Tag Archives: the new york times crossword

Crossword News Roundup!

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In today’s blog post, we’ve got a trio of crossword-related news items for you!

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Welcome back, Will!

Earlier this week, The New York Times announced that Will Shortz was back at work editing the Times crossword (beginning with the December 30th puzzle).

This is wonderful news, as Will had to step back from his editing work in February to attend to his recovery.

For those who were unaware, Will suffered a stroke that affected his mobility — he offered details on both the stroke and his recovery to Brain & Life magazine — but he is back to editing and playing table tennis.

From the NYT article:

In addition to completing hours of physical therapy and rehab, Will slowly returned to puzzle making and editing throughout the year. He directed the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, returned as the creator of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle in April and resumed choosing puzzles for The Times in May.

We wish Will all the best in his continued recovery and return to puzzling. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with Will a number of times — mostly at the ACPT, though I did interview him for the blog years ago — and I’m very glad to hear that he’s well enough to enjoy both of his favorite pastimes again.

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And speaking of Will Shortz news, registration is open for the 47th edition of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament!

Once again being hosted in Stamford, CT, the ACPT is a weekend-long puzzle extravaganza of solving, puzzle-themed events, fun, and community.

This year’s tournament runs from April 4th through the 6th, and you can click here for more details (and to register for this year’s event, should the spirit move you).

Are you planning on competing this year? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you.

Our last bit of crossword news was brought to our attention by friend-of-the-blog DGhandcrafted.

The jewelry crafting supply website Lima Beads has a puzzly promotion going on that might interest the craftier members of the readership.

There is a crisscross grid featured on the site for the entire month of January, and the numbered answers correspond to what’s on sale that particular day!

There’s even a chance to win a bonus prize if you solve the entire puzzle early!

It’s a pretty clever way to bring solvers and crafters back to the site throughout the month, and hopefully it’s a success for both the customers and Lima Beads.

Happy puzzling (and crafting) everyone!

We’re Not the Only Ones With Puzzles on the Brain!

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[A photo from the early days of PuzzleNation Blog, as one of our intrepid puzzleboys spreads the word of PuzzleNation far and wide. Image courtesy of Toledo’s Attic.]

I would love to tell you that PuzzleNation Blog is the only game in town when it comes to outstanding puzzle content, but that’s not the truth.

Sure, I think we put out some of the best writing in the puzzle business, but there are other outlets that also pen some marvelous stuff. Deb Amlen’s Wordplay blog on The New York Times website, for instance, is a treasure trove of great material, featuring breakdowns of NYT puzzles, interviews with constructors, and more.

The New Yorker recently posted an intriguing one-two punch of puzzle content. The main article was a meditation on crosswords — their potential, what they mean to a fan, and more — while the accompanying video featured an interview with constructor Natan Last (conducted by crossword editor Liz Maynes-Aminzade) about political entries in puzzles.

What’s slightly more surprising is that another popular Internet outlet has also had puzzles on the brain:

The Onion.

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Three times in the past month or so, the satirical news outlet has posted some hilarious puzzle-centric content. On June 20th, one of their headlines read “Exhilarated Woman Discovers Last Person Who Used Jigsaw Puzzle Left Lots Of Pieces Sticking Together.”

Two weeks earlier on June 6th, the article “Maze With Cheese In Center Enters Human Trials Following Decades Of Testing On Mice,” which feels all too apropos after our post last week about corn mazes.

But the cream of the crop was undoubtedly the article posted on May 28th, “Will Shortz Frustrated That Police Yet To Crack Taunting Puzzles Revealing Locations Of 40 Years Of Murder Victims.”

In a hysterically brief send-up of both the famously mild-mannered Shortz and classic criminal masterminds in general (like the one in the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode that also featured Shortz, or the one from the Hallmark Crossword Mysteries earlier this year), the article paints the crossword editor as a murderous genius who feels unappreciated in his efforts to play a game of cat-and-mouse with the NYPD:

“I naturally assumed that, at some point during the last four decades, at least one detective would be smart enough to solve the case,” said Shortz, who also implied that the geographic coordinates of the victims could be determined by analyzing the sudoku puzzles in the Sunday edition.

It was one of the funniest pieces of the year for The Onion, and further proof of just how ubiquitous crosswords truly are these days.

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