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Episode 3: Sid Sivakumar
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In this episode, Sid and I discuss topics such as the connections between construction and science and engineering, crosswords as an art form, the inclusion of South Asian culture, crafting the final puzzle of the ACPT and the New York Times Super Mega, the inspirations behind favorite puzzles, the surprising places Sid writes clues, the power of variety puzzles, and much, much more.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Crosstalk' Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello, puzzle people. My name is Daniel g Grinberg, and you're listening to episode number three 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.
00:00:26
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.
Meet Sid Shivakumar: Academic and Crossword Contributor
00:00:38
Speaker
For the third episode of Crosstalk, I'm joined by none other than Sid Shivakumar. Sid is an MD-PhD student focusing on biomedical engineering and neuroscience and is based in St. Louis, Missouri.
00:00:52
Speaker
Sid has been constructing and publishing at an impressive pace, with 19 crosswords in the New York Times in just over four years, including Eight Saturdays, Five Sundays, and a Super Mega.
00:01:04
Speaker
And that's on top of other publications in many other venues, such as Slate, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and ABCX.
Sid's Early Introduction to Crosswords
00:01:12
Speaker
Sid, thanks so much for joining me today giving us a clue about how you work.
00:01:17
Speaker
Hey, Danny. Thanks so much for having me. This is awesome. Thanks so much for being here. So to kick things off, I wanted to ask you, what originally led you to begin solving crosswords? So I think like a lot of people, I had someone induct me into the world of crosswords. It was actually my mom at the age of six.
00:01:35
Speaker
Wow. We used to solve the Hindu crossword together, which is a cryptic crossword out of India. And she would mostly just read the clue and then fill in the answer because she knew all the answers and I didn't, obviously.
00:01:46
Speaker
The thing that I was enamored by was the ways that words fit together in the grid. I understood much less of the wordplay in the clues themselves, but I just really liked the visual of putting in letters into a grid and having them intersect
From College Solver to Medical School Crosswords
00:01:59
Speaker
in all these ways.
00:01:59
Speaker
And then when did you start doing so-called American style crosswords? I think that I first really started solving crosswords when I was in college. I was a Scrabble player in high school, and Scrabble kind of consumed the entire word-related part of my brain.
00:02:14
Speaker
And then when I went to college, there was a version of the local newspaper in Cleveland. I went to Case Western Reserve University, and they had a daily crossword. And then at some point, I picked up a copy of the New York Times.
00:02:24
Speaker
I started doing one. I think it was a Tuesday. DNF'd within like 10 minutes. Yeah. It wasn't until I joined medical school that I needed something else to do with my brain besides studying obscure medical facts.
00:02:37
Speaker
So I downloaded the New York Times app. I think that was in 2017. And I solved for a couple of years. Since then, crosswords have completely taken off in my life in a totally unexpected way.
Overcoming Crossword Challenges
00:02:48
Speaker
Given that you started so young with the cryptics and then you had the Scrabble to crossword pipeline, were you just very good at crossword solving to begin with or was it kind of a journey Absolutely not. I was terrible at crosswords. I think crosswords fit into this unique place between wordplay and knowing things.
00:03:10
Speaker
So it's not enough to just be good at the I can anagram words together or I can notice interesting word patterns and letter patterns. You really do have to also know critical mass of words.
00:03:21
Speaker
common knowledge and general knowledge, in addition to some more domain-specific things in order to get some words and phrases and crosswords. So I was never good at solving crosswords. I started doing it through the mini, through the New york Times mini when I was in medical school.
00:03:36
Speaker
Those are pitched at the right level, I think, for someone who isn't familiar with all the syntax in crosswords and the ways in which wordplay can be deceptive. So no, the answer the short answer to your question is no, I was not good at it. It took a long time for me to get decent.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to know how many people get started through the mini. I imagine it has to be a huge percentage because it just makes it more approachable. The time commitment is so minimal.
00:04:02
Speaker
And i think from there, people then get the courage to go up to the 15 by 15. It's a really inviting format. And it's also five by five, which makes the letters nice and big on a phone screen. It's the right form factor for people to dip their toes into it.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah.
Journey to Crossword Creation
00:04:16
Speaker
And then what led you to begin constructing? I have always been interested in making puzzles and mostly word squares. When I was seven or eight and I was supposed to be doing math homework, I would make these little four by four word squares. so I just used to just doodle them on little pieces of paper.
00:04:32
Speaker
So I was always interested and curious about how words could fit together in a grid. And I think that's what led to my fascination with Scrabble, because so much of what you do in Scrabble is you're assembling these dense collections clumps of letters.
00:04:43
Speaker
I first started thinking that I could construct a crossword in 2018. I started making them for myself and for fun, for friends. I remember making one for my parents.
00:04:54
Speaker
And it was only in 2019 that I said, okay, you know what? I think I can build up the courage to reach out to some people in the community who I know are great constructors. And I was so naive, cold emailed people out of the blue, but crossword people are really great.
00:05:09
Speaker
It was the early months of 2019 that I started making my own full-size puzzle. Do you remember the first crossword that you made? ah I do remember the first one that was accepted, which was Spyscape.
00:05:22
Speaker
The entire publication is based on one topic, which is spies, like espionage. The editor at the time was Will Nettiger, who is still an awesome colleague and just, you know, a stalwart of the community.
00:05:33
Speaker
And so I remember sending him a few of my puzzles. And the very first one that he accepted was Mole Hunt. And I you can't remember what the theme was. and just know the title. people can go look it up if they want.
00:05:44
Speaker
I think there should be an anthology of people's first published crosswords. I think that would be really instructive. That's both an amazing idea and terrifying. I mean, it got published.
00:05:55
Speaker
Clearly it met some standard of acceptability. Yeah, but I think everybody has grown a
Pandemic and Indie Crossword Boom
00:06:01
Speaker
lot. When you send the email out to ask for permission, you're not going to get a lot of replies on that.
00:06:06
Speaker
So you said you got your first acceptance in 2019. What followed after molehunt? So I had a few published in established venues. I had a few puzzles where I put a lot of my attention in the early years was my website, which was SidsGrids.com.
00:06:22
Speaker
And I say was as if it doesn't exist still. It does. You can go type it into Google and find it. I think it was right at the tail end of 2019 and at the beginning of 2020. And we all know what happened then with the pandemic.
00:06:33
Speaker
Everybody who suddenly had a lot of free time. Well, not everybody, but a lot of people had free time and I did too. I started writing a lot of puzzles for my blog. I think the goal was I want to make puzzles and I'm too impatient for them to get published somewhere.
00:06:46
Speaker
Through a long and drawn out process. I think everybody who can relate to this idea. It's like, you know, I don't want to wait six months for it to be accepted and then two years for it to get published. So the goal was just for me to make stuff and put it out there.
00:06:57
Speaker
In the process, I sort of caught this wave, a new generation of indie puzzling people that was coming online during the pandemic.
