Amy Schneider is no longer spending her days on the set of Jeopardy!, but she’s not quite ready to resume her former life either.
The record-breaking contestant, who ended her streak of 40 wins Jan. 26, said Wednesday that she’s taking a leave of absence from her job as a software engineer in Oakland, Calif.
“I thought I was going to be more excited to get back to my day job than it turns out I have been,” Schneider revealed during a question and answer session with the New York Times on Twitter Spaces. “But I am going to be taking a leave of absence from that to kinda focus on this stuff and try to sort it all out and primarily… trying to put together a book proposal to see if that gets interest. That just really needs my focus.”
Schneider was a hit on Jeopardy!, becoming the winningest woman in the show’s history. She’s also second on the list of contestants who won the most non-tournament games, the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions and the fourth-ranked contestant on the list of those with the highest winnings during regular season play. Her takeaway was $1,382,800.
So, yes, the media coverage has been nonstop, even though Schneider expected that it would have died down by now.
“I also am having a lot of meetings with my agents, which is such a weird thing to hear myself say, but it’s true,” she said. “I signed with CAA” — the home of Tom Hanks, Zendaya, Reese Witherspoon and many more — “and they’re, you know, excited about all kinds of different things.”
She’s also spending some of the cash that she accumulated.
“We went to this really fancy, boutique hotel in Half Moon Bay, Calif., last Saturday night, specifically for its giant bathtubs,” Schneider responded to a question about her most frivolous purchase so far.
When Schneider was asked if she would consider competing on another game show, she seemed open, but confirmed reports that Jeopardy! contestants agree to wait six months before doing so.
“I have had some people express interest, and I was like, ‘Get back to me in a few months. I’ll see what I want to do,'” Schneider said. “I think I’ve already done the best one, as far as I’m concerned, so there is this, like, part of me that’s like, ‘Ah, it won’t be as good.'”
Still, Jeopardy! was such a great experience for her that she’s open to repeating it elsewhere.
First, of course, she’ll compete in the next Tournament of Champions. The competitors she’s most worried about facing are, in order, Matt Amodio, who sits just below her on that list of consecutive games won, and Andrew He, who Schneider defeated in her first game.
