Tag Archives: interview

5 Questions with Puzzle Creator (and Jumble Master) David L. Hoyt

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Welcome to the tenth edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m excited to have David L. Hoyt as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

Even if you don’t know David’s name, you’ve probably solved one of his puzzles. Whether it’s the illustrated Jumble puzzle syndicated in newspapers across America or one of his numerous puzzles and games, David Hoyt is a puzzle-creation dynamo. Seamlessly transitioning from print to electronic media, David also has a number of apps and websites featuring his work, cultivating terrific relationships with Pat Sajak and USA Today among many other brands.

And it’s worth mentioning that in addition to being the most syndicated man in puzzles, he’s also my mother’s favorite puzzler (leaving me a distant second). *laughs*

David was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for David L. Hoyt

1.) You’ve been recognized nationally and internationally as a leading name in puzzles for decades now. What, in your estimation, separates a great puzzle from an average one?

I specialize in very fast-playing daily puzzles so my answer may be a different from other puzzle creators. When it comes to fast-playing daily puzzles, I feel that a great puzzle is one that gives the solver a chance to feel smart and to feel that he or she has just barely beaten me. The puzzle needs to give to player a fair chance to “win.”

It can’t be too easy, nor can it be too hard. It’s a balancing act. You want the solver to come back to play on a daily basis, so a great fast-playing daily puzzle will need to give the solver enough satisfaction and entertainment to get the solver back the next day.

(Here’s a brief video profiling David’s ongoing puzzle projects.)

2.) The internationally syndicated Jumble puzzle is probably the most well-known in your ever-expanding stable of puzzles. How many do you make in a year, and what does the creative process entail?

I create the classic daily Jumble in partnership with cartoonist Jeff Knurek. I took over the reins from Mike Argirion three years ago. It’s in about 650 newspapers. It’s a seven-days-a-week puzzle. I also create Jumble Crosswords, TV Jumble and a few other Jumble-branded puzzles so the answer to how many I make is lots and lots!

I really love making the classic Jumble. Coming up with the “punny” answer is so fun for me. I have found that I come up with the best ones when I’m running so quite often I’ll go for a run in downtown Chicago and just look around and listen for ideas. I love seeing how far I can run and how many Jumble ideas I can come up with during the run. The city of Chicago is my assistant when it comes to new puzzle ideas.

3.) The hundredth anniversary of the crossword is fast approaching. Given your familiarity with puzzles, what does the hundredth anniversary mean to you? Do you think puzzles as we know them will still be around a hundred years from now?

I’m very excited about the 100th anniversary of the crossword puzzle! I feel very confident that puzzles as we know them will be around 100 years from now. I see enough young people playing puzzles on the trains, subways and buses here in Chicago that it makes me think that puzzles will be around for as long as humans are around.

4.) What’s next for David L. Hoyt?

I have two things going on right now that have me super excited and that are laying the groundwork for a very busy 2014. I have a new hit game (app) called Just 2 Words and we are working on a series of new versions of this game for 2014.

Also, I am working with teachers and students to get the Word Winder Giant Game into schools, libraries, etc. I love working with teachers and students. It looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time in schools in 2014 which I’m really looking forward to.

5.) If you could give the readers, writers, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

I feel that an important key to success is to pay very close attention to the things that don’t work out the way you expect them to. I feel there’s much more to learn from things that don’t work out as expected compared to what you can learn from the things that do work out as expected.

It’s ok to be wrong. It’s ok to have bad ideas. That’s just a part of being human. They key is to not let your human nature mask what really happened. There’s so much that can be learned from the non-successes that can lay a very strong foundation for success over the long-term.

