Women’s History Month

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Friday, March 8, I joined hundreds of viewers and watched AARP Movies for Grownups’ presentation of “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am”, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. 

Aside from the experience of viewing this production online and actively commenting with almost 2000 other viewers, I came away with five key points I’d like to share. Chiefly, how Toni Morrison came to be an editor at Random House Publishing and eventually a world-famous author. Next, that she recruited many writers and pushed, mentored, and nurtured them until they became famous authors. Third, she eschewed the notion that writers must write what they know and espoused the idea that writers should write about what they don’t know. An additional point that resounded with me was Morrison wasn’t afraid to write black, and I’ll expound on that. Finally, the documentary drove home the importance of belonging to a community of writers.

Toni Morrison had earned her master’s degree in English from Cornell University, when she saw an ad for an editorial position at L. W. Singer Publishing Company. Thinking she fit the description, she drove to Syracuse NY for the interview and eventually got the job. When Random House Publishing bought L. W. Singer, Toni Morrison was among the editors invited to join the Random House staff in New York City.

At Random House she recruited black writers like Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones, and Henry Dumas before they were recognized authors. Activist Angela Davis and Heavyweight Boxing Champ Muhammad Ali were two of the celebrities she edited, supported, and coaxed to literary success. But more than an editor, Morrison lived up to her famous quote, ‘If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it’. While working at Random House, Morrison began work on her first novel, The Bluest Eye. 

Toni Morrison taught her creative writing students to write anything except what they knew because they knew nothing. “When I was teaching at Princeton, I had one course in creative writing. And I would tell the students… I do not want you to write anything about your little life. I know you have been taught to write about what you know. I’m telling you, do not do that. You don’t know anything. So I want you to invent.” Then she presented the example of a Latina server at an American lunch counter who doesn’t speak a word of English. “Write about her!” She said her students took that idea and ran with it, creating the best stories they’d ever written.

One segment of the documentary featured Morrison as a guest of the Dick Cavett Show after she’d released the best-seller, Song of Solomon and been on the cover of Time Magazine. Cavett, rather persistently, pressured her to share how she felt being called a “black” writer rather than a “writer” until she finally stopped him saying, “I am a black writer. I write black!” That resonated with me because I’m a black writer. I write black and I always wonder if my stories will appeal to the broader audience. The fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have read the writings of Toni Morrison who unapologetically wrote black speaks to my doubt.

Finally, Toni Morrison formed a writing community by editing and supporting other writers and they supported her in return. Forty-eight of her fellow writers, editors, and critics protested loudly when her novel, Beloved, failed to win the National Book Award. All 48 signed a statement published in The New York Times Book Review lamenting the fact that Ms. Morrison hadn’t received a Pulitzer Prize. Shortly afterward, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved.

I knew Toni Morrison through her famous novels and copious writings, but I discovered more from this documentary. In August 2019, two months after the project aired, Toni Morrison passed away. “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” is available on Amazon.

View the trailer.
https://youtu.be/A8sUwXTWb4M?si=iIo1ViosZc1gOIn