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Episode 9: Malaika Handa
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Daniel and constructor Malaika Handa discuss unlocking puzzle memories, how constructors are like astronauts, mastering the midi, the agony of Sundays, the qualities of a stellar seed entry, fitting cluing styles to venues, the art of crossword criticism, tips for good mentorship, solvers’ parasocial assumptions, the newfound allure of hard puzzles, boundary-pushing entries, the Timothée Chalamet opera controversy, and much, much more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode Nine
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, puzzle people. My name is Daniel Grinberg, and you're listening to episode number nine of Crosstalk, the crossword construction podcast. In this show, I'll be talking to other crossword constructors to learn more about how they work and what inspires them.
00:00:27
Speaker
Whether you're a current constructor, an aspiring one, or a fellow word nerd who wants to find out how a puzzle gets made, the show will be a forum to share insights and learn from each other.
00:00:38
Speaker
For the ninth episode of Crosstalk, I'm joined by none other than Malaika Honda. Malaika is a software engineer based in New York City and has published crosswords in the New York Times, l LA Times, USA Today, Universal, and The Atlantic, among many other venues, and writes puzzles for New York Magazine's pop culture website, Vulture, several times a week.
Malaika's Journey into Crosswords
00:01:03
Speaker
Malaika, thanks so much for joining me today and giving us a clue about how you work. Thank you so much for having me My pleasure. So to kick things off, I wanted to ask you what I ask everyone, which is what originally led you to begin solving crosswords?
00:01:18
Speaker
I knew what crosswords were because my grandmother solved them, but I don't know that I ever solved with her. i don't have any memories of that. But I grew up in North Carolina and my parents got the local newspaper, the News & Observer, and they had the Funnies page, which my first memories of it are four or five pages of comics. But the crosswords on that page, and I have thought about who wrote it. I don't think it was syndicated. i remember it being smaller than a New York Times puzzle. But I would read the funnies during breakfast, and I eventually got old enough, maybe like 8th or 9th grade, that I would solve in that paper.
00:01:52
Speaker
And I would take the bus to school, and I would rip out the crossword from the paper, and then solve it on the bus and during homeroom. And what's also funny to me is every time people ask me how I got started solving, i feel like I give a different answer. Like I... I unlock some new memory every time. Like there's definitely interviews out there where I'm like, oh, I would solve in college with a group of friends from my theater org. That for a long time was how I thought I started solving. Then I sort of unlocked this memory of the News and Observer in ninth grade. So we'll see.
00:02:19
Speaker
On my next podcast, I'll be like, oh, in sixth grade, I was better than the only one. Maybe I'll ask you the question again
Learning Puzzle Construction
00:02:27
Speaker
later on. Oh my gosh. Yes. The passage of time.
00:02:30
Speaker
So I saw in an interview, you said, quote, you didn't realize that regular people could make puzzles. Crossword constructor felt akin to astronaut in terms of attainability, end quote. So I'm curious how you then made that leap from solving crosswords to finally feeling like you could start constructing them yourself.
00:02:51
Speaker
I was solving a lot in 2020, like several puzzles a day, and I'd solve with my friends on Zoom as well. And we'd read Rex Parker's blog afterwards.
00:03:01
Speaker
And i got into the habit of reading it every day. He reviews the puzzle and gives critiques on it. And one of his critiques, I remember he was like, I don't know why they used this piece of fill when they could have just used this. And he had refilled that part of the grid. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's all respect to Rex Parker, but that's just a guy.
00:03:21
Speaker
And I think that was the thing that got me to Google, oh, how does one make a puzzle? I attempted to make one in Excel, just sort of like Googling a bunch of words and letters. I don't think I was able to fill in more than like 15 entries. And then a random friend of a friend of a friend saw my posts on Twitter and was like, do you want to learn how to make a puzzle? And we had a Zoom call.
00:03:45
Speaker
And he showed me how to use the constructing software, which was huge for me. I mean, I do think I was sort of correct about the astronaut thing and that maybe 25 or 30 years ago before the constructing software existed, you had to have sort of like a certain type of genius brain to be able to align all those entries together.
00:04:03
Speaker
i like absolutely can't do that. But I do love using the software. And I think when you're using the software, you don't automatically make a good puzzle. Like there's still so much stuff that goes into it. But that's the thing that makes it attainable for just a guy like me.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Puzzle Production and Publishing
00:04:19
Speaker
ah You could have 20 different constructors using the same software and they'd come around with 20 different puzzles. So it really does depend on the individual person and their individual voice. Yeah. And what's so what's funny about that story is the guy who taught me how to make puzzles, his name is Evan, and I don't even remember his last name.
00:04:37
Speaker
He and I made like one together, submitted it, and he just stopped. I don't know that he ever had a puzzle published. I think when once he got vaccinated in 2021, he was like, okay, well, I'm done with that. It is interesting you mentioned that you got started during the pandemic. I did as well. And a lot of the previous guests I've spoken to either got started around then or really ramped up and accelerated their efforts then.
00:05:00
Speaker
So circling back to 2020, when you were first starting out, when you were still learning from Evan, what were your first puzzles like and what were you trying to achieve back then? Back then, i was trying to make a puzzle that I could send to my friends. And I still didn't even really understand the user flow of how to submit a crossword to an outlet and what they were looking for and that sort of thing. So I would make my puzzles five by fives and i would put them in Google Sheets and send the link to my friends and be like, OK, like you have to make a copy of this sheet and then you can type your answers.
00:05:41
Speaker
And they would, right? Because there was nothing else to do. I don't play video games, so that was sort of the only thing for me to do on the computer. And so that was my goal. And so I made 10 or 15 of these really mini, like four by four or 5x5 puzzles. I'm trying to remember when I started making 15x15 puzzles. I don't remember. I think I just sort of kept getting bigger and bigger. And I also don't remember how I learned that I could have a puzzle published.
