Constructors

Christopher Adams (he/him/his) is an indie puzzle maker currently living in Iowa City, Iowa. In addition to his own site, arctanxwords.blogspot.com, he has had puzzles published via The American Values Club Crossword, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times, among many other outlets.

Erik Agard (he/him) helps with the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory, a resource for puzzle makers from underrepresented groups.

Tracy Bennett (she/her) is a managing copy editor for Mathematical Reviews/MathSciNet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is the cofounder, with Laura Braunstein, of The Inkubator: puzzles by women — cis women, trans women, and woman-aligned constructors.

Eric Berlin is the author of the middle-grade novel "The Puzzling World of Winston Breen" and its sequels. His crosswords have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets. His most recent book is the puzzle collection Puzzlesnacks. His other charity puzzle project is The Social Distancing Puzzles.

Patrick Berry is a professional puzzle constructor whose work has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and many other publications. He is also the author of the Crossword Constructor's Handbook, a how-to book on crossword construction available at www.aframegames.com.

Evan Birnholz (he/him) is a professional puzzle constructor who has written the weekly crossword in The Washington Post Magazine since 2015. He lives in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife Vicki Jones and their cat Leeloo Dallas Multipass. Outside of puzzles, he sings in the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. You can find him on Twitter at @evanbirnholz.

Patrick Blindauer (he/him) is an actor and puzzle maker living in St. Louis, where he can also be found playing tabletop games with his wife, Rebecca, and his daughter, Magnolia. He published his first crossword in 2005, and has since written hundreds of puzzles, many crossword books, and seven suites of puzzles which can be found on his website, patrickspuzzles.com. Patrick is honored to be a part of this awesome project.

Derek Bowman (he/him) is an avid crossword constructor from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has constructed puzzles for his local gay publication Outwords and the Canadian queer-focused news publication Xtra, and he has a regular, bimonthly puzzle in Reader's Digest Canada.

Laura Braunstein (she/her) is a librarian in northern New Hampshire and the cofounder, with Tracy Bennett, of The Inkubator: puzzles by women — cis women, trans women, and woman-aligned constructors. Find her on Twitter at @laurabrarian.

Zhouqin Burnikel grew up in Xi'an, China. She worked in Guangzhou for six years before moving to the U.S. in 2001. She became a U.S. citizen in June 2010.

Nate Cardin (he/him/his) is a high school chemistry teacher in Los Angeles, where he lives with his husband and puppy. He is the founder and organizer of Queer Qrosswords, which has released two sets of LGBTQ+-themed puzzles written by LGBTQ+ constructors to benefit LGBTQ+ charities. His crosswords have appeared in The New York Times, The American Values Club Crossword, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Universal Crosswords, and Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest. Find him on Twitter (@naytnaytnayt) talking about crosswords, "Survivor," and being super gay.

Debbie Ellerin lives in Los Angeles. She is a long-time crossword solver who began constructing in 2014. She has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as other sites. She is a former computer programmer. She enjoys reading and traveling.

Sam Ezersky, associate puzzles editor for The New York Times, was thrilled by this opportunity to construct his first "indie-style" themeless in years. In addition to being part of the Times crossword's editorial team, he is the editor/creator of the digital word games Spelling Bee and Letter Boxed, and a cohost on Wordplay's weekly "Crosswords Live" series. You can follow him on Twitter at @thegridkid.

Rachel Fabi (she/her) is a longtime solver, newish constructor, and bi-weekly blogger of crossword puzzles. She is a professor of bioethics and "Jeopardy!" champion who enjoys bad puns, good trivia, and arguing about health policy and ethics on the internet (@faBioethics on Twitter).

Rebecca Falcon (she/her) lives in New York and works in operations for Broadway and film festivals. Her puzzles have been published in various outlets and she was the organizer of this year's Crosswords Women's March. She's on Twitter at @rebeccafalcon18.

Victor Fleming is a judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, and an adjunct faculty member at Bowen School of Law. As author or co-author, he's had 46 crosswords in The New York Times. He was in the 2006 documentary "Wordplay," performing his song "If You Don't Come Across, I'm Gonna Be Down." He has published 1,000+ crosswords in Simon & Schuster and Random House books, Games, The Rotarian, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Daily Record, Universal Press Syndicate, and other venues.

Neville Fogarty lives alone in Newport News, Virginia, where he works as a math professor. He sold his first crossword puzzle in 2008.

Lily Geller (she/her/hers) lives in Brooklyn, New York. She enjoys puzzles of most kinds and has a perpetual backlog of those, books, movies, and TV shows which will never get cleared.

Juliana Tringali Golden (she/her) lives in Oakland, California. She is a full-time editor and mother of two, and she contributes to The Inkubator as a managing editor. She has had puzzles published in The Inkubator and the American Values Club Crossword, with more to come in Crosswords Club and The New York Times.

Amy Goldstein is a puzzle writer whose solo and collaborative work for kids and adults has appeared in many books and major newspapers and magazines. Currently, The Week Junior magazine features weekly puzzles for kids by Amy and her partners at Puzzability. Amy runs the Bryant Park Crossword Tournament with Mike Shenk every September, though perhaps not in 2020. She also tests and checks all the puzzles for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post Magazine, and Fireball Crosswords.

Peter Gordon started Fireball Crosswords in 2010. He has been a puzzle book editor for Sterling Publishing for 23 years. He's had New York Times crosswords in five straight decades from the 1980s to today. On Twitter he's @XWORDS.