Crosswords as an Art Form
00:07:05
Speaker
It was organic, unexpected, unplanned.
00:07:09
Speaker
It's not to say that there weren't already people who were doing it. There are so many great constructors who were there well before me. But for me, it was period of rapid growth because it allowed me to iterate very quickly and make things that I liked and then have them be seen immediately.
00:07:24
Speaker
It was also when crossword Twitter was flourishing, RIP, where there were so many people online who were voraciously consuming crosswords and talking about crosswords and making crosswords. That's actually what gave me the courage to then start submitting my work elsewhere.
00:07:38
Speaker
So it's a very unusual path. Yeah, absolutely. That was quite a time for a lot of people, a lot of upheaval. And then what is it about crosswords as a medium that speaks to you?
00:07:51
Speaker
Wow, that's a really deep question. In my life right now, this answer is probably a function of where I am in my journey just as a human being. I see Crossroads as being at the intersection of many things. so At the intersection of art and science, I think it's at the intersection of integrating many domains of life and also shedding light on each in an interesting way.
00:08:13
Speaker
I think the form of crosswords itself is at the intersection of something rigid and logical with a lot of rules that are meant to be deduced, almost like a logic puzzle, but simultaneously having this artistic flourish and the opportunity for creativity and to break the rules.
00:08:31
Speaker
So in a lot of ways, I find crosswords to be dichotomous in multiple modes of being. And it really excels at managing to capture a broad range of experiences.
00:08:43
Speaker
I have been recently getting into Sudoku as well, which I know, like, crossword fans, don't at me, okay? Sudokus are good, And the thing that I find really beautiful about Sudoku is that they give you the rules in advance.
00:08:54
Speaker
They tell you exactly what you're going to expect. Okay, this is what this line means. and this is what this dot means. And you already know what's going to happen. So where does all the fun come out of it? Well, the fun comes out of the interactions between the rules and the rule set and the specific aspects, like the steps in the logic that you take to get to a final answer.
00:09:12
Speaker
And in crosswords, it's kind of the opposite. You know that words are going to fit across and down. They're going to intersect. But they don't tell you what the rule is. They don't tell you what the gimmick is of the puzzle in advance.
00:09:23
Speaker
That's for you to figure out. In addition to that, as you're doing it, you also have these little hits of dopamine every time you get an answer from a clue, especially if it's kind of a tricky clue or a surprising clue or an interesting factoid.
00:09:34
Speaker
So I find that the juxtaposition between not knowing what the rules are and needing to figure that out for a theme puzzle, I mean, and simultaneously knowing what the rules are, you know how to solve a clue. It's definitional.
00:09:48
Speaker
It really captures a certain part of my brain, actually many parts of my brain that are all interacting in interesting ways. And you're studying neuroscience, right? So you're qualified to say this. i I think as a neuroscientist, I am legally obligated to say I am not i do not know enough about the brain.
00:10:06
Speaker
It's like that yeah U-shaped curve, or like the more you actually learn, the less you realize that you actually know. But with neuroscience, there's no upward trajectory to the U. It's just constantly flatlining. So you're not doing tests of people doing crosswords and seeing what parts of their brain light up?
00:10:19
Speaker
That specific idea has come up many, many times. Many people have asked me, so when are you doing that study? There's this big bubble of knowledge and your PhD is the tiniest blip on the edge of that bubble.
00:10:29
Speaker
So my blip is very far away from the kind of research where you would do that, but it has been proposed. And i think that if you got the best solvers in the world and you got them to do studies like that, you would find some interesting results.
00:10:41
Speaker
All right, Paolo, we're going to call you up and test your brain.
Crosswords and Scientific Synergy
00:10:45
Speaker
And then in an Instagram video you made for Washington University of St. Louis, where you're doing your MD, PhD, you said some interesting things that kind of connects to what you were just talking about.
00:10:56
Speaker
So first you said that you think of crosswords as art. And then you also said, quote, crosswords have made me a better scientist and science has made me a better crossword writer, end quote.
00:11:07
Speaker
So could you touch on what you meant by that a little bit? Yeah, to clarify in the art comment, I've said this before and people have voted me on it, which is really interesting because I didn't think that it would be a very surprising statement.
00:11:22
Speaker
But I realized that a lot of people have not been exposed to the idea of crosswords as art. I think that folks who are doing the art, who are making the crosswords or editing or are advancing the field, would be the most likely to call it art.
00:11:36
Speaker
I thought about this. I want to define it in a certain way, which is broad enough that I think it allows for most of the things that you would consider to be art in everyday life. So I see art as anything that moves you and where excellence can be appreciated.
00:11:49
Speaker
So things that move you can come in many different forms and can be emergent from everyday life. By that definition, crosswords are totally art. Because I have been moved by crosswords, so and being moved doesn't specify the way in which I'm moved, like the affect, the emotional valence it has.
00:12:06
Speaker
It just says that in some way I felt emotionally changed. And I can also appreciate the excellence in it. I can appreciate when a grid is filled really well, when a clue is written beautifully, when ah puzzle sheds light on an aspect of human life or on culture that I hadn't thought of in a while or that I didn't know.
00:12:25
Speaker
I can also appreciate when puzzles make me wistful or longing or even angry. And particularly when those ways are intentional, when they're done with a touch that demonstrates an understanding of the human condition and that is modulated through a process that demonstrates excellence, that's art.
00:12:45
Speaker
I wasn't expecting this conversation to go in this direction, but it does make me think of Walter Benjamin's work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In that he talks about the loss of aura as art becomes more readily available and we can create copies of art and distribute it easily.
00:13:04
Speaker
So I wonder if part of the reason people don't think of it as art is because it's on our phones, it's digitized, so easily downloadable, it's in the daily paper.
00:13:16
Speaker
And because it's so easily accessible and so part of our daily routines, it loses that aura of art being this detached, faraway thing that we're often taught art is supposed to be.
00:13:29
Speaker
I agree with that a lot. I resonate with that a lot, which is why one thing I did was I started framing my puzzles. So I have a little puzzle corner in my apartment. Right now it's just New York Times puzzles, but I'm thinking of expanding it and making a collage or something.
00:13:41
Speaker
I have a big three by foot two foot framed version of my Super Mega, the 2024 Super Mega of the New York Times. In a way, by framing them, it makes them concrete.
00:13:52
Speaker
It's no longer an idealistic version that exists in an ether or in a digital database somewhere. I don't think that many other people would frame a crossword. I mean, I'm sure there are other people who do, and I know that there are other constructors who do.
00:14:04
Speaker
But there's still something about a puzzle that is alluring visually and conceptually. It's got white and black squares and they're laid out symmetrically in this pattern. And there are words, but there's empty space.
00:14:17
Speaker
And the empty space beckoning you to fill it. Not to wax too philosophical or poetic, but I agree that the digitization of puzzles has not only made puzzles more accessible, but has maybe cheapened them in a way that's less perceptible.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah. And I will say I also do frame my puzzles. So you're preaching to the choir here. There you go. So I also wanted to answer your second question, which was like, you know, a year ago, which is about science and puzzles.
