The answer: “This 30-year-old kids’ book writer just appeared on Jeopardy! and won $44,200.”

The question: “Who is Tui Sutherland?”


Author Tui Sutherland with Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Photo: Jeopardy Productions.

She is the author, under both her own name and four pseudonyms, of more than two dozen novels, including This Must Be Love (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” set in a modern high school), the Avatars trilogy (a post-apocalyptic supernatural thriller, with sinister flying dolphins), and her Pet Trouble series (about mischievous dogs).

Sutherland is also a self-professed “lifelong fan” of Jeopardy! At age seven, she fell in love with the show when she watched it while visiting her grandparents in New Hampshire. During the program, says Sutherland, “We couldn’t talk.” She thinks Jeopardy! was the first TV show she ever saw. (Her family didn’t own a TV in Paraguay, where she lived until fifth grade.)

She dreamed of being a contestant. Then a couple years ago, she picked up a copy of former Jeopardy! champion Bob Harris's Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy. "Reading it made me desperately want to be on the show again," she says.

So in January 2008, she took the online test for prospective contestants, which is offered just twice a year.

When the Jeopardy! bus came through her city—Boston—that May, she passed the in-person test and a mock game in front of contestant coordinators. "They have you play a rehearsal game to see if you can call out categories and hit the button without freezing, " she says. "Then they do a little interview with you to see what kind of personality you have and to see if Alex will be able to get you to talk." She qualified to be in the contestant pool for a year.

Then, this past February, Sutherland received a phone call with "Sony Pictures Studios" on her caller I.D.—and heard her caller say, "Hi, Tui, this is Maggie from Jeopardy! We’d like you to come out and be on the show one month from now." Sutherland’s response: "I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ "

To prepare for her March taping, she watched the show—a lot. Fortunately, her "super night owl" writing routine (midnight to 5 a.m.) did not interfere with her Jeopardy! viewing. In Boston, the show airs at 7:30 p.m., so she and her husband could settle in together after he got home from his computer job. "I love watching it with him because we have diametrically opposed knowledge," she says. "If I don't know it, it's almost guaranteed he'll know it."

Then she flew to California, where on a Wednesday she taped the episode that aired on Friday, June 26 in front of the show's usual 10 million viewers. Her first-day earnings? $23,600.

Jeopardy! only tapes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so she flew home and then back again to tape her second game, which aired on Monday, June 29. She won another $20,600. The third time wasn’t a charm: in the show that aired on Tuesday, June 30, she earned $2,000 for finishing second—behind a school librarian.

Sutherland is philosophical about ending her streak as a two-time Jeopardy! champion. "If I had to lose to someone, a librarian is probably the best choice," she says. She had to keep the details secret until the episodes aired—but then she could give "all the behind-the-scenes scoop," which she does on her blog.

Not surprisingly, Sutherland excelled at literature queries. Her second-game Daily Double from the category "Shakespeare with a Twist": "Christopher Hewett was a singing Malvolio in 'Music Is,' a musical version of this festive comedy." Sutherland's answer (correct, of course!): "What is 'Twelfth Night.' " She also aced "Oh, dear! This heroine strangles herself with a microphone cord in the offbeat musical 'Rockabye Hamlet.' " ("Who is Ophelia?")

She also got some non-Shakespearean book "answers," such as "The four words that follow 'One Fish Two Fish' in a Dr. Seuss book title." ("What is 'Red Fish Blue Fish'?") Another, from a "New York Times Book Review" category: "This Toni Morrison novel won a 2006 Times survey of prominent literary types looking for the best fiction the last 25 years." ("What is Beloved?")

Questions are not custom-tailored for contestants, so Sutherland simply lucked out by getting so many literature "answers." "If she got the Shakespeare stuff, it was a good day for her," says show spokesman Jeff Ritter. "It's randomly selected."

Sutherland got to mention her Scholastic series, Pet Trouble, on the air. But because watching Amazon sales makes her "nervous," she isn't sure if she sold any extra copies of her first three Pet Trouble books as a result. (Worth noting: the fourth book, Pet Trouble: Smarty Pants Shelty, due out in early 2010, features a smart dog named... Jeopardy!)

Jeopardy! officials do not keep a database of contestants' professions, so it's unknown exactly how many children's book authors have appeared on the show during the years it was hosted by Art Fleming or by Alex Trebek. But Sutherland is not the first children's book author to appear on the show. For example, Linda Sue Park, author of A Single Shard, finished third in an episode that aired in October 2006. Writers of adult books have also been contestants; in 2006, Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and Burden of Proof, competed on Celebrity Jeopardy!

Show spokesman Ritter says authors tend to perform well—but notes that champions come from all walks of life. "It's the love of knowledge regardless of what you and I do for a living or where we went to school," he says. "To know the correct answer to something is like kicking a field goal."

Current rules prohibit Sutherland from being on regular Jeopardy! again with Alex Trebek. But it's still possible. "If I sell enough books," she says, "maybe they'll let me be on Celebrity Jeopardy!"