At 16, he began contributing to puzzle magazines.
By writing limericks, short stories and, on one occasion, the name for a new line of chewing gum, she won their family money, appliances and two cars.Īt 14, Shortz sold his first puzzle. His interest in wordplay and competition was influenced by his mother, a writer of children's stories and articles with a knack for winning corporate writing prizes. Shortz, who was born in Indiana in 1952 and raised on a horse farm, has made puzzles since he was eight or nine. After editing, about half the clues in a typical puzzle are the author’s and half are Shortz’s. (The Times offers the industry’s highest rates – up to $750 for a weekday puzzle, and up to $2,250 for a Sunday – and authors are credited.) Every day Shortz and his colleagues choose submissions, factcheck and tweak them, then send them to test solvers. Ambitious journeymen seek apprenticeships with master puzzlers.Īt the Times and other publications, contributors submit crosswords, and are paid if theirs are chosen. Although countless people do crosswords, far fewer construct them. While Shortz shows me the first copy of the first edition of the first-ever published crossword book, his intern, Owen, a student at Princeton, shuffles around in the background. Forced to retreat from the library, Shortz uses a small adjacent room as his office. The shelves of his library, long full, are supplemented by towers of paper two and three stacks deep. Shortz’s aura is meticulous yet occasionally chaotic it is embodied in his charming, slightly cluttered house, which doubles as the home of what could be called the Shortz Collection: more than 25,000 puzzle books and magazines, including one from 1533, and various puzzle-related artefacts and trophies. File photograph: Craig F Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Will Shortz during the National Puzzlers’ League convention in Boston in 2017.
#Times crossword editor wil free
And later, when I face him in table tennis, I feel like a mouse who has suddenly found himself getting a free ride in the talons of a hawk. Meeting Shortz on a recent Friday, I discover that Stewart has exaggerated, but only slightly: Shortz, 68, is of medium height and build, although, like Flynn, he has a moustache. Meeting him in person, I definitely thought, 'Well, I was planning on taking your lunch money, but now I believe you could best me, in a physical joust, if you will.' So I backed off immediately." He's the Errol Flynn of crossword-puzzling. In a 2006 documentary, Wordplay, the comedian Jon Stewart says: "When you imagine Crossword Guy" – Shortz – "you imagine he's 13 to 14in tall, doesn't care to go more than 5ft without his inhaler.
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