00:06:06
Speaker
I sent the New York Times a bunch of my minis at first, and I remember I think either Tracy or Laura like very politely was like, we do not take submissions for this. She said it much nicer than that.
00:06:17
Speaker
I don't super remember the jump, but it did eventually happen because now we are here. And maybe if you do a podcast in one year and you ask me, the memory will have reformed. Yeah, I love how with each podcast you just start unlocking new lore.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, you're my therapist now, Dani. Yeah. I love it. And then who were some of the people in those early days that you were looking to as inspirations?
00:06:42
Speaker
So I remember being extremely active on Twitter, which for the record, I still am, but none of the other crossword people are. So I've sort of stopped talking about crosswords on Twitter.
00:06:53
Speaker
And so if I saw a name on Twitter and had engaged with them or like they liked my tweet, And then also i saw their name on a published puzzle that I had solved. That was extremely exciting to me.
00:07:06
Speaker
and so back then it was like Matthew Stock, I feel like was getting published like every week. Eric Agard is generally always getting published. Paolo Pascoe, I feel like we're in the same stage of life. And so that was exciting. hugh I think he was in college and I had just graduated college. Brooke Husic, Amanda Rafkin.
00:07:24
Speaker
Ross Trudeau, those were the names that I remember seeing on puzzles and then also seeing on Twitter and engaging with them. Well, since then, you've definitely hit the ground running because you've published very prolifically. And as I mentioned in the intro, across many venues and on your website, you've estimated that you've made about 689 puzzles, which is a lot. So how do you maintain such a healthy pace of production?
Approach to Puzzle Sizes and Themes
00:07:56
Speaker
So that pace is fully 100% just because I have this constructing gig for Vulture magazine. The puzzles I make for Vulture, which is of an offshoot of New York Mag, they're posted online.
00:08:10
Speaker
They are 10 by 10, so medium-sized MIDI puzzles. And I make five of them every two weeks. And I've been doing that for, I think, four years.
00:08:21
Speaker
I would guess that 500 plus of the puzzles that I've made are for Vulture. So that is really where it is all coming from. And yeah, 10 by 10 is a good size. When I'm teaching people about puzzles, I talk about how this the size to effort increases in a way that you don't quite realize. Like it takes me maybe 15 minutes to put together a 5 by 5 puzzle. would take me maybe like an hour or two hours to make a 10 by 10. And then it would take me like three days, if not three weeks, if not three months to make a 15 by 15.
00:08:53
Speaker
I definitely want to come back to the vulture puzzles, but I am curious in one of your constructor's notes for the times you mentioned how you want to hit the cycle, but you're just not going to bother with a Sunday.
00:09:05
Speaker
So I'm kind of curious why you feel like the Sunday is just too big of a size for you. Yeah, too big. No need for that. I don't solve Sunday puzzles and I don't make Sunday puzzles. I made one Sunday puzzle with my friend Parker.
00:09:20
Speaker
he and I were puzzle friends first. I think we met in like 2021, even in 2020 on Twitter. And we're now real friends and do all sorts of things together. And we've only ever made one puzzle together. And it was a 21 by 21 puzzle. I think it actually took us months.
00:09:35
Speaker
And I was like in misery. Oh, no. The whole time. I was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And he kept on like sending me drafts. And I'm like, no, I hate it. And he was like, okay, well, we're gonna do it. so And then it got published. And I think the feedback was very positive. And I was like, I never want to do this ever again. And so our joke is that we've never made another puzzle together.
00:09:57
Speaker
I love Sundays. That's mostly what I do. So we have very different philosophies on that. How many have you made? I've had five or six in the times and i have three more on the way.
00:10:09
Speaker
Oh my God. Making six Sunday sized puzzles would take me six years. ah Well, that's the thing is when I make 15 by 15, I usually make it in like a day and then it's not really interesting to me anymore because it's done.
00:10:23
Speaker
Whereas the Sunday feels like a big undertaking. So it just keeps me occupied and it feels like a real hefty challenge, which is why I like it. So I think we just have different goals.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's so beautiful. I just described in great detail how the great thing about a 10 by 10 is you can be finished. And then since you've started out, what are some of the things you've learned along the way?
00:10:47
Speaker
Oh my gosh, everything. i mean, i mean nothing. From a technical aspect, I remember this was from an early conversation I was having with Matthew Stock. I think we were working on a USA Today puzzle together, which was one of the first one or two that I had ever had published. And we were laying out the grid and he was just like, yeah, so 78 words, 38 blocks. And I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, like that's how many entries the puzzle has. My mind was so blown by that. And then he pulled up a bunch of Lin's Monday grids to show me. And just like every single one, 78 words, 38 blocks. And I was like, oh, there are rules. I'm still learning all the time. Maybe like last year, had a, was a collab and it had an entry in it that could either be sort of like a weird piece of jargon that I had never heard, or it could be the name of a celebrity. And so we wrote a clue as the name of a celebrity and they changed it to the piece of jargon with like a short clue.
00:11:44
Speaker
And we sort of pushed and we were like, no one knows that jargon. and Like, it feels weird and out of place. It's like a really hard entry. And we think it's going to confuse people. And they were like, OK. And so they changed the clue to still be a definition for that piece of jargon, but it was much longer. And I was just like, like what what was this for?
00:12:03
Speaker
the person I was collaborating with, who is like much more experienced than me, was like, oh, if a clue is longer than the standard clue, that sort of gives you a hint that it's a hard piece of jargon because you need so many more words to explain it. And I was like, oh my God, you're a genius. I was like, that makes so much sense. And that is like such valuable information to have while solving, but also while writing clues where it's like, yeah, like I can give someone a little hint that this is going to be, you know, like this isn't hard because it's a misdirect. It's hard because it's vocabulary by just making the clue longer.