00:14:46
Speaker
So, yeah, I am a scientist as I think I can say now that six year PhD student, I'm a scientist. i think I can own that. I'm also an engineer. That's what my PhD is in. It's in biomedical engineering. And science and engineering are almost like opposing ways to view the same thing.
00:14:59
Speaker
So I would extend your question to ask also how does engineering, how does that make me a better crossword writer and vice versa? So I think science is about looking at a system that has already been designed or maybe designed is too controversial a word, but has already been created.
00:15:13
Speaker
And you are asking questions about it and you formulate the questions in a specific way so that when you ask those questions, you can gather the information you need to understand it better. Engineering, most ancient engineers are not always prioritizing understanding. Obviously, they have to rely on understanding to build things, but their goal is to build something that works.
00:15:31
Speaker
The point is that when I'm building a crossword, I'm using engineering principles. I'm trying to figure out where black squares should go. In designing a theme, I'm trying to deconstruct the parts of speech and try and find ways that words can be reparsed.
00:15:44
Speaker
And what a solver does is kind of like science. Every time they encounter a clue, it's an experiment. They're performing an experiment where they're trying different letters that might fit that clue and trying to figure out whether or not that experiment holds up to the evidence.
00:16:00
Speaker
So to understand the scientific process from that lens, where it is about formulating a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis under controlled conditions and seeing if your model held up to the evidence.
00:16:11
Speaker
That's very much how I think crossword solvers are solving. So that's the specific way in which science has made me a better crossword writer. Now, the way in which Crossword writing has made me a better scientist is many ways, but most important among all of them is it's just made me a more well-rounded human being.
00:16:26
Speaker
It's exposed me to different facets of human experience. It has made me question things about myself. It has introduced me to people from different walks of life. And science is a very insular profession. People tend to get into these silos where they interact with people who are in their own echelon and field.
00:16:45
Speaker
I'm not saying people are not well-rounded, but most scientists are not good crossword solvers right off the bat because they don't have the broad knowledge base. So they struggle because they're like, well, I don't know this thing about movies or about this particular food or about tennis players.
00:16:59
Speaker
Okay, well, you know, that's what makes you a better crossword solver. And I think that having more exposure to those varied domains of knowledge and more varied perspectives on the human condition makes me a better scientist.
00:17:11
Speaker
There is something gratifying about sneaking in a piece of trivia about something you really care about that other people might not. And then suddenly it's like, well, now you have to care about this.
00:17:22
Speaker
Suddenly this factoid matters to you.
Starting a Crossword: Theme Development
00:17:25
Speaker
So I wanted to turn to constructing and ask you if you were about to start on a new puzzle, how would you get that construction process started?
00:17:35
Speaker
so good time to demystify the steps in making a crossword because I don't want to assume what the audience knows. But a crossword consists of, as a solver, the first thing you look at is a grid and clues.
00:17:45
Speaker
And the last thing that you find is a theme because you don't know what it is yet when you start solving. And for a crossword constructor, it's kind of backwards. So you start with the theme, then you build the grid, and then you do the clues.
00:17:57
Speaker
So yeah, I would start with a theme and that's the hardest part for me to describe because animal themes have been done many times and themes about baseball have been done many times. So where is the gold that can be mined in the entire realm of human knowledge that most people would know that would lend itself to an interesting theme?
00:18:17
Speaker
So that's where I would start. Okay. And how do you decide if a theme is worth pursuing? Oh, that's a really good question. I don't have a good heuristic for that. I definitely know when a theme is not worth pursuing.
00:18:29
Speaker
There's a few reasons for that, but one of them is it's too niche or the link is too tenuous between the different elements of the theme. Or it could be that, oh, I have these two great examples, but I need three and four.
00:18:40
Speaker
Or it could be that the theme would just be too difficult to telegraph or to construct. There are themes that I'm still hanging on to in my back pocket because my construction skills are not good enough to be able to do that.
00:18:54
Speaker
And if I were to do that theme, I want to do it in a very specific way that would be mind blowing for the solver. And I'm unwilling to compromise on the quality of the fill and the quality of the clues to make the theme work.
00:19:08
Speaker
So I like themes that are kind of at the sweet spot of where people solving will be like, whoa, how did that happen? But for me, it's not going to require specialized technology to develop that idea.
00:19:20
Speaker
I try to push as far as possible down the spectrum of tightening the theme and making it more mind blowing or making it more interesting or adding more elements that will enhance the solving experience until I hit technical limitations.
Technical Aspects of Crossword Gridding
00:19:33
Speaker
And then once you have a theme and you feel pretty good about it, how do you then move on to gridding and filling a grid? It also really depends on the theme. I can use a specific example for you. So I had this puzzle in the New York Times. It was a Sunday.
00:19:48
Speaker
The title of the puzzle was The Inside Scoop. And the theme was, spoiler alert, by the way, there was a two-part revealer which read, heard through the grapevine. And there was a big green vine running down the middle of the grid.
00:20:00
Speaker
The vine was made up of three different answers that were all grape varieties, and five horizontal answers, the cross answers that were crossing that vine, had shaded substrings that, when phonetically said out loud, were synonyms for gossip.
00:20:13
Speaker
That's a lot of different elements. I use that as an example because it's a lot. Those elements are basically fixed in place from the beginning. So I would start there. with whatever elements I'm using for my theme. And then the most important thing that I've learned and many people along the way have told me, and it's great advice, is to lock down the middle of the grid.
00:20:32
Speaker
Because the middle is the most difficult to fill at the end of the filling process because it's got the most sites of ingress. It's got the most places where it can interact with the rest of the grid. So if you lock down the middle of the grid first, it becomes way easier to fill the edges because they're less constrained.
00:20:46
Speaker
I think it took me two weeks to find a central fill for that puzzle that I was happy with. And that requires really smart placement of black squares, typically diagonal lines. I love diagonal lines because they cut the grid very efficiently.
00:21:00
Speaker
And then after that, it's a matter of methodical tinkering with the other parts of the grid to find fillable quadrants. So I think after that, because it was a 21 by 21, it's a big puzzle. I played around for 80 100 more iterations before I found corners that all had good fills.
00:21:16
Speaker
80 to 100 iterations? Yeah, something like that. Wow.
Cluing and Cultural Diversity in Crosswords
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, most of my puzzles take at least 30 iterations before I feel I'm happy with this. and my naming scheme, my version control is pretty intensive.
00:21:29
Speaker
And I'll start with version one, and then I'll go to version 1A, which is a specific black square pattern. And then version one a one is now this particular corner, and then it goes from there. So by the end of most of my development process, I'm like at version thirteen g four I thought I was bad pushing 20 plus, but I haven't heard about anyone going into the triple digits. That's kind of incredible.
