Crosswords

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 constructed 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 constructing 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. No question it would be coolest to get one of my puzzles onto that site but I’m realistic as to how competitive that has become. As of May 26, 2023, I am now officially published in the LA Times, something I’m very excited about!

Below is a list of my most recently published puzzles; see this page for a list of all of them. My favorites are Rotisserie League, Taylor Swifties and Blame the Normans. At the bottom of this page, you can search for puzzles by tag based on size or themed/themeless.

I have also been constructing alphabetically focused minis and built a separate microsite for those puzzles.

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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  1. A Very Veggie Thanksgiving

    For the last two years, couples crossword puzzle solving has been a Thanksgiving tradition at our house — we’re not much for watching football on...

  2. A Mid-Autumn Tea Break

    The fun part about midis — to me, anyway — is getting to play with wackier formats. In a 15x15, I try to hew closer...

  3. A Somewhat Topical Themeless

    I had the idea for 17-Across burning a hole in my mixed metaphorical pocket and played around with a few themes using the same device...

  4. Taylor Swifties

    The idea for the theme to this puzzle came to me earlier this year and I’ve been honestly surprised to see no one else attempt...

  5. An End of Summer Midi

    I’ve been having fun constructing midis lately. Although I have been working on a few 15x’s on the side, I am finding that the smaller...

15x15s - All Crosswords - Larger than 15x15 - Midis - Minis - Published Elsewhere - Themed - Themeless