00:12:36
Speaker
I love that. What was the entry that this clue was for? So we won, we pushed back again, and they let us use the celebrity. The entry was Shay, S-H-A-Y.
00:12:47
Speaker
And the jargon is that it is... It's a kind of carriage, I think. Yeah, it's like a carriage, right? And it is an incorrect spelling of Shay's, like Shay's Lounge. Oh.
00:12:59
Speaker
But it's like, no one says that. And many people will talk about famed Pretty Little Liars actress Shay Mitchell. So that's what it ended up being. Yeah, that feels much more your voice, honestly.
Cluing Strategies Across Publications
00:13:09
Speaker
And then since we started talking about the construction process, I am curious, when you're starting, let's say a new themed puzzle, what is your entry point into getting the construction process started?
00:13:23
Speaker
So I don't make themed puzzles anymore. But if I were to make a themed puzzle, all of my puzzles start the same way, which is they start with an entry that I hear when I'm out and about in the world. And then I want to put it into a puzzle.
00:13:36
Speaker
So if something really strikes me, then I'll start brainstorming theme entries. Obviously, you like themeless and you're great at those. But is there a particular reason you don't do themed ones?
00:13:49
Speaker
I just can't think of any themes. We should form a support group because I hate going up with themes. I love every other part of the process, but I feel like I have fewer theme ideas than I have anything else. So so I have like a notes up with all my crossword ideas. Here's a classic.
00:14:07
Speaker
I just wrote down baby box. Have you heard that term? I have not. It's like a thing they do in Nordic countries, I think, where you have a baby and the government sends you a box with a bunch of diapers and like food and clothing and stuff.
00:14:19
Speaker
But I was like, baby box, rebus. And I mean, I must have wrote that down one year ago. And that's as far as I got. so What would be the rebus? Yeah, I don't know. That's why it's still in my notes app. I mean, if I knew that it would be a puzzle. Right.
00:14:36
Speaker
Or here's another one. I wrote final girl, question mark. Oh, I like that one. That one's got theme potential. But turning to theme lists for now, what is your typical starting point for those?
00:14:49
Speaker
So same thing, like I think of an entry. So here i would love to put final girl a theme list puzzle. I think that'd be a great entry. i can read through some of my theme list seeds. None of these are going to make it into a puzzle because I'm too busy. Right now I have slot bowl.
00:15:06
Speaker
i love that one. hockey romance, skill issue, baby doll dress, cold foam, cringe comedy, tinned fish. like All of these I think would be great.
00:15:20
Speaker
Then I have a bunch of half-written clues. Those I save for a collab with someone who's better at clues than I am. So since we're talking about clues, can you give us a little bit of sense of how you approach the cluing process?
00:15:35
Speaker
Most of the puzzles i write are for Vulture, and my cluing process for the Vulture crossroads is very different from my cluing process when I'm making a 15 by 15 theme list that I'm going to submit to the New York Times.
00:15:47
Speaker
My vulture puzzles, I want them to be as easy as possible, and i want them to be extremely chatty vibey, and I want them to reference all sorts of pop culture stuff that is totally irrelevant to the clue sometimes.
00:16:05
Speaker
And for vultures, since they're online only, mostly I think they print like one per month, but they're generally online only. There's no character count, I can make the clues as long as I want. So I'm not concise, write all of those things that matter a lot when you're writing a puzzle that's going to get printed in the paper. i sort of ignore that. So I mean, the first thing I do when I'm looking at a word,
00:16:27
Speaker
And I'll just try and think of a recent thing that happened that was on Twitter, on TikTok, on Instagram, something that my 24-year-old younger sister mentioned to me that I didn't understand. And I try and pull from that and try and make an entry relate to that in some way. And then the other thing that I I alternate that type of really chatty clue with clues that are very straight, easy, arguably boring definitions because I want people to think the puzzle is really easy. Like an example is I think I had the entry lunch and I had like meal typically eaten at noon. You know, like let's just have the solver write an entry in. Huge victory for them to write an entry in. Whereas for a New York Times theme list, I'm sort of trying to trick you on every single clue. And so that process is much more different and takes me a lot longer. vulture puzzle has between 28 and 34 clues in it.
00:17:20
Speaker
And I can usually write those in under an hour because I just have a sense of what audience I'm looking for. a New York Times puzzle, which I usually will have 72 words in that, will take me three weeks to write clues for.
00:17:32
Speaker
I like crosswords because it's the only thing I can really hyper focus on. So when I start cluing, I just keep cluing and I typically will clue a Sunday in like three hours. Yeah, because a Sunday you aren't trying to trick everyone on every entry.
00:17:45
Speaker
I still try. They change some of them, but I like making the clues as hard as I can, as hard as they'll let me. I guess I i wouldn't know if I don't solve the Sunday puzzles. And then what tools or software are you currently using when you construct Something that I do all the time, when I've written like 100 clues in one sitting and my brain is starting to malfunction, i end up just using the Google define X. Like I'll be like define lunch. be like a meal And I'm like, oh my God, it is a meal. So true. but yeah I'm never putting straight definitions that I'm copying from there. But like seeing the words it uses or like the synonyms that it comes up with is often really helpful.
00:18:31
Speaker
I like that. So earlier you were mentioning some of the potential seed entries you might use for a theme list. One entry that you used recently that really got my attention was Dark Academia in your November 14th, 2025 New York Times puzzle, which I liked a lot because it felt very of the moment and subcultural. And it fit in nicely with a lot of other contemporary entries you had in that grid, like paleo diet, anti-racist, single ladies.