00:21:52
Speaker
I have to cut it off somewhere. This is also a problem that scientists have where they work on a project forever and they never publish it. I got to decide, okay, this is good and enough. But as I've continued along my construction journey, my standard for where good enough is, is floated a little higher yeah than it used to be.
00:22:08
Speaker
And it's also that, you know, when you solve another person's puzzle and you're like, wow, this is a great theme. I just wish this fill had been better. And then you remember that thought that you had when you're filling your own puzzle and you're like, wow, okay, guess this sucks now.
00:22:19
Speaker
So I have to redo this. Yeah, I put a lot of pressure on myself because I start thinking hundreds of thousands of people probably are doing the Times crossword and I want it to be as good as it possibly can be. I don't want to waste people's time.
00:22:35
Speaker
I think often about if I'm at an airport and it's the day that I've had a puzzle in the Times, well, in this room, there's got to be at least a dozen people who are solving my puzzle. You know, I don't want them to be cursing me out when I'm getting on a plane with them.
00:22:49
Speaker
Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
00:22:53
Speaker
ah Right. I mean, mentally, mentally, their mind. no No bad, no bad energy. No bad vibes. Right. And what is your approach to cluing? The very first thing I do when I feel confident about the grid, which takes me a little while, like I won't commit to a grid until I've slept on it and I've looked at it and I've decided, OK, you know what?
00:23:12
Speaker
This is good. The first thing that I'll do is export all the words and put it into a Google spreadsheet. For me personally, one of the worst ways to clue something is to just sit down and clue it in one shot.
00:23:23
Speaker
It doesn't matter if it's a puzzle with 20 answers or 200 answers or 2000 answers. I probably won't finish in one setting. and So having access to the cluing document on my phone and on my laptop is really helpful.
00:23:35
Speaker
Besides that, I clue at odd times. I wake up in the middle of the night to finish writing a clue. I clue right after getting out of the shower. i have been known to pull over on the side of the road.
00:23:45
Speaker
You pull over while you're driving to write down a clue? I've done that once. I've done that once.
00:23:54
Speaker
That's commitment. And then one thing I really appreciate about your puzzles is that some of your clues will reference South Asian culture in a way akin to Eric Agard or Cameron Austin Collins, sometimes referencing Black culture and their clues and entries.
00:24:10
Speaker
For instance, you've had actress Krishnan of South Indian Cinema for Trisha and Vegetable for Bindi Masala for Okra. Can you tell us a bit about your impetus for doing that?
00:24:23
Speaker
Eric and Cam are great beacons for this and great role models. I think the reason for that is it's twofold. One is self-centering. Well, I want to see myself in a puzzle.
00:24:34
Speaker
And if I'm making a puzzle, I want it to be something that reflects my life and the things that I eat and do and see and talk about. That doesn't mean that all of the clues are going to be about South Asian culture, but I certainly would not want to have a string of puzzles where nothing references that part of my life.
00:24:51
Speaker
So that's one part. The other reason for it is I still have moments where I'll try doing a crossword puzzle with a friend or family member, and I'll realize partway through, wow this puzzle is really white, or this puzzle has almost nothing in it that doesn't reference a man.
00:25:08
Speaker
And that's my lived experience solving with people who I'm friends with who are South Asian or who are women. I think if you can't see yourself reflected in something, it becomes opaque to you.
00:25:21
Speaker
You don't engage with it further. And I suspect that a lot of people who are not white men have at various points decided that crosswords weren't for them because there was so much white male cultural referencing.
00:25:36
Speaker
That's why philosophically this is really important to me. And it's become so ingrained in my cluing and fill selection process that I don't even really think about it. If I have an option to put Panir in the puzzle, it's going in the puzzle.
00:25:49
Speaker
just to add one more dimension, i think it's also important when people are solving that they can think well, maybe I could construct a puzzle. A big part of why crosswords have been so white is, of course, historically, it's mostly straight white men who've been the constructors.
00:26:07
Speaker
So if we could inspire people who've been minoritized, who've historically not been the constructors or had the platforms to feel empowered to make puzzles, that can open up new modes of thinking and invite new voices.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And then i wanted to continue this thread line about cluing. So I was at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last year for the first time, and you had created the culminating championship round puzzle eight, where you had three different levels of solvers who were standing up in front of everyone.
00:26:43
Speaker
And what was really cool about that was I got to see three different sets of clues for the same entries and how you scaled them up in difficulty for the different levels of solvers.
00:26:54
Speaker
So what was that process like of having to write so many different clues and having to calibrate those different difficulty levels?
Crafting Crossword Difficulty Levels
00:27:01
Speaker
That was probably the single theme list I have worked on for the longest amount of time.
00:27:06
Speaker
I think it was something like 40 to 50 hours that I spent working on those clues. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do that for the ACPT. For people who don't know, ACPT is a tournament, still is the largest in-person tournament and the longest running for American Crossroads.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's currently held in Stamford, Connecticut, and Will Schwartz is the tournament director, and he graciously asked me to to write the finals puzzle. which is really daunting. And it's also ah unique chance to see people engage with your puzzle, struggle with it in real time on a big board.
00:27:38
Speaker
But I really wanted each puzzle to feel like a fully fleshed puzzle, not for the C level, which is kind of like the lowest difficulty of the three. Feel like, oh, this is just clues that fell on the cutting room floor. So I wrote the most difficult clues first.
00:27:52
Speaker
but I wrote actually four difficulty levels. So I wrote an A plus version and then an A and a B and a C version. And I gave all of those versions to Woolshorts. And I said, hey, my preference is that you pick everything from the A plus version. I want it to be brutal.
00:28:05
Speaker
Like, I really want to be brutal. I think the reason for that is not that I want to make people suffer. Well, no, I really don't want to make people suffer. But it's more that there's a certain ease that I've noticed people at the very top level solving these tournament puzzles with.
00:28:24
Speaker
And the clues are really hard, but I don't want people who are watching to get the impression that that is easy. No, what those people are doing is almost superhuman. Like Paolo solving that puzzle in five minutes is close to superhuman and the other solvers as well.
00:28:39
Speaker
It's almost like I wanted to do them a favor. By giving them a clue set that would help accentuate the difficulty of what they're doing. And there's a bit of an arms race, I think, almost between constructors and solvers at the top level.
00:28:52
Speaker
Where the constructors are trying to come up with all these new cluing angles that nobody has thought of before. Especially for common entries. Like I had the entry as of ASOF. Like this policy will become active as of January 1st. Effective January 1st.
00:29:08
Speaker
So I had that in my back pocket, like, okay, I'm going to submit that. So there were a lot like that where I spent a long time trying to find these unique angles. It was a long, arduous process to clue that. And I'm really grateful to Will Shorts and the whole team there. They ended up using a handful of my A-plus clues, not all of them.
00:29:24
Speaker
The purely A-plus version was deemed way too hard. And how many of those clues for the 40, 50 hours were done on the side of the road or in the shower? Yeah. Probably not zero.
