1ST NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD EDITOR HOW TO

Since then I’ve made connect-the-dot puzzles that celebrate the Louvre Pyramid, a gingerbread man, Frosty the Snowman, an angel and Secretariat. I’d invented a new puzzle form- the connect-the-dot crossword! Solvers asked for more. That crossword was the first of its kind. I didn’t realize it back then, but it was the beginning of an era. I’m very fond of the Christmas Tree connect-the-dot crossword ( New York Times, December 2002). I know this is probably a tough question to answer, but. My first New York Times puzzle was published in 1995 and since then I’ve made over 200 puzzles for the newspaper.

My steep learning curve began in the early 1990s.

1ST NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD EDITOR HOW TO

Rather than torture my friends and family with the puns, I set out to learn how to make crosswords, which welcomed said wordplay. I’ve always loved thinking of dreadful puns (oxymoron?)-like crossing seafood with Mario Puzo characters (Marlon Brando as The Cod Father, or James Conch as Sonny). Why did you get involved in crossword puzzling? We even got her to share and comment on some of her best-loved work. We talked to Gorski about this gender imbalance, as well as her pioneering work and love of puns. It's been estimated that about 20% to 30% of puzzles are bylined by females, down from about half in the heyday of the 60s and 70s. Last year, 31 men debuted a puzzle for The New York Times just six women did the same. Įven more impressive? Gorski has accomplished this while quietly stepping over a crossword puzzling gender line. Her puzzles have appeared in the documentary Wordplay and (yes) the Sandra Bullock film All About Steve. Last year, she was named Constructor of the Year. She's prolific, too: her work regularly appears in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Simon & Schuster Mega Series, and she publishes a weekly puzzle for the website Crossword Nation, where she serves as managing editor. Her consistently inventive puzzles are visual wonders that combine craftsmanship with style, nuance with big-picture vision. If crossword puzzling were architecture, Elizabeth Gorski would be I.M.

1st new york times crossword editor