Many thanks to David for his time. You can check out his library of puzzles and games on his website, and keep your eyes peeled for his Word Winder game, as I suspect it’ll be finding its way into school curricula very soon!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, cruise our boards on Pinterest, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions with Constructor and Puzzle Archivist David Steinberg

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Welcome to the eighth edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m excited to have David Steinberg as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

With crosswords published in both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times by the age of 15, David practically has crosswords in his DNA. He’s the crossword editor for The Orange County Register’s numerous publications, as well as the founder of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, an ongoing effort to digitize every New York Times crossword from before Will Shortz took over as editor. And he’s accomplished all of this before the age of 18!

David was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for David Steinberg

1.) How did you get started with puzzles?

I started doing puzzles when I was very young — in early elementary school, maybe even kindergarten, I was doing puzzles in books my parents bought me. I was really into Jumble puzzles — I remember that one year, my elementary school had congratulatory “graduation” ads parents could buy to help support the school, and my mom designed one for me that was a Jumble puzzle.

But I didn’t really get into crosswords until I was twelve. My dad had been trying to do the crosswords in The Seattle Times, and I liked watching him and trying to help. My mom noticed my interest and thought I might like seeing the documentary Wordplay, so we checked it out of the library. I saw how Merl Reagle built a puzzle by hand and thought maybe I could do one, so the next day I did. And that was how I got started.

2.) With the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, you’ve established yourself as one of the key preservers of Puzzle History. Can you give the PuzzleNation readership an update on where the project stands right now and your projections for the future?

Thanks! As I write this, more than 12,100 puzzles have been digitized, or “litzed.” [Glenn’s note: As of publication today, the total is over 12,900.] We’re working backwards in time — we started in 1993 and are now litzing puzzles from 1961. We’re currently proofreading puzzles from 1980; all the pre-Shortzian puzzles from 1981 through November 20, 1993, are posted on XWord Info.

We’re in the middle of our third litzing contest, “Litzstarter,” and the goal is to reach 13,000 puzzles by the end of October. I’m hoping we finish litzing all the available puzzles by the end of 2014. I say “available,” because quite a few puzzles that were scheduled for publication in The New York Times were never published because of newspaper strikes. They likely appeared in other publications, however, and after all the puzzles we have are litzed, I’ll be launching an effort to track down the missing puzzles.

The proofreading is progressing at a slower pace because we only have a few proofreaders. My hope is that after the litzing is done, some of the litzers will become proofreaders. Finishing all the proofreading will probably take several more years, but I want the litzed puzzles to have as few mistakes in them as possible.

(Interestingly, many pre-Shortzian puzzles contain editorial errors — in most cases, we’re leaving those in, sometimes with notes that will be added later, so that the litzed puzzles will be accurate representations of what originally appeared in the paper. When the errors appear to be simply typesetting mistakes, we usually correct them.)

One other thing that’s happened recently is that I won a Davidson Fellows Scholarship for the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project. This award was very gratifying, because it demonstrated that the project is of value to a wider community, not just to cruciverbalists.

3.) The hundredth anniversary of the crossword is fast approaching. Given your familiarity with puzzles both past and present, what does the hundredth anniversary mean to you? And what are the odds people in the future will be celebrating the crossword’s bicentennial with similar gusto?

The hundredth anniversary of the crossword puzzle means a lot to me — it shows just how long patterns of black and white squares have fascinated solvers. It’s amazing how much the crossword puzzle has evolved since Arthur Wynne’s first construction in 1913 — from crossing a bunch of words in the dictionary to symmetrical grids and entries from the news to complex themes like rebuses and entries reading backwards!

I wonder how crosswords will continue to evolve as new terms become in-the-language and new theme types become more widely used — perhaps they’ll be superseded by some completely different puzzle type. Either way, I think the 200th anniversary of the crossword puzzle will be very significant!

4.) What’s next for David Steinberg?

Between running the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, editing crosswords for the Orange County Register’s associated newspapers, constructing my own crosswords, and going to school, I don’t have much time to look ahead! But I do plan on going to college in a couple of years and hope to eventually become a software engineer. I plan on continuing to construct and edit crosswords, though, for the rest of my life!