00:29:37
Speaker
For that one, I had to change my cluing approach.
Super Mega Crossword Construction Challenges
00:29:40
Speaker
I had to really sit down and think about it. So I think I spent a lot of time at a desk looking up synonyms, thinking of ways to k clue things, and also looking up previous clues from clue databases.
00:29:50
Speaker
I typically don't go and look up other clues and databases and see what's been done. But for a tournament setting, for the largest tournament, I really needed to do that because I couldn't take a chance that that particular clue had been done somewhere.
00:30:03
Speaker
I've had other crossword constructors tell me that, that they don't look, they just write it blind. But my process is looking up every single entry and trying to find either something that hasn't been done or at least putting a bit of a new spin on it just because I enjoy that challenge to myself and it kind of makes it fun for me.
00:30:20
Speaker
How can I find a new way in? And then since you brought up the super mega and that seems like another huge daunting challenge, I wanted to ask you what that labor looked like.
00:30:31
Speaker
Labor is the right word for that. I think I got burned out on crosswords after making that puzzle. It took a month to get the fill to a place where I was... I don't even still think I was happy with it. I think I was okay with it.
00:30:42
Speaker
There are still some areas and corners. The eagle-eyed might have noticed a dupe or two. I'm typically not concerned about that, and especially not so in a 50 by 50 crossword. But for me, the goal was to make a very wide-open theme list.
00:30:58
Speaker
It just so happens that there is a meta element. It's not very big, admittedly. It's not hard. It's fully spelled out of the instructions. It's intended for people to solve at home with their families and people who aren't really big crossword people.
00:31:11
Speaker
So the goal was to make something easy. But I wouldn't have been satisfied if the grid hadn't been wide open and full of white space and full of long, interesting answers. So I spent a very long time on the grid.
00:31:23
Speaker
It was all of October last year. And I went on multiple trips. I went to Cancun for a friend's party and was doing the grid there. went to Tampa to go watch a box game and I was working on the grid.
00:31:37
Speaker
And when I was done, i was like, I really don't want to look at a puzzle again. And cluing actually happened in two days. Wow. Because I was right up against the deadline. That's impressive. Two days. Sometimes the deadline's the best source of inspiration.
Selective and Collaborative Construction Process
00:31:50
Speaker
I know it's just somebody on your back saying, Hey, we need this now. And you're like, okay. How has your process of construction changed since you first started? The primary way that i think I have changed my process and also my mindset is to be more selective, more selective about theme concepts.
00:32:07
Speaker
My puzzle output has severely diminished as a result, but I like to hope that every puzzle that I make is something that I'm very proud of and that has a high impact on people.
00:32:18
Speaker
I'm also more selective about the fit between a puzzle and a venue or an audience. I didn't really appreciate this until couple of years ago, but there really is scope to push the needle in certain places, and it stems from understanding the ethos of what the venue is trying to accomplish and the audience that they're catering to, and the specific ways in which that venue might permit a deviation from the norm.
00:32:43
Speaker
It depends. Like if it's a tournament setting, there are some things that you simply don't want to play with. If it's the New York Times, there are certain angles and rigidity. Every time I've tried to take a certain circuitous route an answer, it's been corralled back.
00:32:57
Speaker
But there are other ways in which those sorts of venues let you as a constructor play with the form. My process is now very much about, if I come up with an idea, my first question is, where does this go? Yeah, I've been solving more indie crosswords lately, partly because of this podcast. I want to experience as many kinds of puzzles as I can.
00:33:15
Speaker
It is interesting how the cluing is typically a lot more playful and some of the entries potentially wouldn't be included in the times. Indie puzzles, both self-published or indie publications, like I'm on the editorial team for ABCX Plus, a lot of it has to do with the financial aspects of puzzling.
00:33:34
Speaker
Almost every major publication is tied to some publication company. And so media companies have other interests besides making puzzles as fun as possible. They also want to cater to a certain audience and they want to facilitate a certain image. And so I think that's additionally ah challenge.
00:33:51
Speaker
that indies don't always have to deal with, especially indies that are either self-funded or crowdfunded. And what about collaborating with others? How does that shift your way of working? I think it's a really beautiful way to work.
00:34:04
Speaker
Collaborating tends to bring out a much more polished and interesting product. For me right now, it's hard to make that a sustainable way to do puzzles. It's a product of my limited free time.
00:34:15
Speaker
And if i work best when I can iterate freely and rapidly on something. So unless it just clicks with someone else where we're both in the same wavelength, nowadays I prefer to tackle things mostly on my own.
00:34:26
Speaker
When I have collaborated with people, the ways in which the work changes is that it's much more about finding the ways in which someone else can fit into your process and you can fit into their process.
00:34:36
Speaker
If I'm working on theme list with someone, I might finish a corner and then send it over to the other person so they can finish the symmetrical corner. which is kind of the order in which I would tackle making a theme list on my own, which is if I'm making a theme list from the corner first, like the Southwest corner, I would first make the Southwest, then I would find the symmetrical Northeast partner.
00:34:53
Speaker
I've dreamt about this idea of like a speed dating theless thing for constructors. Everybody comes with their Southwest corners, everybody comes with their Northeast corners and they marry them up together. So that's like one way in which collaborating is different.
00:35:05
Speaker
And then the other way is cluing suddenly becomes this really fertile ground for interesting ideas. You have two people now coming with different frames of reference, different senses of humor, maybe different goals, what energy they want the puzzle to exude.
00:35:19
Speaker
And so in its perfect implementation, ah jointly clued crossword is a beautiful amalgamation of the voices of both constructors. Absolutely. I can definitely relate to that.
00:35:31
Speaker
And then I wanted to talk about a few of your puzzles.
Unique Puzzle Themes and Creativity
00:35:34
Speaker
One that really spoke to me was your tones of voice puzzle in the New York Times from Sunday, October 7th, 2022.
00:35:42
Speaker
That had the revealer colorful character, and it had a strategic use of color. For example, you had pinky promise, which is already a pretty evocative phrase, pointing to a pink letter E and the word pledge.
00:35:55
Speaker
So what was the inspiration for that puzzle? The Sunday New York Times is one of the few venues that is able to do color in print. So I've always wanted to do a puzzle with color. Actually, the very first Sunday New York Times that was edited by Will Schwartz had color in it.
00:36:08
Speaker
So I've always wanted to do that. I've always had that in the back of my mind. So somewhere in my mind is a set of bucket list crossword things. Be like, okay, I want to check as many of these things off as possible. I failed many times. So now what I do is I just keep that tucked away at the back of my brain.
00:36:22
Speaker
And then when I happen to have an idea that can accomplish one of those things, I try and make it do it in that way. So the inspiration for this puzzle most directly came from when I was on a flight from, i think it was from India to the US.
