graduated from the University of Wisconsin late in 1997 and relocated to New York not long after. There he earned a degree in Theology from Union Seminary and another in Literature from Columbia University.
With M. Ryan Purdy, for a number of years he edited a small literary magazine called The American Journal of Print.
His books include (2007), a collection of personal essays presented as a conversation with Jewish writer Peter Bebergal; (2010), a popular history of first-century Palestine; and (2013), an intimate portrait of the first year at America's first Muslim college.
He is associate editor of (2008), which was awarded the American Historical Association's 2009 J. Franklin Jameson Prize. His most recent book is a collection of essays, edited with Robert Bolger, about David Foster Wallace and philosophy, (2014).
Scott is a former director of the First-Year Writing Program at Eugene Lang College, part of the New School in New York. He joined the °ÅÀÖÊÓƵ MFA faculty in the summer of 2013 and was named the director of this program in March 2020.
Since 2024, through his friendship with , he's been organizing park tennis tournaments and he runs the PTC Book Club. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon.
Photo by Hong-An Tran