Wednesday Morning OT – I Want to Hear about Your Little Life, OK?

"I don't want to hear about your little life, OK?" ~ Chloe Ardelia Wofford to her creative writing class at Princeton. She wanted her students to think and write big, just as she did. She meant it too. I mean, not just her students' little lives but hers as well. She never bothered with a memoir. 

With her younger son, Slade. April 17, 1978.Credit...Jill Krementz

She's given a million interviews though, so one can piece parts of her life together.

So where did "Toni Morrison" come from? While in Ohio, she converted to Catholicism at 12 and took the baptismal name of Anthony. Later married Harold Morrison in 1958. Worked in publishing where her cohort called her Toni. In an interview in the NYT in '94:

Q: It must have been fulfilling, in 1970, to see your name on the cover of "The Bluest Eye." 

A: I was upset. They had the wrong name: Toni Morrison. My name is Chloe Wofford. Toni's a nickname. 

Q: Didn't you know that your publisher, Holt, was going to use the name?

A: Well, I sort of knew it was going to happen. I was in a daze. I sent it in that way because the editor knew me as Toni Morrison.

Q: So you achieved fame misnamed? 

A: Tell me about it! I write all the time about being misnamed. How you got your name is very special. My mother, my sister, all my family call me Chloe. 

I can't imagine seeing the words "Nobel Prize Winner Chloe Wofford" on a copy of Beloved or Sula. Like asking what your favorite Robert Zimmerman album is. I just bought a copy of The Best of Gordon Sumner and The Police. Steven Georgiou did the soundtrack for Harold and Maude. I'm putting Ribbon in the Sky by Stevland Judkins on my Spotify playlist. Farookh Bulsara and Davy Jones sounded great together... you get the picture. At least they got to choose their pseudonyms.

Which is the long way of saying I was planning on rereading some of her older works–it's been around 1K books since I last read her. Probably either Jazz or Playing in the Dark. And as it happens, her 93rd birthday was on the 18th, and I purchased a newer copy of Beloved in December (mine's in the attic somewhere. It's easier to buy a new one. Just trust me on this) so here I go. I feel like she's judging me:

High school yearbook photo c. 1947? maybe

Cool photos of her dancing at a disco in '74 and hanging out with Angela Davis here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/books/photos-of-toni-morrison.html

Some bio and interview links, childhood home photos here:

https://scalar.lehigh.edu/toni-morrison/toni-morrison-biographical-note

More newspaper clippings, plus a baby picture and elementary school picture here:

https://www.morningjournal.com/2019/08/06/photos-toni-morrison-1931-2019/

From the NYT link above, Veronica Chambers writes:

She did not do cocktail parties, but she made time for a party in celebration of her winning the Nobel Prize. You can see her here, joyful and in her element, at Maya Angelou’s home, with Oprah Winfrey; Susan L. Taylor, the longtime editor of Essence magazine; and Angela Davis. This photo captures “black girl magic” incarnate: There is so much beauty, so much power, so much excellence and activism and joy.

Dancing once again, this time at a party honoring Morrison’s Nobel Prize, at the home of Maya Angelou (dressed in gold) in Winston-Salem, N.C. To the left of Morrison are Oprah Winfrey and Susan L. Taylor, the longtime editor in chief of Essence; to the right is Angela Davis. September, 1994.Credit...Will McIntyre/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images

She was one of a kind. I think I'll skip The Bluest Eye this time. That one crushed me. Sorry, Chloe.

So whatcha reading?