00:19:01
Speaker
And I know that dark academia was your seed entry for that puzzle. So I'm also curious, how do you determine what kind of phrase makes for a good seed entry?
00:19:12
Speaker
My favorite phrase for a crossword is one where it's comprised of two words that are existing known words, but they mean something more interesting when you put them together.
00:19:23
Speaker
And dark academia, I think, is a great example of that. Diva Cup is one that I've used in a puzzle, which also has a similar vibe. As someone who's trying to write easy and delightful, seamless puzzles, that type of entry is just incredibly, like it just works really well with that
Vulture Gig and Crossword Criticism
00:19:42
Speaker
vibe, right? Because I can always give a hint that relates to the individual words, like those letter patterns are going to be helpful for someone. You know, it's not like including the name of a celebrity where people are just sort of like stuck if they don't know it.
00:19:54
Speaker
And often seeing how those two words get put together in a new way is sort of exciting. Dark academia came from, i had read the Secret History for the first time, which is a dark academia book, and I read the Wikipedia page for it. Whenever I read a book, afterwards I read the Wikipedia page.
00:20:12
Speaker
I think the Wikipedia page mentioned that it was a platonic instance of dark academia. And that term wasn't super new to me, but I read it and was like, bam, crossword entry.
00:20:23
Speaker
Like that just has to be in a crossword. and So I had it on my seed list. And the next time i made a puzzle, I was like, okay, let's go. i do think my seeds are usually nine letters or longer.
00:20:35
Speaker
And something that I have started doing more, but it's a lot more rare for me, is coming up with the clue. Like having a killer clue entry pairing.
00:20:46
Speaker
is actually usually the thing where I'm like, okay, like now I have to make a puzzle with this. Like if it was just a good entry, okay, I'll see what happens. But once you have the clue that pairs with it, then it's like you're off to the races.
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of want to try it now because i do have a ah list of great clues that I'm just waiting for the moment to use. But maybe that's that's my sign to just start from that. I had a collaboration with Eric for Puzmo, where I sent him the clue.
00:21:14
Speaker
and I was like, what should the entry be? And we brainstormed a little. And I think that's the first time that I've ever done that. Yeah, I like that you didn't even have the answer to the clue. Yeah, I just knew that it could be something. And I was right.
00:21:29
Speaker
So getting back to the vulture puzzles that you've talked about. So you've been constructing those for four and a half years now. And I'm curious, how did that opportunity come about?
00:21:40
Speaker
Matt Gaffney works for New York Mag, and they wanted to have a daily. it was the era where like everyone suddenly had a daily. So they asked him to recommend someone, and he recommended me install that.
00:21:51
Speaker
I wrote a puzzle for his site, and now we're entering guessing territory. But I think the vibe of the puzzle that I wrote for his site matched what Vulture had indicated that they were interested in. So my guess is that's why he recommended me for it.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, I could see that. You definitely fit their tone and style. And you also mentioned that you started out reading Rex Parker's blog, and now you write on there as well for what you refer to as Malaika Mawensdays.
00:22:20
Speaker
So I'm curious how you approach the sometimes tricky art of crossword criticism. Totally. I think crossword criticism is so fascinating, and we don't talk about it enough.
00:22:32
Speaker
So Rex's blog is interesting because people are coming there for a variety of reasons. Some people are coming there to see the answers. Like, they do not know the theme. They do not understand the theme.
00:22:43
Speaker
There is a particular clue that confused them, especially wordplay clues are really tough to Google if you didn't understand them. Then there are people who come to hang out. I feel like Rex Parker's site gets a lot of shit for being mean. and I'm like, those comments, there's like 150 comments every day.
00:22:59
Speaker
Zero or one will be mean. And the rest will be like the loveliest, sweetest people in the entire world. Many of them are commenting every single day. And if someone misses a day, people will be like, where is Lewis? Why didn't Lewis post? Do we have eyes on Lewis? And then the next day, Lewis will post I'm back, I saw my granddaughter and everyone's like, yay, you know, like, I just think it's like so sweet. And there will be people who are like, didn't read the post. This is what I thought. And I'm like, oh, yeah, they're just there to hang out. Like, this is their discord.
00:23:26
Speaker
And then there's the part where it's like I'm giving my point of view on the puzzle. What is very clear in other types of art forms, book, movie, painting, and has become way less clear in crosswords is that I can think a puzzle was good and you can think the puzzle was bad and that's fine and that doesn't have a lot to do about whether or not the puzzle should have been published at all.
00:23:54
Speaker
In some cases, there's a puzzle that I think is bad on like a technical level or should not have been published on a technical level. But there's this intermediate stage where it's like, oh, like I loved Marty Supreme and someone else didn't love Marty Supreme. And like that's totally okay.
00:24:09
Speaker
If I liked it, Every director isn't going to be like, okay, well, now my movie has to be exactly like Marty Supreme to make Malaika's review be good, you know? And it's like, we don't do this in any other art form. But I think because the crossroad constructor community is so small and so many of us know each other, it feels like Mr. X didn't like my puzzle. Well, like, I need him to like my puzzle, so I'm going to change my puzzle to make sure that he is okay with it next time. And it's like, no, like, you don't have to do that.
00:24:37
Speaker
So I try and phrase my critiques. In my opinion, I think like over and over so that people realize that I'm just one person who had these thoughts. And I try and really hone in on extremely specific things about the puzzle, like a reason that one aspect of the theme didn't work for me, a reason why I thought one theme entry fell out of place compared to the other theme entries.
00:24:59
Speaker
But I try and make this distinction about things that I feel were the editor's job and things that I feel were the constructor's job, because the jobs are different. And I think that the average solver does not know that and maybe does not even know that an editor exists and like maybe thinks Will Schwartz writes every single crossword that has ever been created because his name is bigger than the constructor's name on the paper. So obviously they would think that. Why wouldn't they think that?
