#Margaret crossword editor how to

Shortz applied for the job and beat out a short list of three other candidates. He remains an editor-at-large there.Īround the same time he left Games, Mr. Shortz won't discuss the specifics, noting only that like any business, puzzling has its internal politics. Surprisingly, for someone who for many embodied the very Zeitgeist of Games, he was let go in August. He joined Games magazine in 1978 as an associate editor and became its editor in 1989. Shortz never has had to fall back on a day job of lawyering. He even wears a Nicole Miller tie with a crossword puzzle pattern - which that nasty Conan O'Brian made fun of on a recent appearance on the late night show. He has a simple - yet complete - explanation for his lifelong fascination with puzzles: 'Puzzles are elegant.' He even likes the way puzzles look, the architectural quality of a structurally sound grid with just the right proportion of black and white building blocks. He also has a law degree from the University of Virginia, which he planned to use only to make a lot of money and allow him the luxury of making puzzles. He published his first puzzle when he was 14 and became a regular contributor to Dell's puzzle magazines at 16.

#Margaret crossword editor how to

He constructed his first crossword at age 8 or 9 when his mother, hoping to keep him quiet while she held a bridge party, drew him a grid and showed him how to go across and down with words. His home is a veritable museum of puzzle history, memorabilia and curiosities. Shortz is believed to be the only person with an actual college degree in 'enigmatology' - which he received in 1974 from Indiana University, which allows students to develop individualized majors. 'Will was probably born to be the New York Times crossword puzzle editor,' says Jack Rosenthal, the Sunday magazine editor who selected him. He's a serious student of puzzle history and has the resume to prove it. You'll still find, as in yesterday's puzzle, clues like 'Tanzanian coins' (SENTI), for example. Shortz isn't abandoning all tradition and planning to darken all the white squares with references to the Beavises, Butt-heads and Dead Can Dances of fleeting culture.

Maleska, for example, once ran a puzzle called 'Strip Tees' in which you eliminated the letter 't' in the answers.

Of course, more can be made of this change that is warranted: The Times puzzles have had their wit and innovations in the past. Shocking, we know, but someone had to break the news to you. And some of Mr.Shortz' changes at the Times are barely blips on the radar to those who don't regularly and passionately follow this world: Daily puzzles, for example, will now bear the bylines of their constructors as Sunday puzzles always have. Such is the genteel world of crossword puzzles - the kind of subculture in which an ongoing controversy is whether. They just want puzzles to stay the same.' 'Some people probably think you shouldn't besmirch the Times puzzle that way. 'I'm sure I'll get complaints for things like using television references,' says Mr. He's expecting some cross words from tradition-bound puzzle solvers - but then, as all newspapers have learned, even the smallest of changes to longstanding features like puzzles and comics can set the phone lines afire. It's too inventive, it's too fresh, it's too creative.' 'I don't think this would have appeared in the old Times. Shortz says with a devilish, gotcha grin. Even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) the answer, 'VIOLETSAREBLUE,' fit into a mere six squares. And you had to do that every time those words appeared elsewhere in the puzzle - meaning, for example, the six-letter answer to ''Closer to Fine' singers' would be 'INDIGOGIRLS,' and INDIGO is written in one box followed by GIRLS in the six boxes following. And in the right order of a real rainbow - RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO, VIOLET. Instead, in each of the seven boxes in which you normally would print a single letter, you had to squeeze a whole word, the entire name of a color of the rainbow. RAINBOW, right? Not in the new New York Times puzzle. (As with 'The Crying Game,' we must warn you: If you haven't done constructor Peter Gordon's puzzle yet, skip the next paragraph!)įor 72 across, the clue was 'After-shower scene,' a seven-letter word.

But even more new-wave than the individual clues is the overall theme of the puzzle.