00:36:35
Speaker
It was like 14 hours. And I'm not a great flyer, but the phrase red eye flight came to mind. And I immediately thought, oh, okay, red eye. And the letter I is in the word flight. Can we do something with that?
00:36:46
Speaker
And later when I revisited the idea, I thought, well, that's not interesting enough if I just have the word flight with a red eye in it. So then I thought, well, what if it's pointing to a different answer? And then I thought of the word aviation as a synonym for flight.
00:36:57
Speaker
And that has an eye in it. So I made that red. You know, suddenly I started coming with other ideas like gravy came to mind. But it was only when I thought of the phrase colorful character that it really tied it together. Yeah, and what I appreciate about that puzzle is how fresh and lively it felt.
00:37:12
Speaker
You mentioned how animals and baseball are overdone themes, and colors is often a cliche go-to as well. But this, for me, reinvented the use of colors, both using the color literally, but also just putting a fun, unexpected spin on the theme entries.
00:37:30
Speaker
So I thought it was wonderful. Thanks. And one other puzzle I wanted to touch on was alternate endings. Another time Sunday, this one from May 14th, 2023, that had the revealer of zipper merges and the theme answers wove into each other.
00:37:48
Speaker
alternating letter by letter like zippers, which is hard to explain because it's a pretty visual puzzle. But I remember still the awe and jealousy I felt when I realized what was happening, that that was even possible.
00:38:02
Speaker
So could you touch on how that concept came to you and how you made something so seemingly complex work? This is totally coincidence, but this is one of the puzzles that came to mind on the road. Oh, wow. ah Literally. Yeah. I didn't i didn't stop at the side of the road to write it down. It was so palpably present in my mind that I was sure I wasn't going to forget it.
00:38:22
Speaker
So right by where I work, there's an entry ramp onto Interstate 64. There's an entrance to that highway where there's two lanes that join into one. And St. Louis drivers are are notoriously not great.
00:38:35
Speaker
But that's one place where actually the drivers do the zipper merge. One will go and the next will go. People are pretty good about it. So I noticed that because there was a lot of traffic and it was moving pretty smoothly. So i was like, wow, people are really zippering together.
00:38:49
Speaker
And then suddenly I remembered zipper merges from back in driver's ed. It was like, that has to be a puzzle. Has somebody done that before? Because that has to be a puzzle. And I don't think anybody had done it before. And it's so visual.
00:39:00
Speaker
Then it was just a matter of figuring out how to make that visual translate. So I think I played around with many different versions. Most were going left to right. And I just thought that was too difficult to visualize. And then I had the idea, well, what if the merged lane is actually its own word?
00:39:15
Speaker
I wrote some code to try and find some answers where that would work. The final touch was to put an actual merge symbol, like an icon in the grid. That was one of the very first things that I had thought of. I gave up on the idea many times because I was like, this is going to be too hard to put in the grid.
00:39:29
Speaker
And then in the end, I thought, well, no, that was the visual. So I got to sell the visual. So I reworked the whole puzzle so that I could have those icons in the grid. That's what I try to do now is if I'm making a Sunday, especially, i want to paint a picture.
00:39:41
Speaker
Thinking of the final picture first, developing the tools to get there with that final visual in mind. My takeaway here is you just need to do a lot of traveling because between the red eye flight and the zipper merge, there's a lot of rich material when you're on the road.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You got to rack up those miles if you really want to get good puzzles. Well, thank you for sharing that. It is nice to get a sense of the inspiration and the logistics.
Crosswords in Fundraising
00:40:08
Speaker
And now I wanted to turn to publishing and ask you about some of the fundraising endeavors you've been involved in.
00:40:14
Speaker
So you've had several puzzles appear in things like the Indy 500 Charity Pack, and you've also been in the last three editions of these puzzles fund abortion, including the most recent iteration that just launched and which everyone should check out.
00:40:29
Speaker
And you also offered to send themeless puzzles to solvers who donated to causes supporting Afghan women and girls. So what motivates you to combine constructing and fundraising?
00:40:41
Speaker
Well, the first thing is that there's need. There will always be need, unfortunately. And most of the time, what people need is just a little push to think critically about what they have and what they can give to people.
00:40:54
Speaker
Most of the people who do solve crosswords are fortunate that they can afford to donate $20. And that's typically the ticket to entry to get the puzzle pack. And I think it's a really good price point because most people can do that.
00:41:06
Speaker
I realize not everybody can, but many people who do solve crosswords can. So it starts with the audience. They're interested in learning things about the world. And i think there's a correlation between people who are curious and people who are empathetic.
00:41:17
Speaker
I just find that people who are interested in learning about the world, reading about what's happening outside of their little corner and are willing to understand the problems, the plights, the challenges of others tend to be more empathetic and tend to be willing to pitch in where help is needed.
00:41:31
Speaker
I don't think that the success of these packs is due to the quality of the puzzles. If the puzzles were terrible, then obviously people would get wise and say, I'm not going to donate for the pack. But the puzzles are really good in every case. There hasn't been one pack that I have solved for a charitable cause that hasn't been well run and where the puzzles have not been good.
00:41:50
Speaker
But it's also that people who solve crosswords want to help. And when they find an opportunity like this, it almost feels like, wow, you can do that? I can donate $20 and I can get puzzles? Like, that's great.
00:42:02
Speaker
You are totally right, but let's just emphasize the quality for a moment because i solved your breaking free puzzle this morning, which is in these puzzles fund abortion five.
00:42:14
Speaker
And I honestly think this might have been one of the best puzzles I've solved in years. It really blew my mind. So yes, everyone should check out the puzzle packs because they support very important causes, but the caliber of puzzle is also astounding.
00:42:30
Speaker
Thanks. Yeah, that puzzle is very meaningful to me. And it is also one of my favorites. As it should be. And then you mentioned that you're on the editorial team for ABCX+, which is a weekly, usually themeless puzzle.
Editorial Approach and Puzzle Construction
00:42:43
Speaker
So when you're wearing your editorial hat, what are you looking for in submissions? Personally, the things that I find interesting as a solver are overlapping but not equivalent to the things that I find ah interesting as an editor.
00:42:56
Speaker
Because as a solver, I'm coming from a unitary point of view. I'm me. And there are things that I'm interested in and that I like. And being an editor is definitely informed by that perspective, but there is a demand on an editor to expand their mindset and their criteria for what they like in a puzzle to be more broadly inclusive of other solvers who might not like to say things that they do.
00:43:20
Speaker
But at AVCX Plus specifically, we put a really high emphasis on puzzles that feel like they were made by that author and where the parts of the puzzle are intentional. Where the selection of the fill and the selection of the grid shape and the stacks and how things intersect and the cluing and the attention to detail about the solve path, which is not something we think about very much in Crosswords, but I do think it's important to think about the solve path. So how a solver is going to navigate the grid and what sections are likely to get stuck in and how to alleviate that so it's uniform difficulty.