00:25:27
Speaker
And so really teasing out the different roles I think is useful in a critique. And then also i get a lot of feedback from the commenters that are like, oh, I didn't know that that was a thing that the editor did. And I'm like, welcome. Now you know.
00:25:41
Speaker
And now next time you complain about a puzzle, you can do so with more specificity. And then when you're evaluating Crossroads as a critic, what kinds of qualities are you typically looking for to help you decide if it works for you or doesn't work as well for you?
00:25:58
Speaker
Above all else, it's just whether I enjoyed it. I think I wrote a critique once where I was like, I love this puzzle. I thought it was so cute. I thought it was adorable. i had a great time. And then I'm like, now that I'm writing about it, am noticing all the technical reasons that the theme didn't quite work. But like, i don't care, a man. I had a great time.
00:26:17
Speaker
So that is sort of my overarching thing. When I don't like a puzzle, and I'm writing about it, i really want to think about why, because that is useful information for the constructor to have. That makes sense. And then do you read other people's reviews of your puzzle then?
00:26:36
Speaker
Oh my gosh, yes. I read every review. i read every comment. Really? Yeah, I watch every video. Wow. I could not do that. Really? People are like generally really nice.
00:26:47
Speaker
In my however many puzzles I've gotten published, i think there have probably been like 20 rude comments total. People are pretty nice, but I will tend to remember the 20 vicious ones.
00:26:58
Speaker
So it's easier to just steer clear. But I'm curious, as you're reading other people's reviews or watching their videos, what have been some of the takeaways that have stuck with you? Oh, interesting.
00:27:09
Speaker
Okay, one thing that I think is funny is people don't understand an editor's role, right? And I will often get complimented for clues that I did not write or reprimanded for clues that I did not write. And I'm just like, yeah, sure. And then another thing that's funny is people make assumptions about me based on the entries that are in my puzzles.
00:27:30
Speaker
And I think often they are right and sometimes they are not right. But they're usually making these assumptions with huge confidence. I had a puzzle that had the entry Sunday Scaries, which is, I guess, a kind of millennial online term.
00:27:46
Speaker
And I am online and I guess I'm millennial maybe, depending on who you ask. And i would never use that term. Like I find it extremely cringe and I would never say that at all. There are all these comments that are like, oh my god, I get the Sunday Scaries too, haha. And I'm like, no, I don't. I just feel stressed. I don't say it like that.
00:28:05
Speaker
There was one puzzle i made where we had the entry, I choose you, which... When we submitted it, it was not clued in relation to Pokemon, a franchise that I've never engaged with once in my life.
00:28:18
Speaker
And then when they published it, they changed our clue to a different thing that also had nothing to do with Pokemon. And so many comments were like, damn, sucks that Malika got her Pokemon clue changed. And I wanted to be like, no, do not not affix this image of me that you've created in your head.
00:28:38
Speaker
i love that. I don't think... I mean, I don't engage the comments, so I have no idea, but I don't think people are making assumptions about me. So I wonder if it's because you do have these voicey entries and because you are more online that people feel like they know you a little bit.
Personal Interests and Evolving Approach
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty online. I'm a huge poster. i am a girl and I write girl puzzles and there's fewer of that statistically.
00:29:06
Speaker
What do you mean by girl puzzles? Well, gender isn't real. But i know I mean, one of my first puzzles that I had in the Times was a girl puzzle. The revealer was female lead.
00:29:18
Speaker
And it was like goddess Lux, witch hizzle, diva cup, queen of soul. Yeah, I remember that one well. yeah Yeah, hard to argue that's not a girl puzzle. Okay. Well, thinking about voice and personality, that is a ah nice segue to what I want to talk about next, which was finding out a little bit about you personally. So if you wouldn't mind, could you share a fun fact about yourself that fans of your work who think they know you apparently, but maybe don't, might be surprised to find out?
00:29:48
Speaker
I don't have a good fun fact, I think, because I do just post everything on Instagram. So I'm like, follow me there if you want to develop a parasocial relationship with me. I play volleyball pretty competitively. I was named after a song.
00:30:03
Speaker
That's my go-to fun fact. It's called Malaika. It's an East African folk song. And so there's a couple of known, famous recordings of it Miriam Mekuba has a famous version of it.
00:30:17
Speaker
It's a lullaby, so it's soft. And when I threw parties in college, it was my closing time song. I love that. I'm going to try that at my next party. And then when you're not constructing and you're not playing volleyball, what kinds of things do you get up to?
00:30:33
Speaker
Oh, so many things. i love going to the movie theater. I love seeing Broadway shows or off-Broadway shows. I really like trying new restaurants and new bars, especially cocktail bars.
00:30:47
Speaker
I throw a lot of parties with my sister, house parties, dinner parties, barbecues. I really like taking public transit to get places, even if it maybe takes longer.
00:30:58
Speaker
I watch a lot of 30-minute sitcoms, often while I'm making puzzles. I think that's my background noise. I bake a lot. A couple years ago, i was mostly making focaccia.
00:31:09
Speaker
And then starting 2026, I've gotten really into layer cakes because I bought the pans. So now I'm like all in. So I've been making, I mean, probably a layer cake every month since wow the year started.
00:31:22
Speaker
i volunteer at a high school. I teach the kiddos AP Computer Science. Their exam is on Friday, and they're going to do amazing. And what is one piece of media that you would recommend to listeners?
00:31:37
Speaker
ah The album Sour by Olivia Rodrigo. Yeah, I saw you were excited because you thought you were debuting Olivia Rodrigo in The Times, but then you got scooped by four months.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yes, I did. I've never listened to Olivia Rodrigo, actually, so I will listen in your honor. in your whole life. In my whole life, she's been around for like five years.
