In this wide-ranging collection of thought-provoking interviews including her first and last Toni Morrison, whom Barrack Obama called a 'national treasure', talks with a wide variety of people, from Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Bill Moyers to obscure bloggers. She details not only her writing life and her influences, but also her other careers as a teacher and as a publisher, as well as the gripping story of her family. In fact, Morrison reveals here that her Nobel Prize-winning novels, such as Beloved and Song of Solomon, were born out of her family's stories such as those of her great-grandmother, born a slave, or her father, escaping the lynch mobs of the South. Morrison hereby weaves yet another fascinating and inspiring narrative that of herself.