specialist in contemporary African American Literature, Dana A. Williams earned her B.A. in English from Grambling State University in Grambling, LA in 1993, her M.A. in 1995 from Howard University, and her Ph.D. in African American Literature from Howard University in 1999. As a recipient of the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar award in 1999, she was a visiting research fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Before returning to Howard University as a faculty member in 2003, Dr. Williams taught at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for four years. In 2008-09, she was a faculty fellow at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University, and she assumed the chairmanship of the Department in 2009, serving three terms in that position. In 2019, she was appointed as interim dean of the Graduate School and then named permanent dean in 2021. 

In addition to an annotated bibliography, Contemporary African American Female Playwrights: An Annotated Bibliography(Greenwood 1999), Dean Williams has co-edited August Wilson and Black Aesthetics (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2004) with Sandra G. Shannon, edited African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking (Cambridge Scholars, 2007), Conversations with Leon Forrest (UP of Mississippi, 2007), and Contemporary African American Fiction: New Critical Essays (Ohio State UP, 2009). She is also the author of the first and only book-length study on Leon Forrest, In the Light of Likeness—Transformed: The Literary Art of Leon Forrest (Ohio State UP, 2005). In addition to her book projects, Dean Williams has published articles in CLA Journal, African American Review, Bulletin of Bibliography, Langston Hughes Review, Zora Neale Hurston Forum, PMLA, Studies in American Fiction, International Journal of the Humanities, and Profession. Her most recent book, Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship, was released in June 2025 by Amistad/Harper Collins. 

In addition to her work at Howard, Williams has served as president of the College Language Association (the oldest and largest professional organization in the US for faculty of color who teach languages and literatures) and the Modern Language Association. She is immediate past president of the Toni Morrison Society and serves as board member of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and the American Society of Learned Societies. She also serves in an advisory capacity for the Hurston/Wright Foundation and the Center for Black Literature. In 2016, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as a member of the National Humanities Council.

REVIEWS

'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. Through Williams we come to see Morrison’s editorial work, along with her fiction, as part of a larger visionary project that was nothing short of transformative. Toni at Random is a major accomplishment.”  -- Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B. Ransford Professor of English & Comparative Literature and African American and African Diaspora Studies. Author of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature 

“The more we learn about Toni Morrison, the more in awe we are of her gifts and her incredible range as a writer, intellectual and now we meet her as a literary activist and editor. Dana A. Williams rises to the challenge of documenting the workings of a genius, by demonstrating a mighty brilliance of her own. We have in our hands a masterpiece— a scholarly page turner, dwelling at the intersection of meticulous research, abiding passion, and tremendous respect.”  -- Tayari Jones, author of American Marriage. 

“In this essential work, Williams not only reveals the genius of Morrison as editor of some of the nation's most iconic writers, she provides an insider’s view of mainstream publishing during a golden age of Black authors and literature. Toni at Random is a cultural treasure.”  -- Paula J. Giddings, E.A.Woodson Professor emerita of Smith College and the author of IDA, A Sword Among Lions, Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching

“I flew through these pages. With a dazzling array of characters who become household authorial names and an editor who was as perceptive as she was assertive, 'Toni at Random' is an outstanding exaltation to the legend of the woman herself who birthed so many generations of Black artists alongside and after her.”  -- Morgan Jerkins, author of Zeal and This Will Be My Undoing

[H]  Amistad Press  /  June 17, 2025

0.89" H x 9.17" L x 6.4" W (1.06 lbs) 368 pages