00:32:02
Speaker
But no, outside of maybe hearing a song at a store, I've never sat down and actively listened to her music. What type of music do you like to listen to?
00:32:13
Speaker
I'm all over the place. I'd say my top three genres are probably hop, pop, and electronic. But I like pretty much everything except opera, maybe.
00:32:25
Speaker
I was taken to the opera recently. yeah I didn't like it I thought it was so funny when everyone was dragging Timothee Chalamet for saying no one goes to the opera.
00:32:37
Speaker
And I was like, when was the last time you went to the opera? I don't want to hear anything from anyone who hasn't been to the opera in the last year, okay? Take that, Timmy haters. And then what is one new thing you've gotten into this year?
00:32:51
Speaker
I went to the opera, but I didn't like it, so. So that's one new thing you haven't gone into this year. Got it. Okay. Correct. Okay. Actually, you know what? I've gotten into the idea of a hard puzzle being fun.
00:33:03
Speaker
That is very new for me. I didn't used to think a hard puzzle could be fun and I'm starting to get it. I don't completely get it. For example, I still would not like to solve a hard puzzle, but I can understand why others would like to solve a hard puzzle.
00:33:20
Speaker
And thus I'm open to making a hard puzzle. It goes back to what I was saying before about liking to make Sundays. I feel the same way about puzzles. If I'm doing a Friday and I solve it in four minutes, I'm like, well, I was looking forward to this all day and and now it's over and there's no struggle. It's too easy. But a hard puzzle, it takes like maybe 10 minutes. I'm like, well, that's six extra minutes of fun.
00:33:41
Speaker
And I really had to scratch my brain to find some of these. And the thinking was really lateral
Favorite Puzzle Aspects and Audience Resonance
00:33:47
Speaker
and unexpected. So I feel like there was something there challenging me. That's so crazy that your difference is six minutes.
00:33:55
Speaker
Just solve a second puzzle. Like, just go to ellatimes.com and solve their puzzle. There will be Rex commenters who are like, a Saturday should take me 45 minutes, and this one took me 15 minutes. And I'm like, yeah, okay, that's a whole episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. If it's six minutes, just watch a YouTube video to fill time. I don't
00:34:19
Speaker
I'm just going to play spelling bee for six minutes. And then turning to the subject of favorites, what would you say is your favorite part of the construction process? I love to fill the grid with letters.
00:34:33
Speaker
Arranging the black squares, I think, is a little boring. And writing the clues can just get a little monotonous for me. But when everything just fits together, right? And you're just like, fuck yes, that is just the best feeling.
00:34:47
Speaker
I know that feeling well. I love that feeling. And per the times level of difficulty for days, is there a favorite day of the week that you like constructing for? Yeah, so easy, seamless, Friday. but what actually happens is I write my puzzles for Saturday, and then they say this is too easy, so we're going to run it on Friday.
00:35:06
Speaker
I had one in November, and it was accepted as a Saturday. And then they were like, delighted to send along this upcoming batch of puzzles. And they had moved it to a Friday. and I asked them why. And they said that all of their testers said it was so easy. and to be friday And then I will say as someone who reads every review and every comment, everyone still said it was so easy for a Friday. And like multiple people were like personal best. It's like, damn, he had no idea.
00:35:37
Speaker
Well, that's okay too. If it's a personal best, then maybe that just means they were vibing with your thinking and your answers. My gift to you is a personal best.
00:35:49
Speaker
You bring out the best in us. Thank you. And then do you have a favorite puzzle or some favorite puzzles among all the ones you've made so far? i recently had two hard puzzles, which I was very proud of.
00:36:02
Speaker
They were both for tournaments. So one was a themeless puzzle that I made for the Boss Words Spring Themeless Tournament. And then one was for, it was the finals puzzle for Lalo Pazula, which was in August. And both of those, I worked very hard to make those puzzles hard.
00:36:20
Speaker
They took me two to three weeks to write clues for. And then the editors, Brooke for Lala and Brad for Boss Words, worked with me to make them even harder.
00:36:31
Speaker
And I received feedback that both were very hard and very fun. So that felt really good. Very nice. We love to see it. And next I wanted to talk about clues. So one of my favorite clues that you've written is it's a fucking record for sex tape.
00:36:48
Speaker
A classic. An absolute classic. What about you? What are some of the favorite clues that you've written? Okay, people always ask me this and my mind goes blank. So I was really good and I wrote some down before this. So from boss words, this is now maybe my favorite clue of all time. The clue was foreign affairs program and the entry was telenovela.
00:37:10
Speaker
That's so good. Telenovela, I feel like shows up in puzzles a lot because it has repeat vowel consonants. And I always try and do something related to soap. That's where my mind goes. And Athena spoke to me and I came up with that.
00:37:25
Speaker
So for that, the seed entry for the boss words puzzle, massive spoilers, I guess we're just going for it, was situationship. And I had the idea of a clue which utilized the phrase not up to date, which I thought had a fun misdirect, but I couldn't figure out exactly how to phrase it. And Brad helped me phrase it. And the clue was status that isn't up to date.
00:37:48
Speaker
I had a couple others. The clue was what helps swingers connect. And the entry was T. thought that one was cute. That's nice because you have a three letter word like T, T-E-E that gets used so much. So to make it feel special with that clue is a nice bonus. Yeah, and that was another one where I don't engage with golf in any capacity. So my mind always goes to t-shirt.
00:38:14
Speaker
And I feel like I've run that one dry of any misdirect one could possibly do. And so I was like, okay, let's give golf a shot. And the other type of clue I really like is when the words before the question mark are just such a known, concise phrase. It's really satisfying. So I had in a vulture puzzle, I had blind item and the entry was slat.
