Students Puzzle Over Crosswords

Know a good crossword hint for a “no wine situation?” Think you can find the perfect words for the corners of a puzzle? The Harvard Crossword Society gave these challenges a shot at yesterday’s “Make Your Own Crossword” in Sever Hall.

Kyle A. Mahowald ’09, who has constructed crosswords for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications, explained the basics of the crossword craft to about half a dozen crossword enthusiasts.

Mahowald said this year’s Crossword Society public event was much more “low-key” than last year’s tournament, which brought famed New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz and 120 cross-wordsmiths.

The key to starting a crossword, Mahowald said, is to create several theme answers that fit symmetrically into the grid.

Next, he recommended finding long words that form “fun, interesting answers.”

As an example, Mahowald showed the group how he had constructed the grid for a crossword that will be printed in the Los Angeles Times.

He said the New York Times rejected the puzzle because its theme answers were all colloquial phrases.

A former intern for Shortz at The New York Times, Mahowald said the newspaper receives about 70 submissions a week.

“A lot of them are just really bad where you know immediately,” he said. “Half of them are serious submissions he goes through.”

To conclude yesterday’s event, Mahowald gave each participant a partially completed copy of a crossword he had recently constructed for the July-August in-flight magazine of Spirit Airlines, which commissioned Mahowald to create a puzzle after reading about him in a Miami newspaper.

The finished puzzle contained the answer to Mahowald’s challenge: the best clue for a “no wine situation?” “A teetotalers’ dinner party.”