Dana A. Williams in conversation with Janelle Gray

Dana A. Williams, scholar of African American literature and Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University, joins Hay Festival Forum Dallas to discuss her book Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship. Drawing on extensive archival research, interviews, correspondence, and her own conversations with Morrison, Williams reveals a less familiar side of the celebrated novelist: her groundbreaking work as an editor at Random House.

Moderated by Janelle Gray, the conversation will explore how Morrison championed Black writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Angela Davis, Gayl Jones, and Muhammad Ali; how she worked to transform American publishing from within; and how her editorial vision formed part of the same larger cultural project as her fiction. A conversation about editing as creative and political work, the writers Morrison helped bring into print, and the enduring impact of her work on American literature.