00:38:38
Speaker
That's really good. I also recently clued Slat and massive spoiler alert again, mine was Strip in the Bedroom. There is something satisfying about giving a mundane entry new life with a fun little spin.
00:38:53
Speaker
And then what have been some of your favorite entries that you've included in puzzles? So Vulture makes it so easy to just see a phrase on Twitter and put it in a puzzle immediately in a way that other outlets, just the timeline doesn't work like that. I mean, Vulture, I can write a puzzle and it can run sometimes seven days later. Wow. And so there's a lot of just TikTok slangs, Twitter slang that I've had fun with.
00:39:20
Speaker
Girl dinner was remarkably persistent. I thought girl dinner was going to be a thing for like a month. And I looked up when I made that puzzle and I think I made it in 2023. Olivia Rodrigo was awesome.
00:39:32
Speaker
And she posted that puzzle on her Instagram. Oh, wow. Hashtag on the grid. So I'm there immortalized. I debuted Jill Biden in the Times and I kept checking to see if she would acknowledge it and she never did.
00:39:46
Speaker
Brutal.
00:39:49
Speaker
Well, as
00:39:52
Speaker
she's like, I'm not solving the crossword. I am retired. Yeah, Diva Cup was fun. It's fun when I feel like I got away with something. I thought that puzzle would be rejected for the entry Diva Cup. So the fact that it was accepted and then ran felt like I had gotten something past them. And Abolish Ice is another one. That one ran in Vulture.
00:40:14
Speaker
I was expecting a little bit of pushback and they were just like, nope, here you go. That entry really has to be for the right venue because I can definitely picture some other venues that would be like, no, it's too controversial.
00:40:27
Speaker
So it's nice that they had your back. And then what are some of your favorite puzzles or clues from other constructors? So one thing that is fun is when editors edit my puzzles, I get their clues. And no one knows except for me.
00:40:45
Speaker
So I had a puzzle where the entry was Stetson and the clue was brand of ranch dressing. which got a zillion shout outs. Every commenter mentioned it. And I was like, thank you. I did not write that. So I actually reached out to them and asked.
00:41:00
Speaker
And Sam told me that Winna wrote it. So shout out to Winna. That was amazing. And similarly in my Lollapazula puzzle, The clue was it can indicate something's X factor.
00:41:12
Speaker
And the entry was DECA, D-E-C-A, which I think is like a terrible entry. And that clue is amazing. And Brooke came up with that.
00:41:22
Speaker
And then some others like Adam Aronson had in a recent puzzle Tour de France, which was Eiffel Tower, which is just such a classic, excellent clue. Paolo and Eric, the clue was dragged to court.
00:41:36
Speaker
And the entry was swipe right, which I just think is completely brilliant. I think i didn't even solve that puzzle. I just heard so many people talking about the clue that I filed it away and my list of good clues. Yeah, you know it's a good clue when you feel both joy and rage, not rage, but joy and jealousy. that Like, oh, why didn't I think of this? This is so good.
00:42:03
Speaker
I just think I could never. The double meaning of drag with the double meaning of court is just, I'm lucky if I get a double meaning out of one word, you know? ah Yeah. And the last one, this was from a Mali puzzle, a blog puzzle. So it must have been like 2021. And the clue was, thank God it's Friday.
00:42:24
Speaker
And the entry was Shabbat Shalom. Oh, wow. I'm definitely feeling the joy and jealousy feeling. I'm going to just go ahead and call it joyless C after hearing that one.
00:42:37
Speaker
And for listeners who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
Encouragement for New Constructors
00:42:42
Speaker
You just have to make so many puzzles. You should start with small ones, and you should make them, and you should finish them.
00:42:50
Speaker
And you should send them to your friends, and then you should make another. Every person that I teach how to make puzzles, I tell them the story of the pottery class. The fable is the instructor splits the class into two groups and says, you just have to make one pot and I'm going to grade you on how good it is. And then you guys have to make as many pots as possible. And I'm going to grade you on the number.
00:43:12
Speaker
And at the end of the class, the group that has just churned out as many pots as possible, all of their pots are better. And it's like the people I teach to make a puzzle, they start working on one puzzle and then they're like,
00:43:25
Speaker
paralyzed. First of all, it has to be perfect. Second all, I can't even start a puzzle until I finish this one. Meanwhile, you know, i have at least 30 half-filled grids on my computer at any given time. And then it's like they finally finish and they're like, I can't send it to anyone. I can never make a puzzle again. And I'm like, no, stop all of that.
00:43:41
Speaker
You need to make 30 puzzles and they should all be smaller than 15 by 15. Then we can talk Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned that you have been teaching others.
00:43:53
Speaker
So I'm curious, as you start mentoring and these new waves of constructors are emerging, how do you think mentors can teach and guide new voices in the best ways possible?
00:44:07
Speaker
This is something I've been thinking about. A year or two ago, i was talking to a friend about puzzles, and I taught him how to make puzzles, and I think I did a really bad job. Shout out to Steven if he's listening. What I did was we worked on three puzzles together.
00:44:22
Speaker
just complete collabs. And we got all three of them published. And I edited him the whole time. He would show me grids and I would be like, no, refill this corner.
00:44:33
Speaker
and I wouldn't always explain why. he would have the clues and I would rewrite them. And like it worked, right? Because I am a published constructor. So we submitted them and they were rejected from a couple of places. And then eventually all three of them got published.
00:44:46
Speaker
But it's like he didn't have that phase of learning how to make a puzzle himself. and getting it rejected and learning from an editor. Why?
00:44:57
Speaker
i sort of compare it to in middle school, all the girlies have really shitty makeup. And it's like you have to have the three years of wearing shitty makeup because then you can progress to high school and now you've learned how to do your makeup.
