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 New York Times Magazine is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazine is noted for its photography, especially relating to fashion and style.
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is a crossword-solving tournament held annually in February, March, or April. Founded in 1978 by Will Shortz, who still directs the tournament, it is the oldest and largest crossword tournament held in the United States; the 2023 event set an attendance record with more than 750 competitors.
An acrostic is a type of word puzzle, related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It typically consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer. The second part is a long series of numbered blanks and spaces, representing a quotation or other text, into which the answers for the clues fit. In some forms of the puzzle, the first letters of each correct clue answer, read in order from clue A on down the list, will spell out the author of the quote and the title of the work it is taken from; this can be used as an additional solving aid.
The New York Times Crossword is a daily American-style crossword puzzle published in The New York Times as part of The New York Times Games, online on the newspaper's website, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals, and on mobile apps.
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 considered "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.
Elizabeth S. Kingsley was an American puzzle constructor, famous for being the inventor of the double-crostic.
Mangesh Keshav Padgaoankar was a legendary Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India.
Brendan Emmett Quigley is an American crossword constructor. He has been described as a "crossword wunderkind". His work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, and The Onion. He appeared in the documentary Wordplay and the book Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession.
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 16 took place on August 19, 2023, and was cohosted by Brian Cimmet, Brooke Husic, and Sid Sivakumar.
Matt Gaffney is a professional crossword puzzle constructor and author who lives in Staunton, Virginia. His puzzles have appeared in Billboard magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Beast, Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles, GAMES magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, the New York Times, Newsday, The Onion, Slate magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, The Week, and Wine Spectator.
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.
Desi Hoppers is a hip-hop dance crew from Mumbai, India. Desi Hoppers were formed in 2015, with originally seven members. In their debut year, Desi Hoppers won the World of Dance Championships in Los Angeles. The crew created history by being the first Indian dance team representing the country in World of Dance (WOD) and later emerging as winners. The journey of their formation and subsequent win was filmed as part of a finite television dance series called "Bindass Naach" on bindass channel. The crew was invited to give special performances on America's Got Talent and Day Day Up. They are the only Indian crew to showcase an exhibition performance in World of Dance 2017.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood is an autobiographical comedy book written by South African comedian Trevor Noah, published in 2016. The book focuses on Noah's childhood growing up in South Africa after he was born of an illegal interracial relationship during the apartheid era. The book was a bestseller and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews.
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 college instructor and blogger known for his blog, Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle, about the New York Times crossword puzzle. Outside of crosswords, Sharp teaches English at Binghamton University in New York.
Andrea Carla Michaels is an American crossword puzzle constructor and corporate naming consultant. She was a comedian and television writer after graduating from Harvard University in 1980 and has played competitive chess and Scrabble and appeared on Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. More than 80 crosswords by her have been published in The New York Times since 2000. In San Francisco, she has become known as the "Pizza Lady" for her efforts to feed homeless people in her community.
