2026 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Longlist Selection 

Toni at Random was longlisted by PEN America for the 2026 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.   

NAACP Image Award Nomination for Best Biography/Autobiography 

Toni at Random was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category for best biography/autobiography. Other nominees included Michelle Obama's The Look, Kamala Harris's 107 Days, Lionel Richie's Truly, and Dawn Staley's Uncommon Favor. 

The Books That Got Us through 2025 - Oprah Daily

The first book to explore Toni Morrison’s monumental career as an editor, Toni at Random is a case study in how professional bravery can lead to systemic change. As the first Black woman ever in her position at Random House, Morrison worked tirelessly and strategically to transform publishing from within, wedging open doors and championing underrepresented stories. Morrison told us that “the function of freedom is to free someone else.” Williams captures what that looks like in action. —C.B.

17 Best Books of 2025 You Need Read -Vanity Fair

“By now, everyone is familiar with Toni Morrison the novelist, the Nobel Prize winner, the legend ... —but what’s much less known is that before she was acclaimed writer, she made her living as an editor of trade books at Random House.... As Dana A. Williams chronicles in her thoroughly researched biography, Toni at Random, Morrison’s most visionary editorial project was The Black Book, a scrapbook of sorts, the first of its kind, that set out to chronicle 'the full history of Black people in America' by bringing together photos, newspaper clippings, recipes, demographic records, patents of inventions, ads, folklore, little-known facts, and much, much more. What comes through in Williams’s narrative is Morrison’s obstinacy (aka commitment) to building a multiracial book-buying readership in America that went against the received wisdom. She cajoled and charmed and pestered—did anything and everything to get it done. If that weren’t already hugely impressive, she did it all while writing her own groundbreaking oeuvre.  —NO

Critics Rave about Toni at Random

“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 An American Marriage

"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 

“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 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

“Toni at Random stands as a towering accomplishment for Dana Williams. Readers, historians, and students of literature are now in Williams' debt... Toni Morrison was responsible for much of what we read as we matured, as our literature became mainstream. By offering Morrison's editorial history to stand beside her literary production, Dana Williams has proven, again, that Toni Morrison is and was indomitable. In Toni at Random, Dana Williams brings receipts.”  — A.J. Verdelle, author of Miss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison

"This book can be seen as a handbook for editing during a rapidly changing cultural period, how to patiently, diplomatically, or even bluntly help a creative spirit discover his/her true vision in a work. It certainly and effectively presents another dimension to Morrison’s stature as an ever-important contributor to African American and therefore American culture." — John McCluskey, Jr. Professor Emeritus Dept. of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University and author of  Mr. America's Last Season Blues 

The New York Times

Martha Southgate, reviewing Toni at Random for the New York Times, writes "with great respect and meticulous research, Williams reveals Morrison as a hard worker, a devoted literary citizen and one of the most important book editors of the 20th century.... Toni Morrison loved being an editor. She fought for her writers and with them when necessary. She was funny, she was smart, she was acerbic, she was kind. She cajoled, she praised, she made better, she got her hands covered with ink and buried deep in the words. She helped Black voices ring out loud and clear. She was anything but “an object of veneration.” And as Dana A. Williams makes clear in this fine book, that makes her all the more priceless."

 Read the Review.

The Chicago Review of Books

The specificity of Dana A. Williams’s Toni at Random takes it beyond the bounds of yet another biographical work about a world-renowned writer. This book is not about Toni Morrison, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, but about Toni Morrison, boundary-pushing senior editor at Random House. Morrison’s editorial career is discussed less often than her authorial accomplishments. However, Williams paints a picture of someone who, not only as a writer but as an editor, is fastidious and determined to shine a light on topics she deems critical to human understanding. Not only that, but Morrison’s editorial practices were clearly executed with the intention of only publishing books that both she and her authors could be proud of for their capacity to educate, and to preserve the Black cultures of the world.

Read the Review.

Publishers Weekly

Howard University English professor Williams (In the Light of Likeness—Transformed) spotlights Toni Morrison’s efforts to shepherd Black literature into the mainstream in this enthralling chronicle of her tenure as an editor at Random House in the 1960s and ’70s. Drawing on Morrison’s correspondence, Williams assembles rousing stories of her editorial projects that coalesce into a rich portrait of her interests and politics. Her first project at the imprint, a 1972 anthology of African literature, laid the groundwork for her “editorial aesthetic.” She also worked on To Die for the People by Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton and The Case for Black Reparations by legal scholar Boris Bittker; championed poets Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan; and went to bat for transgressive writers like Wesley Brown, Leon Forrest, and John McCluskey. Read more.

Vulture

Is there anything better than literary gossip? The relationship between writer and editor is fractious, tender, and ever-changing, with resentments and gratitude sloshing back and forth like a rooftop pool during an earthquake. Now imagine the editor in question is Toni Morrison. Editing was Morrison’s middle career; she joined Random House after a successful stint as a professor and before becoming a totemic writer herself. Read more.

NPR

Spring is here – the perfect season to sit in the grass and read a book. Or maybe the pollen count is getting to you, in which case it's the perfect season to sit indoors and read a book. Either way, you're going to need a few recommendations. Here are some books coming out in the next few months that caught our attention. Read more.