Jill Krementz photographed her during these early years, when Morrison was a single mother of two young sons, who got up early to write before going into her publishing job . In these photos, you see her writing on the couch in her living room , you see her embracing her son. From the beginning, she never strived to be mysterious, as so many authors do. The photographs confirm what those of us who spent any time with her knew, she was gregarious and honest. She always let the world in — especially women and people of color.

[Read Toni Morrison’s New York Times obituary.]

In a 1977 interview with The New York Times Book Review she talked about how she juggled motherhood, her job at Random House and a part-time job teaching fiction at Yale. “It does seem hectic,” she said. “But the important thing is that I don’t do anything else. I avoid the social life normally associated with publishing. I don’t go to the cocktail parties. I don’t give or go to dinner parties. I need that time in the evening because I can do a tremendous amount of work then.”

She went on to explain that at 46, and after the success of her first three books — “The Bluest Eye,” “Sula” and “Song of Solomon” — she was at long last finding the financial freedom to devote more of her time to writing. “I’ve always thought about writing full time, but there was so much insecurity about not having a job,” she said. “I wanted to make a big score first.”