5.) If you could give the readers, writers, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

One piece of advice I have for puzzle solvers is never to get too locked into answers you fill in that aren’t flat-out gimmes. Crossword constructors like to use a lot of misdirection — at times, I’ve had to erase five or six answers in a single corner before being able to finish! Erasing guesses and starting a puzzle with a clean slate can also be very helpful.

Similarly, crossword constructors shouldn’t get too locked into a particular fill and should explore all options — you never know what possibilities are out there until you explore everything!

Many thanks to David for his time. You can follow the progress of the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project on their website, as well as David’s editorial efforts on the Orange County Register website. David continues to set records (most recently for the greatest age difference between collaborating constructors, when he worked with 99-year-old Bernice Gordon), and will no doubt be influencing the puzzle world for a long, long time to come.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, cruise our boards on Pinterest, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions with Crossword Pro Kathy Matheson

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Welcome to the seventh edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m excited to have Kathy Matheson as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

Better known as Crossword Kathy to puzzle fans, Kathy is an expert puzzle solver whose writeups on each New York Times Crossword are not only an invaluable resource for new puzzlers, but thoroughly entertaining as well. She’s also the editor of the marvelously puzzle-centric Crossword Kathy Daily, where you can find all kinds of puzzle news.

Kathy was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Kathy Matheson

1.) How did you get started with puzzles?

The short answer is that I’ve been solving crossword puzzles since junior high, when a friend intent on winning the school’s magazine drive gave me a subscription to Games Magazine as a birthday present. (The editor of Games back then? Will Shortz.)

But I should add that I come from a family of puzzlers. My mom and stepdad solve every puzzle the L.A. Times has to offer on any given day – crosswords, cryptograms, Jumbles, sudokus. When I was a kid, my grandpa would write me letters and include some scrambled words at the bottom; I would figure them out and send him back a few as well. And my dad and I would try to solve a daily newspaper crossword together on our weekly trips to a local coffee shop.

One distinct memory from those days: I filled in the word DIRT as the answer for “Seed covering,” only to have my dad gently correct it to ARIL, which he said was a pretty standard entry for that clue. I was baffled. Who on earth would know the word ARIL? So as an adult, when I heard Will Shortz was trying to take the crosswordese out of crosswords, I knew exactly what that meant. And I thought it was great.

2.) Your analyses of each Times crossword are not only thoughtful and accessible, they’re also very funny at times. Is there a balance you try to strike with each puzzle’s breakdown?

I’m so flattered that you think my posts are funny! I’m not a comedian by any stretch, but I hope my blog is lively and entertaining. I guess it’s just not that much fun to publish only a list of answers or a finished grid. Also, I think solvers are more likely to appreciate the craft of crossword construction if you can help them understand a challenging theme, or commiserate with them over an esoteric answer.

Puzzlers, by their nature, like to learn new things, so I try to add interesting links to current events. And frequent readers know I always look for a way to give a shout-out to my adopted hometown of Philly, one of the most underrated cities in the world. Sure, we have our problems -– including a terrible baseball and football team right now -– but it is a tremendously vibrant, beautiful and historic place.

3.) We’re closing in on the one-hundredth anniversary of the crossword. What, in your estimation, gives crosswords such long-lasting appeal? Do you think the crossword’s bicentennial will garner equal interest?

I think crosswords are still around because they’ve evolved. If they were still constructed the way they were back then, I’m not sure how many people would be interested. Themes, rebuses, clever wordplay and complex puzzles-within-puzzles (like the recent grid in Braille!) are what keep me coming back. I certainly hope crosswords will still be around in another hundred years. People still play cards, and those have been around for centuries, right?

4.) What’s next for Kathy Matheson (and Crossword Kathy)?

Well, I’ve been trying my hand at constructing. So far, my aspirations for a NYT crossword byline have been crushed by the very exacting standards of Will Shortz -– though he was extremely nice in his rejections. One puzzle didn’t meet the technical parameters (the word count was too high), and the other had a theme too similar to one that he ran a few years ago. So… I will soldier on. I have a couple of half-finished grids that I just can’t seem to make work. Turns out it takes a lot longer to build a crossword than it does to solve it. Who knew?

