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A crossword is a word game consisting of a grid of black and white squares, into which solvers enter words or phrases ("entries") crossing each other horizontally ("across") and vertically ("down") according to a set of clues. Each white square is typically filled with one letter, while the black squares are used to separate entries. The first white square in each entry is typically numbered to correspond to its clue.
William F. Shortz is an American puzzle creator and editor who is the crossword editor for The New York Times. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in the invented field of enigmatology. After starting his career at Penny Press and Games magazine, he was hired by The New York Times in 1993. Shortz's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is the country's oldest and largest crossword tournament.
The World Puzzle Championship is an annual international puzzle competition run by the World Puzzle Federation. All the puzzles in the competition are pure-logic problems based on simple principles, designed to be playable regardless of language or culture.
Eugene Thomas Maleska was an American crossword puzzle constructor and editor. He edited The New York Times crossword puzzle from 1977 to 1993.
The New York Times crossword is a daily American-style crossword puzzle published in The New York Times, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals, and released online on the newspaper's website and mobile apps as part of The New York Times Games.
Jeremiah Farrell was an American mathematician and academic who was professor emeritus of mathematics at Butler University in Indiana. He constructed Will Shortz's favorite crossword puzzle, the famous 1996 "Election Day" crossword in The New York Times. He wrote puzzles for various books and newspapers including Scott Kim's puzzle column for Discover magazine.
Wei-Hwa Huang is an American puzzler, member of the US Team for the World Puzzle Championship, and game designer.
Margaret Petherbridge Farrar was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968). Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she compiled and edited a long-running series of crossword puzzle books – including the first book of any kind that Simon & Schuster published (1924). She was described by the Los Angeles Times as "the grand dame of the American crossword puzzle."
Merl Harry Reagle was an American crossword constructor. For 30 years, he constructed a puzzle every Sunday for the San Francisco Chronicle, which he syndicated to more than 50 Sunday newspapers, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Times, The Plain Dealer, the Hartford Courant, the New York Observer, and the Arizona Daily Star. Reagle also produced crossword puzzles for AARP: The Magazine and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Henry Hook was an American creator of crossword puzzles, widely credited with popularizing the cryptic crossword in North America. With Henry Rathvon and Emily Cox, he wrote the crossword for the Boston Globe.
"Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words" is the sixth episode of the twentieth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 16, 2008. In the episode, Lisa discovers that she has a talent for solving crossword puzzles, and she enters a crossword tournament. Lisa's feelings are hurt when she discovers that Homer bet against her in the championship match.
Jan Buckner Walker is a nationally syndicated crossword puzzle creator, author and games creator.
Lollapuzzoola is a crossword-solving tournament held annually on a Saturday in August. Founded in 2008 by Brian Cimmet and Ryan Hecht, it is the second-largest crossword tournament in the United States, and the only major tournament in New York City. The term "Lollapuzzoola" was coined by Amanda Yesnowitz, as a play on the Lollapalooza music festival. Lollapuzzoola 17 took place on August 24, 2024, and was cohosted by Brian Cimmet, Brooke Husic, and Sid Sivakumar.
David Steinberg is a crossword constructor and editor. At 14, he became the then second-youngest published constructor in the New York Times, and at 15, the youngest published constructor in the Los Angeles Times and the youngest known crossword editor ever for a major newspaper.
Bernice Gordon was an American constructor of crosswords. She created puzzles for many publications after beginning her career in the early 1950s, and holds the record as the oldest contributor to The New York Times crossword puzzle. A 1965 Times puzzle she wrote is credited as the first rebus puzzle, fitting an exclamation point into a single square. She celebrated her 100th birthday in 2014, just a few weeks after the 100th anniversary of the crossword. Her last puzzle was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 2, 2014.
Joel Fagliano is an American puzzle creator. He is known for his work at The New York Times, where he writes the paper's Mini Crossword. From March 14 to December 29, 2024, Fagliano became the interim editor of The New York Times Crossword due to editor Will Shortz being on medical leave.
Anna Shechtman is an American journalist and crossword constructor. Shechtman is the film editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and constructs crossword puzzles for The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Michael David Sharp, known by the pseudonym Rex Parker, is an American blogger known for writing about the New York Times crossword puzzle on his blog, Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle. Sharp teaches English at Binghamton University in New York.
Patrick D. Berry is an American puzzle creator and editor who constructs crossword puzzles and variety puzzles. He had 227 crosswords published in The New York Times from 1999 to 2018. His how-to guide for crossword construction was first published as a For Dummies book in 2004. One of the most revered constructors of his time, Berry has been called the "Thomas Pynchon of crosswords".
Mike Shenk is an American crossword puzzle creator and editor. He has been the editor of the Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle since 1998. He is considered one of the foremost crossword constructors of his time.
References
- ↑ Green, Claire S. "What's In a Game?" Parents' Choice.
- ↑ "About Helene Hovanec" Archived 2009-01-10 at the Wayback Machine Puzzles4Kids.com.
- ↑ Ware, Susan. "Notable American Women". Harvard University Press. 2004.
- ↑ Horne, Jim. "Fred Piscop and Helene Hovanec" New York Times . August 30, 2009.