Did you get a lot of crazy mail and e-mail from people who watched the show afterwards? People asking you to pay off their mortgage or send their kids to baseball camp, that sort of thing? How do you handle requests like that?
Jennings: There was a broad sampling of crazy mail. Our address wasn't listed at the time, so most of it went to a Ken R. Jennings of Salt Lake City, who did have a listed number and was very nice about passing along mail and phone messages, even though I had ruined his life pretty effectively for most of 2004. Lots of it was fun to laugh at--people wanting me to fund their crackpot inventions for tracking down extraterrestrials, or crazy pet ideas for indoor amusement parks or satellite TV channels or whatever. Then some of it was heartbreaking--people in such desperate straits that they were writing to total strangers on TV asking for money because, hey, what harm could it do? An author I like advised me that the people who need the help the most probably aren't going to be the ones asking for it, and I've tried to follow that advice--using the money to do some good without buying a new muffler for everyone who tracks down my address.
By the same token, you must have received a lot of support and fan mail. What's it like to go from Jeopardy fan to sudden celebrity?
Jennings: That's the crazy part: I think most people have a pretty good idea when they're about to become famous. They sign the record deal or land the big movie role or whatever. But I had no inkling of what was going to happen. I was just trying to win on a game show, and suddenly Tom Hanks is talking about me on Oprah and my name is cultural shorthand for a certain kind of nerd. I kept thinking, "This is great, but when exactly did I sign up for it?" In the end, I got to do a lot of fun, once-in-a-lifetime stuff I'll always cherish: read the Top Ten list on Letterman, throw out the first pitch at a major league game, chill with Grover on Sesame Street. Luckily, I already had a pretty happy life, and felt like I was grounded enough to just enjoy the rollercoaster ride without really getting changed by it in any way. Though I did get a free career change out of the craziness. I went from being a computer programmer--which I didn't really enjoy and wasn't very good at--to a much more fulfilling life as a freelance author. So I'll always have Jeopardy! to thank for that.
After the paperback launch, what have you got in store? Is another book in the cards for you, or are you working on something completely different?
Jennings: The idea with the Trivia Almanac was to get all the quiz questions out of my system that I'd accumulated while writing Brainiac, but, nine thousand questions later, I feel like I could use a little break from trivia for the time being. I have an idea for another narrative book about American nerd culture in the same vein as Brainiac, which I'd like to start working on early next year. Thanks to various deadlines, I'm months overdue on another project: finishing a pretty elaborate mural I've been painting on the bedroom walls of my now one-year-old daughter Caitlin. And I'm teaching my son how to ride a bike. Those are the current big projects.
Want to know more about Ken Jennings? His website is updated frequently, and includes the most frequently asked questions about his time on Jeopardy and life after Trebek.
