The Atlantic
Tips and Tricks From a Crossword Prodigy
6 min · · A conversation with this year’s speed-solving champion, Paolo Pasco · Shared by 4, including Jane
The Atlantic
What Do Crossword Puzzles Really Test?
6 min · · The puzzle is a site of play, a cultural forum, and even a political entity. · Shared by 229, including Jane
The New Yorker
What Turned Crossword Constructing Into a Boys’ Club?
8 min · · For decades, the pursuit was identified with first-wave feminists and bored housewives. How did it come to be defined by a pervasive gender gap? · Shared by 7, including Jane
The New Yorker
Can Crosswords Be More Inclusive?
8 min · · The puzzles spread from the United States across the globe, but the American crossword today doesn’t always reflect the linguistic changes that immigration brings. · Shared by 137, including Jane
The Atlantic
The Unspoken Language of Crosswords
6 min · · Solvers must develop strong intuitions about what entries are possible and how they can be clued. · Shared by 85, including Jane
The New Yorker
Will Shortz’s Life in Crosswords
4 min · · The veteran Times puzzle editor discusses his favorite clues, debates in the crossword community, and unexpectedly finding his first serious romance. · Shared by 131, including Esther Schindler, Nathaniel Rakich, Jane
The New York Times
Two Crosswords That Almost Broke Wordplay
4 min · · When we asked you to tell us how you felt about the puzzle, you certainly did. · Shared by 69, including Jane
The Washington Post
Crossword puzzles may benefit people with mild cognitive impairment
· New study finds that regularly trying the daily crossword may help slow decline in some people with mild cognitive impairment, an early stage of faltering memory. · Shared by 83, including Jane
Catapult
Why I Started Writing Crossword Puzzles
11+ min · · But who decides what’s common knowledge? · Shared by 153, including Jane
Nieman Lab
“Puzzles pair well with reading the news”: Why news outlets are getting into games (again)
5 min · · Shared by 756, including 👨✈️ AA-Admiral ⚓🚀🌌, Esther Schindler, Nieman Foundation, Jane
zocalopublicsquare.org
Before Wordle, There Was Cross-Word Mania
5 min · · In its short lifespan, Wordle has already made the tricky transition from cult phenomenon to established part of our daily lives. Created by a software · Shared by 115, including Jane, Esther Schindler
Nieman Lab
A time before Wordle: Newspapers used to hate word puzzles
5 min · · Shared by 81, including Jane, Nir Eyal, Nieman Foundation, Carrie Brown
The New York Times
Progress Comes Only With Practice
4 min · · The lessons my grandfather taught me while we solved crossword puzzles went well beyond putting letters in squares. · Shared by 39, including Jane
Kotaku
The Surprisingly Messy Culture Wars Within The New York Times Crossword Puzzle
7 min · · While the crossword remains a word game mainstay, what's appropriate has changed with the times · Shared by 34, including Jane
The Public Domain Review
The Public Domain Review – Online journal dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available on the…
16+ min · · Just a few years after The Waste Land appeared — a poem whose difficulty critics compared to some “pompous cross-word puzzle” — Edward Powys Mathers (alias: Torquemada) pioneered the cryptic: a puzzle… · Shared by 22, including Jane
The New Yorker
Escaping Into the Crossword Puzzle
6 min · · If, by the dumb logic of my eating disorder, I was losing something special about myself by gaining weight, I was bolstering my self-esteem by creating crosswords, something I knew to be difficult,… · Shared by 89, including Jane, Steve Silberman