Scott credits author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison not only with shaping her writing, but in helping her find her footing early in her career. Morrison, who was Scott’s creative writing professor at Princeton University, put Scott on a path to publish her first novel and get one of her first jobs out of school, where she met now ex-husband Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
The two kept in touch in the years following Scott’s 1992 graduation. Morrison was instrumental in helping the philanthropist publish her first book, introducing Scott to her agent Amanda Urban. When Scott published her debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, in 2005, Morrison wrote a blurb for the cover of the book.
“I guess the only way I will find out what will not work for me in life is by trying it,” she wrote. “I found myself with unpredictable and small chunks of time during which I either collapsed from exhaustion and frustration, or ruminated over the excruciating monotony of making and selling sandwiches, and worried about how I might pay my rent with the nickels they gave me in exchange for my ennui.”
She soon got an opportunity to work at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and was interviewed for the position she would get by Bezos, who would sit in the office adjacent to her at the firm. The two would leave the firm in 1994 after getting married the year before, with Bezos founding Amazon in the garage of their Bellevue, Wash., home.
In another letter to Morrison shortly after she took the position at D.E. Shaw, Scott said she got the job “based largely on a transcript of your phone recommendation.”
