Tag Archives: New York Times Crossword

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!

Pencil vs. Pen: Not that big a deal

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With conventions and clubs and the all-access nature of the Internet, it’s easier than ever before to connect with likeminded people who enjoy the TV shows, books, films, and activities that you do. Fandom isn’t simply alive and well these days, it’s positively thriving.

Any devoted fandom will have its talking points, its hot-button issues, and sometimes, its schism-inducing disagreements. (Star Wars vs. Star Trek is probably one that will never ever die, no matter how much we might want it to.)

One prominent example is the recent backlash at conventions and on the Internet regarding “fake geek girls.” Now that many nerdy pursuits have found their way into the mainstream (thanks to Comic-Con, Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, and many other outlets), lady nerds have been ostracized as not being true fans.

As a proud member of numerous nerdy fandoms — Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, and puzzles being but a small sample — it’s distressing to see fans turn on each other for stupid, petty reasons.

The only requirement of fandom should be enjoying something. Period.

The band The Doubleclicks have put together a marvelous video that not only celebrates geekdom in all its forms, but abolishes the ridiculous notion of “fake geek girls” in one fell swoop:

And the puzzle community is hardly immune to such ardent feelings and emotional reactions.

There are entire blogs devoted to dissecting the New York Times and Los Angeles Times crosswords on a daily basis, decrying unfair, misleading, or just plain wrong clues and entries.

And while it’s not nearly as high on the scale of ridiculous schisms as the “fake geek girl” or a given day’s crossword kerfuffle, you’ll get some seriously funny reactions if you raise the question of solving puzzles in pencil or ink.

It’s been said that egotism is doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. (A quote hilariously misattributed to Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared three decades before the NY Times ever printed a crossword.)

I don’t know about that. I solve in ink, but that’s only because every eraser in my house has long since been rubbed away into nonexistence.

I guess what I’m trying to say is… it’s awesome that people are so passionate about the things they enjoy. Just try to remember that someone can still be just as big a fan as you and still disagree with you.

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 for Crossword Constructor Ian Livengood

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of PuzzleNation Blog’s newest 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 proud to have Ian Livengood as our first 5 Questions interviewee!

Ian has constructed puzzles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, building a reputation as both a savvy constructor and a crafty cluesmith. He spends his days as a crossword editor for Penny Press, in addition to his extracurricular puzzle constructing. (And he even found time to contribute some terrific entries to two clue-centric PN blog posts earlier this year!)

So, without further ado, let’s get to it!

5 Questions for Ian Livengood

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I started solving crosswords in high school as a way to pass the time. I was a pretty horrible solver at first, obviously, but stuck with it. I tried my hand at constructing a puzzle when I was 19 or 20 and the results were, uh, less than stellar. I think I used 82 words (78 is the limit in most outlets) with some suspect fill. I got the constructing “bug” again in my mid-20’s. I didn’t even know construction software existed — I was using Microsoft Excel and a crude wildcard search engine — but I eventually stumbled on some nice software and began to study exactly how puzzles were made. 

2. Who are three creative types that inspire you?

It’s tough to identify specific people, but I certainly respect certain types of puzzles. I really enjoy a smooth and easy Monday, a diabolically tricky Thursday-level puzzle and a tough themeless puzzle. I really admire “smooth fill.” These are the non-thematic entries in a puzzle that avoid “crosswordese” (entries you only encounter in crosswords) and that are fun and interesting to solve. Frankly, it’s really hard to pull off, and I recognize and respect the skill it took to create ’em.

3. What puzzly endeavors are you currently working on?

I teach a crossword construction class every Sunday in the Spring and Fall in New York City to a group of seniors. As a class, we go through the process of picking a puzzle theme, building a grid, filling the grid and writing the clues. The goal is to get the collaborative puzzle into the New York Times.

Also, I have a book coming out in Spring 2014 called “Sit and Solve Sports Crosswords” through Sterling Publications. As you might guess, the book has 42 easy-medium 10×10 sports-themed puzzles. Since I’m a sports nut, this was a really fun one to make. Available wherever books are sold.

4. You were recently interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation regarding your crossword construction class. What was that like, and how did that affect how you see yourself as a constructor?

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. A Canadian NPR producer was solving a recent Sunday New York Times puzzle that class made and thought it would be fun to interview the seniors that helped contribute to the puzzle. I can’t say my Q-rating has really spiked, but it’s always nice to get positive feedback from solvers.

5. If you had a million dollars and three Hawaiian islands, what would you do with them?

Well… since I’m a skier and not much of a beach guy, I’d sell the islands and just go heli-skiing everyday. That sounds pretty nice.

Many thanks to Ian Livengood for his time. Check out his ebook of 25 easy puzzles here, and keep your eyes peeled for his work in the New York Times (Monday’s puzzle is a Livengood original)!

Thanks for visiting the PuzzleNation blog today! You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, check out our Classic Word Search iBook, play our games at PuzzleNation.com, or contact us here at the blog!

Clever cluing and outlaw wordplay…

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Last week I collected some of my favorite examples of clever crossword cluing, hoping to highlight some marvelous wordplay along the way.

To do so, I called in the cavalry and recruited the help of a half-dozen or so fellow puzzlers. As the terrific, funny, and cunning clues poured in, some of them were accompanied by notes, indicating that one publisher or another had barred them from publication.

Some clues, no matter how funny or clever, are rejected by publishers who view them as inappropriate for public consumption.

I respectfully disagree. =)

Heck, I wrote an entire blog post about cluing last year that featured my favorite not-quite-appropriate-for-all-sensibilities clue.

So please enjoy some immensely clever clues that didn’t make the cut elsewhere.

New York Times Crossword contributor Ian Livengood considers this one of his favorite answer/clue combinations, and it’s a real treat. He offers “Group getting some air play?” as the clue for “MILE HIGH CLUB.”

Patti Varol, Los Angeles Times Crossword contributor, turned some heads with the clue “Car bomb?” for “EDSEL.”

Crossword fiend Doug Peterson, via Patti, shared another eye-popping clue: “I had ‘BUILDING’ in a Sun puzzle and Peter Gordon clued it as ‘Erection’. We agreed that that one is hilarious and unlikely to be used anywhere else.”

My chums from Penny Press came through as well, offering clues that caught the attention of The Powers That Be.

Puzzle editor Keith Yarbrough contributed two wonderfully wicked clues for common crossword fodder, offering “Public hanging” for “ART” and “Brest milk” for “LAIT.”

Crossword guru Eileen Saunders also lobbed two sharp examples of choice wordplay my way, offering “Hoe house?” for “SHED” and “Wombmates?” for “TWINS.”

But my favorite contribution was definitely the one offered by variety puzzler Leandro Galban: “Kindergarten snack?” for “PASTE.”

Not only did I laugh out loud at that clue, but there’s more. In the email accompanying the clue, Leandro said, “We received at least one letter questioning my sanity so you know it was a success.”

I’d like to thank my fellow puzzlers for some tremendous wordplay and a few hearty laughs today. Keep on pushing the envelope! You never know what clever clues they’ll conjure next.