From the Margin to the Center: Toni Morrison, a Curator of Culture
DANA A. WILLIAMS in conversation with V. EFUA PRINCE
11:15 am – 12:15 pm
31st Street & Barclay Street
Waverly Neighborhood
Deemed an “essential” work and a “scholarly page-turner,” Toni at Random by DANA A. WILLIAMS is a stellar accounting of the publishing career of Toni Morrison, one of the most celebrated book editors of the 20th century, and her 20 years with Random House. Author and scholar V. EFUA PRINCE joins Williams in conversation. Recently feted on the covers of Poets & Writers, The New York Times Book Review, and heralded for its astute chronicling of Toni behind the scenes, working with premier authors, Morrison designated Williams to write this book. Called a “decisive voice in how the books she edited should be marketed (June Jordan, Lucille Clifton, Toni Cade Bambara, Huey Newton, Gayl Jones, among others) … The result is a triumphant account of an underexplored aspect of Morrison’s influence on American culture.” (Publisher’s Weekly*) Morrison insisted she could construct a book-buying audience through tailored marketing and promotion, and move Black culture “from the margin to the center,” as we learn her process of shaping books that carried out that mission. “In the end, Morrison declared, “This is our work.” Meticulously researched, Toni at Random is a must-read for anyone who wants an inside look at publishing.
Dana A. Williams is Professor of African American literature and Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. Her latest book is Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship. She is also editor of several publications, including Contemporary African American Female Playwrights: An Annotated Bibliography and a collection of essays, August Wilson and Black Aesthetics, co-edited with Dr. Sandra G. Shannon. V Efua Prince explores critical aspects of African American women’s historical relationship to home, family, work, and the dynamics of black family life. Recent publications include Crazy As Hell: The Best Little Guide to Black History, co-authored with Bro Yao, in partnership with Freedom Reads and Kin: Practically True Stories, winner of a 2025 Next Generation Indie Book Award and longlisted for the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. In Kin, “Prince has woven a complex, painful, and powerful tapestry of stories, poetry, theatrical script, song, and journalistic accounts about African American history, presence, and being.” (Kerry Neville, Momma May Be Mad)
*Toni Morrison is connected to Baltimore through a mural that went viral in Graffiti Alley by Baltimore visual artist, ERNEST SHAW, who honored Morrison shortly after she died in 2019, and the founding of the Toni Morrison Society in Baltimore (1993). The mural, located behind the Motor House, was a tribute to her literary legacy and her impact on the lives of Black people.
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Dana A. Williams is Professor of African American Literature in the Department of English and Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. As a recipient of the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar award, she was a visiting research fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, where she completed extensive research on her dissertation author, Leon Forrest. Before returning to Howard 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 chairmanship of Howard’s department of English in 2009. Dean Williams was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2016 to serve on the National Humanities Council. In 2019, she was named interim dean of the Graduate School, and in 2021, she became the Graduate School’s first permanent female dean.
Dr. Williams is the author of Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship and editor of the following publications: Contemporary African American Female Playwrights: An Annotated Bibliography; an edited collection of essays August Wilson and Black Aesthetics co-edited with Dr. Sandra G. Shannon; African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking , Conversations with Leon Forrest, and Contemporary African American Fiction: New Critical Essays. She is the author of the first and only book-length study on Leon Forest, In the Light of Likeness–Transformed: The Literary Art of Leon Forrest.
danaawilliams.com
Instagram: @danaawilliamsink
V. Efua Prince‘s work often takes an interdisciplinary form as history, poetry, and performance, to transform the history of black women into political art. Her current work represents a refinement of themes she has been considering for over 20 years, as evident in Burnin’ Down the House (2005). She is the co-author of Crazy As Hell: The Best Little Guide to Black History (2024), with Hoke Glover III and Kin (2024), a winner of a 2025 Next Generation Indie Award and longlisted for the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Prince is a professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. Dr. Prince received her PhD from the University of Michigan in English Language and Literature, the Avalon Professor of Humanities at Hampton University, a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute, and a fellow at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Center.
vefuaprince.ag-sites.net