00:43:52
Speaker
I love that we have this opportunity. Ben Taussig, who's the godfather of ABCX, like the creator the founder, helped create this awesome opportunity with lots of thanks to many other people. I'm really proud of that, but it's also very much a case of we're only as good as the puzzles we get.
00:44:08
Speaker
And so we're also very lucky to get a lot of really good puzzles that espouse those values.
Favorite Construction Elements and Challenges
00:44:13
Speaker
Then I wanted to turn next to the subject of favorites and ask, what is your favorite part of constructing a puzzle?
00:44:20
Speaker
By far, my favorite part of constructing is making the grid. It's the part that really drew me to Crossroads the beginning. It's just the most joy sparking. I also really like themes. I like coming up with themes, but I specifically like executing on themes. I'm never content with my first version of what a theme is.
00:44:37
Speaker
I'm always trying to find interesting ways and angles to approach a theme, to execute it in a better way. I take a lot of joy in that. I know some people don't, but I have this very engineering focused mind. And so when you have the first version, the prototype of what something is, it's never the best.
00:44:52
Speaker
So I'm always looking to iterate on the implementation of that theme. And then the counterpart of that, what is your least favorite part or the part that you find most difficult? Yeah, it's cluing. So it's just the other part.
00:45:05
Speaker
I find cluing to be at times this impenetrable fortress. like I find it very challenging to get into that mind space of figuring out what a solver is going to think and then subverting that.
00:45:17
Speaker
I mean, not all clues are like that. Obviously, you're writing a puzzle with more of an easy vibe, it's about finding interesting evocative ways to clue things. And I don't find that hard, but I do find that the more I write clues, the more resistance I have to tread new spaces. And it's honestly a real challenge because it's like, well, the more you know, the more you feel like you need to distance yourself from what everybody else is doing.
00:45:43
Speaker
It was kind of like what you were saying earlier, where you want to go look up the clue database, find the angle people haven't done before, which is why I shielded myself from that. I don't try to look up what people are doing and try to avoid those things.
00:45:55
Speaker
I just try to find an angle that tickles me in some way that makes me feel happy or challenges me. Like my favorite benchmark for my own puzzles. This only works because I have puzzle amnesia for my own puzzles.
00:46:08
Speaker
But my best benchmark is when I go solve my own puzzle and I'm like, damn, I don't know the answer to this.
Complex Puzzles and Thematic Enjoyment
00:46:14
Speaker
Either because the clue is really hard or because it was some factoid that I had looked up and I was like, wow, that's really interesting.
00:46:20
Speaker
And not only when it's hard, but also when I'm like, wow, that's a good clue. Yeah, I find cluing hard for many reasons, but it's very satisfying. I don't have a masochistic view toward clue. You've both denied that you're a masochist and a satist at this point when it comes to cluing specifically.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then per the times level of difficulty, do you have a favorite day of the week to construct for? I would love to make more Fridays and Saturdays. I think making themelesses feels like the platonic ideal of etching in a word square into a block of marble. It feels like this very rugged process of sheer grit in assembling a grid.
00:46:57
Speaker
And I love that. I also love that they're hard. I love hard puzzles. And I think it's because i take a lot of joy themelessness finding the limits of my own ability and i know that other people don't enjoy that some people enjoy that space where they feel comfortable and it's just cozy vibe and i like that too from time to time but i also like this idea that i love wrestling with things i love wrestling with problems not physically i'm not i'm not a physical wrestler like i like this the idea of conceptually wrestling with things and going to bed and thinking wow what is the answer to that clue and then waking up in the morning and suddenly you have the answer
00:47:28
Speaker
But the themeless space is also very competitive. So I also really like making Sundays for the the thematic aspect, but only if I have a truly great concept. So my Sunday cutting room floor is absolutely littered. There's like not a square inch of free space on there.
00:47:40
Speaker
Well, you have the sip and solve hard mini crossword book. Maybe it's time to have the hard full-size crossword book to follow it up. You could call it Answer and Agonize, the A-plus clue edition.
00:47:53
Speaker
If there were ah an alternate universe where I were had a lot of free time, I would love to do that. And then do you have a favorite puzzle or some favorite puzzles among those you've made? We've already touched upon a couple of them, so I'm very partial to that zipper merges puzzle from the new York Times and the breaking free puzzle that was just there in these puzzles fund abortion five.
Favorite Puzzles and Clever Clues
00:48:13
Speaker
Another variety puzzle that I am really partial to, that I really love, that I made just a couple months ago, it was kind of like made in a fugue state. It was just a few days after in the new year. The whole ABCX had just transitioned away from this funding model where we had an amazing um external funding source and we were trying to go fully independent again.
00:48:31
Speaker
So we managed to do that. We had a great fundraising campaign. And as a way to show gratitude to our solvers, I made this trail mix puzzle, which is a variety format that was invented by Patrick Berry. And I made this trail mix puzzle that I don't want to spoil it, but it had a way of showing gratitude to our solvers.
00:48:48
Speaker
The other puzzle that came to mind, there's a puzzle that I had on New Year's Eve in 2023 for the Washington Post. So Evan Bernholtz, who's an amazing constructor, was on paternity leave. And so he had asked me to fill in.
00:48:59
Speaker
And I made this really wild theme. i don't want to spoil it again, but the puzzle's titled Meeting Friends. I think it has a very evocative theme implementation. And it has three different theme elements that are all literally intersecting.
00:49:12
Speaker
So I was really proud of that because I've managed to get it all to work. And for anybody who has experienced the thing that is referenced in that puzzle, it immediately brings to mind those memories.
00:49:24
Speaker
I know what you mean, and I do remember that puzzle fondly. What about some favorite clues you've written? Yeah, I had to think about this too. Again, I have puzzle amnesia, so I have a really hard time remembering things.
00:49:34
Speaker
One clue that I wrote really early on on my blog that I still love is who might make a pit stop. How do you want to do this? Do you want to try and guess, or is that putting you on the spot? I mean, if I don't like what I say, I'll just edit it out.
00:49:47
Speaker
Okay, and how many letters do i have? It's seven letters. Who might make a pit stop? and I'm stumped. Let me know. Okay. It's maestro. ah Why was my mind going to an armpit?
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I love clues like that where it's got a very natural surface sense to draw the term from cryptics, but it's got a couple of things going forward. One is that once you get the answer, it's like, oh yeah, obviously that was the answer. And then the second thing is pit and stop are such common words that they have different meanings.
00:50:18
Speaker
So just to land on the right one is hard. Another one that I also like, which is less misleading, is hip hop products for short. It's four letters. Hip hop products for short.
00:50:31
Speaker
I promise you I'm usually good crosswords.
00:50:35
Speaker
I can give this one to you now as well. It's IPAs. Oh. So the hop there is referring to hops and they're hip. So there was no hyphen. There is no hyphen. Yeah. That was an important part. I need the punctuation.
00:50:48
Speaker
It's a podcast. It's an auditory. You know, talking about these clues with you is pretty much exactly why I wanted to start this podcast, because currently my boyfriend is the only person I can torture with all the clever pun clues I come up with.