5.) If you could give the readers, writers, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

Keep solving! Just because one puzzle was frustrating doesn’t mean the next one will be. You never know when the subject might involve your area of expertise. Eventually, things will click. Here’s a confession: I still struggle mightily with British (cryptic) crosswords. But I’m able to solve a lot more clues today than I did a couple of years ago.

Many thanks to Kathy Matheson for her time. Check out her marvelous writeups of NYT crosswords on her website, as well as the latest issue of The Crossword Kathy Daily. I can’t wait to see what puzzly goodness she cooks up for us next.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

A hundred pennies for my thoughts…

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Today’s blog post marks my one-hundredth post for the PuzzleNation blog. With the one-hundredth anniversary of the Crossword a few months away, I’m proud to add my own little PuzzleNation milestone to the long, proud history of puzzles.

One hundred posts. Boy, posting twice a week adds up fast, doesn’t it? Appropriate, since a jiffy is 1/100th of a second. (Sorry, I’ve got number trivia on the brain.)

If this blog was a TV show, this post would’ve marked it for syndication. (A syndication deal would allow a channel to run one rerun of the show every weekday for 20 weeks.)

The 100th episode is always a big one for a show, and since they nearly always happen in the fifth season of a show, they’ve had time to plan something special. Weddings, showdowns, big doin’s. How I Met Your Mother staged a big musical moment, The Office had the Dunder-Mifflin picnic (and Pam’s pregnancy announcement), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had Buffy dying (again).

But my one-hundredth post isn’t the only milestone to celebrate. We’re closing in on the blog’s two-hundredth post overall in a few weeks!

While we’ve still got a ways to go before we’re in the same arena as Gunsmoke or The Simpsons (635 and 531 episodes, respectively), 200 is nothing to sneeze at. That’s the average number of seeds in a strawberry, and the average number of lights on a Christmas tree. (Sorry, more number trivia. I can’t help myself.)

I don’t have anything nearly as grandiose as the examples above planned. Instead, I’d like to go the Seinfeld route and look back on some of my favorite posts. Like the 100 tiles in a standard Scrabble set, I’ve chosen carefully. =)

Of course, I have to start with the 5 Questions posts, which have quickly become favorites of mine (especially after getting to chat with Wink Martindale!). Having the opportunity to talk to puzzlers, event organizers, authors, and celebrities about what puzzles mean to them is an incredibly cool experience, and I hope the readers enjoy them as much as I do. (Click here and scroll down to see every installment so far.)

And speaking of puzzles (as I often do), I have to include a pair of clue-centric posts featuring terrifically clever and funny clues (some of which were deemed too tongue-in-cheek for solvers).

This one goes back to last year, but it still makes me laugh. It’s my puzzle resume, detailing all the puzzly experiences that led me to PuzzleNation.

In the same spirit, we have this post about how solving puzzles is actually excellent training for the aspiring James Bond-style spies among us.

And no list of favorite posts would be complete without this lovely bit of puzzle romance.

Last, and certainly not least, I present an introduction to the Diggin’ Words dogs, our friendly anagram-loving pooches.

Thank you, puzzlers, for your enthusiasm and support over these last 100 posts. I’m looking forward to celebrating many similar milestones with you in the future.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions with game show host Wink Martindale

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Welcome to the sixth edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’ve never been more excited to introduce our latest 5 Questions interviewee… it’s Wink Martindale!

No list of legendary game show hosts would be complete without including Wink Martindale, a man whose winning smile and immense charm has made him one of the premiere go-to hosts on radio and television for decades.

Host of “Debt”, “The New High Rollers”, “Las Vegas Gambit”, and numerous other shows, he was awarded a well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006, cementing his legacy as game show royalty alongside other greats like Bill Cullen and Gene Rayburn.

