I grew up in a game-playing and puzzle-solving family and have enjoyed word games and crosswords since I was a kid. In my early, pre-computing teens, I wrote a few crossword puzzles the hard way — graph paper and lots of pencil eraser, see the image at the top of this page — but then gave up the habit for a few decades.

In late 2021, I decided to try writing crosswords again with the ultimate goal of getting published. As a native born New Yorker, I’ve been doing The New York Times puzzle for most of my life and have been a fan of Will Shortz since his Games magazine days. So no question it would be coolest to get one of my puzzles onto that site. However, I have realistic expectations and am just happy that some of the people I know enjoy solving the puzzles I create. Puzzle making is a fun sideline and one I’m embracing in retirement.

Below is a list of my five most recently published puzzles; see this page for a list of all of them. My favorite themeless are Themeless #2 and Themeless #6 and my favorite themed is For Smarties.

I hope you enjoy my efforts, I’ll post puzzles here as I develop them and welcome any feedback you have. Expect about one puzzle a month and if you use a news reader you can subscribe to an RSS feed here.

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