Will and Me
Confessions of a Crossword Junkie
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Foreword
Editors and contributors tend to develop close, mutually beneficial relationships over time,
no matter what kind of material is involved, and that is certainly true of Stu Ockman and me.
Stu started contributing crosswords to The New York Times in 2010. Over the next few years, he
had 13 puzzles published in the paper. That is a pretty impressive feat. Overall, less than 5% of
submissions are accepted, and fewer than 200 people in the time that I’ve been the editor have
had this degree of success.
Uniquely, as far as I know, Stu saved every draft of every puzzle he ever submitted to me, as well
as every piece of correspondence between us — all of which he has carefully compiled for this
volume.
The result is a behind-the-scenes look at how The New York Times crossword is made, from both
sides. It says a lot about Stu’s persistence, as he had 11 rejections before his first acceptance. In
addition, some of his puzzles went through many revisions before he finally got a yes. You can
read every bit of back-and-forth along the way.
In retrospect, if I’d known that Stu was going to collect all my emails in a book, I might have
been a better correspondent. Sometimes I was a little curt or slow to answer. But this is how
the process works, and my critiques of Stu’s puzzles, pro and con, still strike me as correct.
A few notes:
When I started at The Times in 1993, crossword submissions were sent by postal mail, and all
replies were written by me personally. By 2010, when Stu started, submissions still came by
U.S. mail, but I generally replied by email. This speeded up and simplified the process in one
direction. Also, because the volume of submissions had increased so much in the intervening
years, by 2010 I was getting help in answering submissions — often by Paula Gamache, a
noted crossword constructor in her own right. I would write notes on the envelopes that the
submissions came in. She would incorporate those into responses to the contributors.
For the record, the process has changed yet again in recent years. Now submissions are sent
digitally to The Times, where they’re screened by a group of my colleagues before they get to
me. But no matter who’s writing, the correspondence between the contributor and the editor is
much the same.
I hope you enjoy this inside look at how crosswords get made. And as a bonus, you get more than
60 puzzles — the ones that made it and the ones that didn’t — to solve!
--Will Shortz
Preface
I started solving New York Times crossword puzzles in the middle of seventh grade as soon
as my parents became subscribers. As I wrote for Deb Amlen’s column (Deb is the author of
Wordplay, The Crossword Blog of The New York Times) the day my first puzzle was published,
If I don’t succeed in embarrassing myself with my first puzzle, I’ll surely succeed with these
constructor notes. I’m a civil engineer in real life, and I’ve always found constructing things
to be an enjoyable challenge. I started solving crossword puzzles in sixth grade, and New York
Times crosswords a year later. So, when Adam Perl1, a longtime friend and college classmate,
mentioned that his crossword would be in the New York Times on Thursday (at the very end
of a long phone call), I started to research crossword construction on the Web. Soon, armed
with a trial version of Crossword Compiler, I submitted my first puzzle to Will on Christmas
Day, 2010. And the rest is history!
In case you’re still reading, that particular puzzle has never appeared in the New York Times
[it’s Puzzle No. 1 below]. But I’ve learned a lot from Will’s suggestions, and Adam is the
best crossword mentor in upstate New York (it was Adam’s 16th New York Times crossword).
Thanks Will, and especially, thanks Adam! I couldn’t have done it without you two.
(https://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/philosophers/)
July 21st
Hi Stu,
A quick note to say thanks but regrets on your HARRY POTTE R 15x, whose theme,
I’m afraid, didn’t excite me quite enough.
If I had accepted this puzzle, I wouldn’t have wanted the entries TEA GUE ST (which
sounds made-up) and CFM (not common enough an abbreviation). Also, I wouldn’t
have wanted the cheater black squares in the upper-left and lower-right corners,
which aren’t elegant.
Very sorry!
I do appreciate seeing this, though.
-- Will
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
If you’re interested in how a puzzle constructor gets published in the New York Times, this is the book for you. If you enjoy solving crosswords and have a hidden desire to try solving some puzzles that never made it past the cutting room floor, this is the book for you. And, if you’d like to know more about Will Shortz, the New York Times puzzle editor, NPR’s puzzle master and close to omnipotent in the eyes of at least one crossword constructor, this is the book for you.
“I hope you enjoy this inside look at how crosswords get made. And as a bonus, you get more than 60 puzzles — the ones that made it [into the Times] and the ones that didn’t — to solve!”
—Will Shortz
About the Author
Stu Ockman enjoys games (third-place tie in the NJ High School State Chess Championship and undefeated on first board in the team championship while playing for Columbia High School), singing (bass soloist with the Cornell University Glee Club including a three-month tour of Southeast Asia and member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus performing with Domingo, Pavarotti, Sills, Sutherland… and directed by Frances Ford Coppola), constructing things (he’s a civil engineer in real life with advanced degrees from Stanford University and the Wharton School and is recognized as a top expert in scheduling projects around the world). Stu would have been thrilled to have had a book like Will and Me available when he began crossword puzzle constructing in 2010, hence his decision to publish one.
Stu’s crosswords have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Cornell University Civil and Environmental Engineering Newsletter: CEE Update, the Jerusalem Post, the Los Angeles Times, Math Horizons, the New York Times, the Swarthmorean and, through Universal Crossword by David Steinberg, in newspapers internationally.
Will Shortz is the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times. He has been NPR’s puzzle master on Weekend Edition Sunday since the program began in 1987 and is the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament [ACPT] which he runs annually. The ACPT was the first major American crossword tournament in more than 40 years when it began in 1978. That year, there were 149 competitors and an entry fee of just $20, banquet included!
Will is the only person in the world to receive a college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles. The degree was granted by Indiana University in 1974. Will started his career at Penny Press, quickly moving to Games magazine where he became the editor-in-chief in 1989. He began as the fourth puzzle editor in the history of The New York Times in 1993 and has been there ever since.
Will is featured in the highly rated 2006 documentary, Wordplay. It is a must-see for any crossword aficionado and includes cameos from both Bill Clinton and former Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina. Among Will’s many words of advice to aspiring constructors: “If you want a little exercise, take the crossword grid out of the newspaper to see if you can fill it in. I would recommend taking one with mostly shorter words, not a more difficult grid with long ones.”