Wink very graciously agreed to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Wink Martindale

1.) You have hosted an astonishing twenty-one game shows, including “Password Plus,” “The New Tic-Tac-Dough,” and my personal favorite, “Trivial Pursuit.” Beyond winning prizes, what do you think is the appeal of game shows to viewers?

Game shows have always enjoyed an appeal – from their days on radio to the present. In my view the main reason is that listeners/viewers LOVE to see other people become “winners”. They play along picturing themselves as contestants…i.e. “I can do that”! Little do they know “it’s not quite as easy as it looks”.

2.) What qualities does a great game show contestant need? In your estimation, how much of an asset is a background in puzzles when it comes to strategy and game show success?

A background in puzzles is certainly not a requirement for a contestant. The main requirement is the player’s desire to “win” and compete. He or she should know the rules of game play “backwards and forwards” before attempting to play the game on TV. Naturally if the show is Q & A it helps to be above average at all subjects of trivia.

3.) What’s your fondest memory from your work in television?

I have far too many to attempt to come up with just one “favorite” memory. But if I had to nail just one – it would probably be the day my agent called and told me I’d been selected as host of my FIRST network game show, “What’s This Song”, on NBC – 1966. Like your first car or your first house, there is nothing that can compete with THE FIRST anything!

4.) In the last few years, you’ve appeared on “Instant Recall” and Betty White’s comedy show “Off Their Rockers.” What hobbies and activities do you enjoy in your off-time?

I tried golf several years ago. But being a left-hander I quickly determined golf wasn’t for me. I took up tennis and to this day it is my favorite sport, and pastime.

5.) If you could give the readers, writers, aspiring game show contestants, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

The most important piece of advice I ALWAYS give to those who ask, whether they be aspiring contestants, hosts….whomever – is prepare yourself (re-read #2 above). And if possible – acquire as much formal education as possible….high school and/or college.

Plus, if hosting is one’s love, if possible get as much experience as possible in your hometown and/or small market. My BS degree from the U. of Memphis along with my years on radio helped me immensely in terms of overall knowledge and the ability to ad-lib.

Many many thanks to Wink Martindale for his time and the terrific crew at Wink Martindale Productions for their help setting this up! You can keep up with Wink’s latest endeavors on his website, Wink’s World. I can’t wait to see what he’s got for us next.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

5 Questions with Tanya Thompson of ThinkFun

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Welcome to the fifth edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s interview feature, 5 Questions!

We’re reaching out to puzzle constructors, video game writers and designers, writers, filmmakers, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life, talking to people who make puzzles and people who enjoy them in the hopes of exploring the puzzle community as a whole.

And I’m excited to have Tanya Thompson as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

Tanya is Head of Inventor Relations at ThinkFun, literally traveling the world to meeting with inventors and puzzle innovators in order to create new puzzle game products under the ThinkFun brand. She was part of the team that made Laser Maze a reality — check out our review of Laser Maze — and in the photo, she’s playing around with their latest puzzle game, WordARound (another coup for her and the ThinkFun team).

Tanya was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Tanya Thompson

1.) What in your estimation makes for a truly great puzzle or puzzle game?

Good question. It depends on the context. If you’re asking me personally, as an avid gamer and puzzler, I like puzzles that are new or innovative. I have over 1000 puzzles in my collection and I attend the International Puzzle Party (IPP) where some of the brightest puzzle minds (creators and solvers) gather. I love it when I see something truly new, whether it be a mechanism, a component or a solving technique.

If you’re asking me what I look for regarding a ThinkFun puzzle or puzzle game, that’s different. For ThinkFun it needs to be commercially viable. It has to be interesting to the masses, not just puzzle nuts like myself. If it can sit on the shelf and cause people just walking by to pick it up and play with it, then it might be right for ThinkFun.

