As a fan of Jeopardy! going back decades, and as an avid listener to the podcast Ken Jennings used to host, Omnibus, I kinda thought I knew everything there was to know about the host of Jeopardy! , including a lot about his personal life. That is, until recently, when I saw an Instagram post from the game show host talking about this college roommate, fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson. In fact, Jennings even joked that he was the second nerdiest and second most successful person from that house they lived in together.
Brandon Sanderson Would Read His Work Aloud To His Roommates
Sanderson, who just signed a deal with Apple TV to develop his Cosmere literary universe as both a movie and a TV show, is one of the most successful fantasy writers on the planet, and it all started when he was living with Jennings in Provo, Utah, when they were both students at Brigham Young University. According to Jennings’ post, which was answering a fan question at a taping of Jeopardy!, Sanderson started writing during his shifts as a night manager at a local hotel. The author would read his latest work in the morning. Jennings said:
He would come home from work every morning, and if I was making breakfast, he would just be standing in the kitchen, reading [to] us the next events of King Whatever and Sir Whoever killing whatever dragon.
As cool as that would be, given how great even those early stories would have almost certainly been, Jennings was just relieved, joking in his trademark snarky way:
I was just like, well, at least I'm not the nerdiest guy in the apartment for once. That was very nice.
He also mentioned that he is now the second most successful person from that house. Coming from a guy who is still near the top of the list of the biggest winners in Jeopardy! history and now the host of the show, that’s really saying something! Jennings even comments that Sanderson has his own plane.
Sanderson, whose books are always best sellers, has had none of his dozens of stories become book-to-screen adaptations. At least, not yet. His deal with Apple has been called "unprecedented" for the level of creative control the author will have. It's something Sanderson has always closely guarded with his work and probably explains why it's taken so long for him to agree to a deal.
It’s always amazing when you read about famous people having childhood friends or college roommates who are equally successful and famous, like Al Gore rooming with Tommy Lee Jones at Harvard, or Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson rooming together at the University of Texas. This is the latest example of that for me, and it’s pretty darn funny that two people known for being nerdy (in the best way) were being nerdy together back in the mid-’90s in college.