00:51:01
Speaker
So I was like, I need to find like-minded souls I can share clever clues with. Yeah, but we just need to nerd out for a little bit. There's one more that I wanted to mention, which is totally different kind of clue, and that's primary cause of climate change.
00:51:16
Speaker
And the answer there is humans. And I like that clue because as a scientist, I just like the definitive stance it takes. Yeah. And we really need more definitive facts in this age of rampant climate denial.
00:51:29
Speaker
And what advice would you give to beginning constructors who are trying to level up their skills?
Advice for Aspiring Crossword Constructors
00:51:34
Speaker
I think the most important advice is to solve puzzles. And if you don't solve puzzles, at least study them. There are great resources out there to study.
00:51:42
Speaker
X-Word Info is probably the best organized source of puzzles and themes and grids for you to study. And also Crossword Fiend as well. Crossword Fiend catalogs the dailies from many different venues, which is great.
00:51:54
Speaker
So when I was first constructing... This probably more revelatory on my perspective and like the way I work, but I would just voraciously consume puzzle grid, read them, study them, look at letter patterns, try and understand how things were made.
00:52:08
Speaker
Actually, by the way, a constructor that people may or may not know, but should go back and look at is Sherry Blackard. If you haven't seen Sherry Blackard's grids, go back and look at them because she was making amazing grids well before the advent of all of the construction software.
00:52:23
Speaker
I think that some of those could stand up today. So studying grids and then constructing. It seems obvious, but you're not going to get better at constructing if you don't just make stuff. ah You have very accessible materials to you.
00:52:35
Speaker
With crossword construction, there are free word lists like spread the word list. There are paid word lists, but you can also just start with a basic dictionary and your own seed list. And you can start with free construction software. Ingrid is an amazing option, among others.
00:52:48
Speaker
It's just start making stuff. And then you mentioned your bucket list of things you want to accomplish. I'm wondering if you could share some of your outstanding goals. I'm trying to make this year for myself the year that I start making a lot of variety puzzles that I've wanted to make for a long time.
Future Goals and Inclusivity in Crosswords
00:53:03
Speaker
I find variety puzzles so intriguing. I just think that they find that part of my brain that inspired me to make Crossroads in the first place, which has to do with interesting spatial arrangements of words.
00:53:14
Speaker
And some of the most beautiful and incredible variety formats are really intuitive for people to understand. They're just a ah slight twist on the crossword format, but they also enable these really dense and mind-blowing constructions where often, you know, like you mentioned that Breaking Free puzzle, which is a patchwork puzzle, which is a format invented by Eric Berlin.
00:53:36
Speaker
I managed to talk to Eric last year and Eric had all of these amazing anecdotes about how he had come up with different puzzles and ideas and formats. There's a whole world out there besides crosswords that people may or may not be aware of.
00:53:48
Speaker
And i would love to just make more of that. Yeah, one thing you said that resonated with me was that you're always looking to challenge yourself. And sometimes that just means changing the puzzle you're working on and thinking about what does this new challenge present for me.
00:54:03
Speaker
So I definitely hear you on that. And then is there anything you hope to see change or emerge in the world of puzzles in the future? So I think the work of making puzzles more accessible to people is still very much ongoing and very much parallels a shift in public consciousness.
00:54:22
Speaker
It is still really important. I think that people who are trying to do the work are doing a disproportionately large amount of that work. And so I would love for new entrants into the space, into Crosswords, to be very mindful of that and recognize that the puzzles that you make, if you take the approach that they're gonna look like you and think like you and be like you, that you have to be aware of what you look like and think like and are like.
Kindness and Representation in Crossword Communities
00:54:47
Speaker
And if what you look like is what everybody else looks like, or the vast majority of people look like in that space, it is your responsibility to be aware of that and to find ways to be more inclusive in your products.
00:54:59
Speaker
The other thing that I would love to see for the world of Crosswords is I would love to see people being more kind. I think that the people that I interact with in Crosswords are by and large some of the kindest, most wonderful, warm people ever.
00:55:12
Speaker
And then I also venture into some parts of the internet where I find people that are much less kind. And I realize that, you know, there is a space for constructive criticism. But I also think that people take crosswords very personally when they feel like a crossword has asked them something that they felt that they should not be responsible for knowing.
00:55:32
Speaker
or that puzzle is imposing upon them a certain worldview. I think that people who are curious and want to learn more about the world, want to immerse themselves as like more of a world citizen's view and be aware of the life experiences and of the cultural touch points of others.
00:55:51
Speaker
If you're a person like that, you're the right person for crosswords because that's what crosswords are about. They have always been about that. So I think that I would just like to see more appreciation for puzzles in general. And I'm also guilty of not doing this. you know, I try not to be mean, definitely about puzzles, but I am much less vocal about my love for puzzles than I think I should be.
00:56:11
Speaker
So I would love to see more people being more vocally kind and effusive in their praise for things. There is definitely space to constructively criticize, and I'm not trying to argue that we should eliminate that.
00:56:22
Speaker
But I think that a lot of the quote-unquote criticism of puzzles is just people being mean. So I would love to see less of that and more of people being kind. Yeah, just to follow up on what you were saying about people reacting badly to asking them to know something, i have observed people saying things like, how would I know that? Or why should I know that?
00:56:43
Speaker
And that takes me aback because I'm like, well, isn't the point of a crossword partly to learn and challenge yourself and push and expand the boundaries of your knowledge?
00:56:54
Speaker
It seems strange to me you'd only want to know what you already know. That seems antithetical to puzzle solving. The whole point of a puzzle is to be puzzled, right?
00:57:05
Speaker
I totally agree with that. And I think it's up to constructors as a consortium to uphold that value, to uphold the value of challenging people to expand their horizons of what they think they should know.
00:57:19
Speaker
What I really don't want to happen is for constructors to bend to what they perceive to be an overwhelming pushback from and audience that asks them to only survey and query the parts of that solver's knowledge.
00:57:34
Speaker
By and large, I think constructors are never going to bend to that because constructors are curious people. But I just want that to be upheld as a tenet of how constructors operate. Absolutely.
00:57:44
Speaker
And I totally hear you and echo your point about being more effusive and appreciative. It goes back to what you were saying about crossword Twitter and the community that was built there.
00:57:55
Speaker
Hopefully we can carry that spirit forward and emphasize the communal aspects of constructors and solvers and editors working together for a common goal. And in the spirit of being effusive, as we conclude today's episode, let me say thank you so much for joining me today, Sid.
00:58:14
Speaker
And let me say one more time just how much I love your puzzles and how much I appreciate you being a part of the podcast. It's been wonderful talking to you. Thanks, Danny. And thanks as well to our listeners.
00:58:27
Speaker
Feel free to 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.
00:58:38
Speaker
Until then, wishing you inspired constructing and happy solving.