00:45:10
Speaker
So you have to make 30 mediocre puzzles first. You have to look bad in makeup before you can look good in makeup.
Future Goals and Community Changes
00:45:19
Speaker
Have you ever tried winged eyeliner, Danny?
00:45:22
Speaker
have not. That might be my goal for today. I'm sure it's harder than it looks. Everything looks easy until you try it yourself and then you realize easy is years of effort and work.
00:45:33
Speaker
What happened to your first several puzzles that you made? Did you make one puzzle and it was immediately published? No, I made 16 for the times that got rejected and then my 17th was accepted.
00:45:48
Speaker
Something that bums me out is when someone makes their first ever puzzle and they post it. And there are various technical things that an editor would have fixed if it were getting published in a publication, but it's not, so whatever.
00:46:06
Speaker
And people comment on that. And I'm like, no, leave them alone. They made a puzzle. On someone's first puzzle, the only comment should be, this is so amazing. You are incredible. Like, that's it. Because otherwise, they're never going to make a second puzzle, right? I'm not these people's editors.
00:46:25
Speaker
I am not running a newspaper and they are not submitting to me. My job is to make them make more puzzles because then the next puzzles will be better. It's funny, you know, like, obviously, I just waxed on about 20 minutes of crossword critique. And I think it's so important to critique people's puzzles. But it's like, think about where your goals are.
00:46:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're making a good point. Encouragement and generosity can really go a long way. And then i'm curious if you have any crossword goals for the future, anything you haven't done yet that you still are hoping to achieve?
00:46:57
Speaker
My white whale is to get a New Yorker puzzle because I'm not allowed to. You're not allowed to? Yeah, like they have a closed roster that I'm not on. Okay, true. But people in the roster often came up a similar way you did, which is getting high profile theme lists in the times. So I could definitely see you crossing that off your list one day. That's interesting. I guess I'd never thought about that because I don't want to be on the New Yorker roster.
00:47:24
Speaker
I just want one puzzle. Okay. Like, that sounds exhausting. You have to write, I think it's one puzzle a month for them. Including a puzzle takes me three weeks and I could never write another puzzle anywhere else, you know?
00:47:36
Speaker
Okay, so I think the plan here then is to get it added to the roster, get that one puzzle and then bounce. Yeah, burning so many bridges along the way. And then is there anything you hope to see change or emerge in the world of crosswords in the future?
00:47:51
Speaker
This is something that has changed recently that I really like. Husmo does this now and the modern crossword did this before where you could have two hints for the same entry.
00:48:03
Speaker
o That's interesting. And I wish that Amuse Labs would add that functionality to their puzzle player because they seem to be the player that is used by the majority of these digital-only puzzles, right? Like I get for new York Times, if it's getting printed in the paper, that is sort of like a UI challenge.
00:48:25
Speaker
But vulture puzzles are online only, so they could have multiple clues if they wanted to. I like the way that the modern... did it a little bit better or it seemed a little more sustainable for me. The modern crossword would only have that option for a couple clues.
00:48:40
Speaker
PUSMO has it for every single clue and they deal with that by hiring a whole other person whose job is to write the easier clues. But I think that is really interesting. The way that the Boss Words League is set up is the puzzle has three levels of clues but they can't interact with each other, which I think is so annoying. Like, I think if you're solving Stormy, you should be able to take a 50-point hit to reveal the choppy clue.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah, I've had one Friday published with the Times and then they sent me the easy clue version. And it was fun to look at those side by side and think about how they modulated those difficulty levels.
00:49:22
Speaker
So I think there is something to that, especially with like you were saying, digital only, you can play a lot with different kinds of cluing and give people choose your own adventure experiences.
00:49:32
Speaker
I love that they write the easier version of clues for Fridays. Well, your typical Fridays are already the easy version, right? so Yeah, I know. They send me the easy clue and it's just they just wrote the entry there. You just copied it letter by letter.
00:49:48
Speaker
Zach Gage, who's one of the founders of Pusmo, gave a talk where he talked about a successful game being a game that teaches you how to play while you're playing
Podcast Conclusion
00:49:58
Speaker
it.
00:49:58
Speaker
And I think that the easy version of Fridays that New York Times has come up with now allows people to do the easy version of Fridays, and it doesn't actually allow them to do the hard version of Fridays.
00:50:12
Speaker
and scaffolding the Fridays by allowing them to reveal an easier clue would be there interesting. God, there's so much data I would love to see about crosswords. I would love to see what percent of people are solving easy mode versus hard mode.
00:50:30
Speaker
Universal recently announced that they are going to publicize to constructors their submission rate. So actually, that's what I would like to see from all publishers.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, more transparency, I think would be great for many reasons. That level of statistic would definitely be helpful. All right, I think that's everything. Is there anything else you can think of you want to throw in?
00:50:57
Speaker
What do you think is the weirdest thing I've said in this interview? i mentioned Marty Supreme, and then I also separately mentioned Timothee Chalamet, which I find humiliating because I don't even like him that much.
00:51:08
Speaker
The fans that are parasocial about you going to have a field day theorizing about your obsession with Timothy. i know. He's mad. He's mad. But he was right about the opera. I'll give him that.
00:51:24
Speaker
All right. And with that hot take, this is Daniel g Grinberg with my special guest, Malaika Honda. Thanks so much to Malaika for joining me today. and thanks so much to all of you for listening to episode number nine.
00:51:37
Speaker
Hit me up with any feedback or ideas you might have at the crosstalkpod at gmail.com and join me again next time for another Constructor Conversation coming your way soon.
00:51:47
Speaker
Until then, wishing you inspired constructing and happy solving.