As for my favorite puzzles – That’s a tough question. I have a lot of favorites. I love Rush Hour because I think ThinkFun revolutionized the toy and game industry with it. This was an entirely new way of doing puzzles. Of the classics, I love the Soma Cube, both for its elegance and its mathematical completeness.

I must mention designers here too. I love Iwahiro because he always surprises me with his puzzles. One year he’ll do wood, then aluminum, then cloth. He is so creative. Vesa Timonen and Timo Jokitalo develop wonderful single player games as well as aha-style. Oskar van Deventer has revolutionized twisties. Akio Kamei creates the most beautiful puzzles that look like everyday objects and the key to their solutions lie in those objects. Kagen Schaefer does exquisite puzzle furniture. I could go on and on!

2.) What ThinkFun products are your favorites, and which are you most proud of? Is it difficult to walk the tightrope of producing challenging, educational, AND fun products?

I love ThinkFun and what we stand for. We produce addictively fun games that sharpen and challenge your mind. We want to make the world better thinkers. I think our products do just that. I’m especially proud of this year’s releases Laser Maze and Word Around because I championed them into the company from the inventors. However kudos need to be given to the amazing Product Development team that took the ideas and made them into exceptional products as well as our incredible sales and marketing teams who knew just how to get them out into the world. You asked if it is difficult to walk the tightrope of producing challenging, educational AND fun products, it’s not so much that it’s difficult, it’s more that it is who we are. We’re awesome tightrope walkers!

3.) What’s your relationship to puzzles and games, and how did you come to be an integral part of ThinkFun?

I’ve always loved puzzles and games. My first career was a mathematics teacher and I used puzzles and games in my classroom to inspire my students. One of ways I did this as a teacher was to organize a SNAP Math Fair in my school. It brought puzzles into the classroom.

Through my work with SNAP I met Bill Ritchie, the CEO of ThinkFun. Bill soon hired me, and now I travel the world meeting inventors to bring in the new ideas for ThinkFun, and then work as part of a team that develops the ideas into products. Bill is also very passionate about reaching communities of people that want activities and games to exercise their brains. So I am also on a team of people working on programs that do just that! I love what I do and I’m blessed to have such a great job with ThinkFun!

4.) What’s next for Tanya Thompson and ThinkFun?

What’s next for me? Who knows. I’d love to attend TED someday, I’d love to travel to Asia and I’d love to sit and play a board game with Wil Wheaton. More imminent, I have been asked to launch a puzzle/game newsletter this fall. It will focus on great puzzle/game people in our industry, and will include a puzzle/game takeaway.

I am also excited to soon be off to find our next big thing! I’ve built an incredible network of inventors and creatives and I look forward to the fall when our submission cycle opens back up and I’ll be out there seeing great new ideas again! What’s next for ThinkFun? You’ll have to wait and see but you can be certain that it will be more products and programs that will sharpen and challenge your mind!

5.) If you could give the readers, aspiring inventors, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

Live passionately and get involved. I am passionate about mathematics, puzzles, games and education. When I was a teacher, I taught with passion. It brought me to ThinkFun and I now have a job that allows me to work within the fields I’m passionate about. 

Also, get involved with other people who share similar passions. I chair a committee called the Gathering for Gardner – Celebration of Mind (G4G – CoM) that promotes Martin Gardner’s life’s work. Martin wrote a column for 25 years in Scientific American called Mathematical Games. He was passionate about math, magic and puzzles.

Around his birthdate of October 21st parties/events occur around the world. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that people gather to share math, magic and puzzles. I was lucky enough to call Martin a friend and I am honored to be a part of this organization.

I am also on the Executive Advisory Board of the Chicago Toy and Game Week, a great series of events held in November for anyone wanting to know more about or to network within the Toy and Game Industry.

Many thanks to Tanya Thompson for her time and ThinkFun for their puzzly camaraderie! With so many interesting and innovative puzzle games in their arsenal, I’m sure we’ll be talking about them again soon.

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook (recently featured by Apple in the Made for iBooks category!), play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!