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MacKenzie Scott's Surprising Connection To Toni Morrison, Explained
By Kyra Alessandrini • Nov 9, 2025Share
Photo: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
MacKenzie Scott has recently made headlines for her substantial donations to HBCUs and nonprofit organizations serving students of color. As it turns out, the billionaire ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has her own ties to academia. Not only did Scott graduate from Princeton University in 1992, but Toni Morrison was her mentor through her college years and beyond.
Toni Morrison was MacKenzie Scott’s professor at Princeton University
At Princeton, Scott studied creative writing under Morrison.“This writer that I admired so much also turned out to be such a gifted and devoted teacher,” Scott said in a 2017 Princeton article that mentioned she came to Princeton with a secret hope of “taking even one class with Toni Morrison,” adding, “She has given me a real example of a life of passionate devotion to more than one calling.”
Morrison became Scott’s thesis advisor, and the novelist helped her develop a 168-page fiction story titled The Fathering Water. After graduation, Scott stayed in touch with Morrison, who would share life updates and everyday impressions.
Scott took a job as a waitress in New York, which left her too tired to write despite having held a similar position at Princeton during her college years.
“I guess the only way I will find out what will not work for me in life is by trying it,” she wrote to Morrison in September 1992 in letters obtained by The New York Times in 2022.
“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,” Scott added, “and worried about how I might pay my rent with the nickels they gave me in exchange for my ennui.”
Just a week prior, Scott had started working at an investment firm with her future husband.
Toni Morrison was MacKenzie Scott’s mentor as she pursued a career as a novelist
Morrison praised Scott’s thesis work and called her an “extraordinary writer, almost full-blown.”Scott based her first book, The Testing of Luther Albright, in part on her thesis. It took her nearly a decade to complete. During this time, Morrison acted as a mentor and an editor for Scott.
“As you revise, I am at your service if, and only if, you want me to be,” Morrison wrote in a three-page letter to Scott full of suggestions for her book.
Although Morrison said she was glad not to have to line edit for a living, she still found pleasure in helping Scott.
“But then, then … there’s a writer out there named MacKenzie and the profound pleasure of editing comes rushing back,” she wrote.
Morrison also connected Scott with her agent, Amanda Urban, and wrote a blurb on the cover of the book, which was released in 2005.
