Photo:Sean Black
Sean Black
Amy Schneiderhas quite a story to tell.In 2021, the Oakland-based software engineer found herself in the public eye after a momentous reign onJeopardy!By the end of her 40-day run, Schneider, 44, who has since become the most successful female contestant on the game show,left her 9–5 routineafter amassing more than$1 million in winnings. Aside from cementing herself as a fan favorite, Schneider has also become a visible figure within the transgender community; shevisited the White Houseto markTransgender Day of Visibilityandtestified against anti-trans legislationin Ohio, where she was raised.For Schneider, however, the person that viewers saw on their televisions every night was only a small part of the picture. In her new memoir,In the Form of a Question,out now from Avid Reader Press, the writer details her life beyond the screen — from her religious upbringing with an alcoholic parent, to her previous time in a polyamorous marriage. She shares stories of her various experiences with drugs, and the moments she first began to question her gender identity.
You’ve said you wanted this book to show the“messiness” in your life. How so?I think that I’ve always been somebody that tries to err on the side of transparency. It’s just easier that way. I’m not comfortable keeping things secret. In terms of that messiness thing, that’s something that came about as the writing was going on. I thought about [how] I’ve been talking about myself so much within this particular set of parameters. A lot of the stuff I didn’t talk about [before was] because it wasn’t family-friendly. [So I wrote about] the stuff I find interesting. I don’t want to give people a false idea about who I am and what I represent.What surprised you about the writing process?It’s hard. I’ve never written anything that I seriously thought would be published, at least in any mass market way. When I wrote the pitch for the book, it went fast. I just thought that writing the book would be the same way. And then, as soon as the deal was signed, and I was writing the actual book, it was like, “Oh, wow, this is an entirely different feeling, that everything I’m writing is going to be printed onto paper and sent out all over the country.” That’s a different pressure.You include footnotes in the book that serve as another source of dialogue between you and the reader. They’re especially effective in a chapter where you talk about your ADD diagnosis as an adult. Can you talk more about that experience?It really was just an incredibly empowering diagnosis to get, because it allowed me to reframe so many of the things that I would get down on myself about.[I saw] them not as moral failings, but just as my brain works in a certain way, and I’m able to do certain things, and other things are going to come harder for me. I don’t get down on myself because I can’t reach things on a shelf that I could if I was taller. In the same way, I don’t need to get down on myself about the fact that I struggle not to fidget, and I struggle to pay attention in a work meeting.
Amy Schneider.Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty
Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty
You also write in the book that you got into tarot, originally, as a way to meet women.I did say to meet women. [It was also] a new thing to learn to develop my ability to tell stories on the spot. I didn’t expect to find that it would actually be useful in a practical sense. I don’t believe in magic per se, and I didn’t think that there was anything to it in that sense. [But] there have been times and moments in my life when it’s actually helped me reach a decision that I was struggling to make. It’s made me think about what I believe and where the limits of my atheism run up against the limits of human knowledge and the limits of knowledge about [ourselves].
Does tarot provide a different way of looking at a belief system than your previous experience with religion?While I’ve been an atheist for a long time, and remained that way, that still has limits. There’s just things that are impossible to know permanently. That’s something that I struggled with in my more dogmatic, computer programmer atheist days: that science itself can prove its own limits, and that it’s just a human endeavor like anything else. It doesn’t provide ultimate answers in terms of the purpose of life. Tarot has been a way for me to think about things. I do have a spiritual side and that is important and nourishing to me, even if it doesn’t involve anything that I can think of as a God or a supernatural personhood.
Amy Schneider on ‘Jeopardy!'.Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
source: people.com
