I earmarked it for a Wednesday, because the theme consists of straight-forward English, but it's a little playful. You can see the new letters in blue, where I've amended the manuscript. But this was big enough that I asked her to revise the grid. The answer was LORELAI, and the sirens on the Rhine are of course 'Lorelei,' with an 'e-i.' Liz's clue was Rory's mom on Gilmore Girls, and I didn't think solvers should have to know that. There was one thing about the construction I didn't like, and that was at 35 Down. Liz is great at putting fresh entries at the short spaces of a grid. This puzzle came from Elizabeth Gorski, one of the pros. Why accept a puzzle when I'm going to edit 95 percent of the clues? Well, if someone sends me a great puzzle with an excellent theme and construction-you want fresh, interesting, familiar vocabulary throughout the grid-I feel it would be a shame to reject it on account of the clues, because I can always change them myself. I may edit as few as five or ten percent of the clues, or as many as 95 percent for someone who does a great puzzle but not great clues. On average, about half the clues are mine. Here Shortz shares a submission from Elizabeth Gorski, along with his edits and his thoughts on what makes a good puzzle.Įvery crossword in the Times is a collaboration between the puzzle-maker and the puzzle editor.

Accepted puzzles are arranged in ascending difficulty throughout the week, with the Saturday puzzle the most daunting and the Sunday edition the largest. Each crossword is drawn from a pool of freelance submissions-roughly 75 to 100 per week-with the accepted puzzles edited and often heavily revised by Shortz. In that film, aficionados such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton attest to their love of Shortz's puzzles, which are in fact only partly his. In 1978 he founded the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, a competition which became the subject of the 2006 documentary Wordplay. The only known person to hold a degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles, he has been the puzzle master for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's inception in 1987. Will Shortz has served as the crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times since 1993.

Crossword nytimes hints