David Harris (he/him) is an IP attorney living in New York City with his husband. He's excited for this collection to have one of his first ever published puzzles, but no pressure to praise it or anything, he's totally not self-conscious. He recently started GridProQuo.blogspot.com, where he posts puzzles too nerdy or goofy to fly anywhere else, and is on Twitter at @hero_complex.

Francis Heaney (he/him) is a regular contributor to the American Values Club Crossword and the organizer and editor of 2017's Puzzles for Progress, a fundraiser for progressive causes created as a response to Trump's election. His puzzles have appeared in Games magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out, and numerous others. Besides having written a bunch of puzzle books, he is also the author of "Holy Tango of Literature," a collection of anagram-based literary pastiches, which sold exactly as well as you imagine. He's @fheaney on Twitter and @heaneyf on Instagram (where he mostly posts pictures of cats and ties).

Brooke Husic (she/her/hers) is a postdoc in math & computer science in Berlin, Germany. She contributes crossword puzzles to USA Today. You can find her on Twitter at @brookehus or her alter ego @xandraladee. Her Erdos number is 3.

Matt Jackson is a native of Washington, D.C. and past champion on the game show "Jeopardy!" on which he won 13 games in a row (as of now, the sixth-longest winning streak in the show's history) and was recently a runner-up in the 2019 "Jeopardy! All-Star Games." This is his debut published puzzle.

Jesse Lansner (he/him) lives in Rochester, New York, with his wife, kids, cats, and dog. When not solving or constructing puzzles, he works as a web developer and volunteers with the Rochester Community Players. You can find his puzzles at jklcrosswords.com, and you can find him on Twitter at @jesselansner.

Wyna Liu makes jewelry and crosswords in New York City, and is an assistant editor for The American Values Club Crossword. Her puzzles have appeared in that publication, as well as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Inkubator, among other venues. When she's not puzzling, she enjoys teaching yoga and hanging out with her dog, Polo. Find her on Instagram and Twitter at @wynaliu.

Todd McClary is a game designer from Aurora, Colorado. His design work includes escape rooms, immersive experiences, corporate puzzle events, murder mystery parties, parlor games, and crosswords. Todd is a regular contributor to Crosswords With Friends. His latest book is "Fresh Freestyle Crosswords."

Will Nediger (he/him) is a puzzle and trivia writer who lives in London, Ontario, whose crosswords can be found at blog.bewilderinglypuzzles.com.

Rich O'Malley (he/him) is a writer and editor who lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Christy. A former executive editor of The New York Daily News, Rich published his first book, "One Lucky Fan: From Bleachers to Box Seats, Chasing the Ultimate Sports Dream to Visit All 123 MLB, NBA, NFL & NHL Teams" in June 2019. He made his cruciverbalist debut last year during guest constructor month for Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest. He's on The Tweeties (@richomalley) and The Intertubes (richomalley.com).

Joon Pahk (he/him) is a puzzle maker who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. His crosswords have appeared in the usual newspaper sources, along with tournaments like Lollapuzzoola and Boswords. He now constructs Rows Gardens and other variety puzzles for his subscription puzzle service, Outside the Box Puzzles.

Doug Peterson has been constructing puzzles for over 15 years, and his crosswords regularly appear in most of the usual places. When not solving or creating puzzles, he likes to read comic books and listen to heavy metal music, preferably at the same time.

Brendan Emmett Quigley has been a professional puzzle maker since 1996. When not weaving words, he plays a 1933 Royal in the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. Brendan lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife Liz and their daughter Tabitha.

Amanda Rafkin (she/her) is a Los Angeles-based musical theater pianist and crossword constructor. Her puzzles have been published with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Universal, The American Values Club Crossword, The Atlantic, and The Inkubator. She also posts daily puzzles at amandarafkin.blogspot.com. You can find her on twitter at @AmandaRafkin.

Caitlin Reid lives in Orange County, California. She's currently a stay-at-home mom to her four young children and has been making crossword puzzles in any spare time she can muster since 2017. Her puzzles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Inkubator, and other venues. If she's not with her family or a crossword, you can find her playing piano.

Claire Rimkus lives in Massachusetts and enjoys both making and solving puzzles.

Anna-Marie Ruoff (she/her/hers) is an exotic animal veterinarian, science nerd, and puzzle enthusiast. She lives in Arizona with her partner, four lizards, and a tortoise (appropriately named Puzzle). She has written puzzles for The Inkubator and Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest. Anna-Marie also enjoys tea, escape rooms, video games, and hiking.

Mike Selinker (he/him) is a game and puzzle designer from Seattle, Washington. His books include the puzzle novel The Maze of Games, Puzzlecraft: How to Make Every Kind of Puzzle, and Game Theory in the Age of Chaos. He owns the game company Lone Shark Games, and is known for developing games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Lords of Vegas, and Unspeakable Words. You can reach him on Twitter at @mikeselinker and you can find more of his charity puzzles at Lone Shark Games and Puzzle Pop.

Sid Sivakumar (he/him) is an MD/PhD student and word nerd based in St. Louis, Missouri. He contributes crosswords to various publications, including The New York Times and The American Values Club Crossword. He also runs his own indie puzzle site, Sid's Grids. If he's not working on research, puzzles, or music, he might be eating your food.

Robin Stears is a writer and crossword puzzle constructor who has published three novels and thousands of crossword puzzles. She aspires to a life of creating, drinking coffee, and hanging out with Santa Claus.

Ken Stern (he/him) lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, two school-age children, and dog. An avid solver and once-in-a-while constructor, he is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this collection. He works for the Advanced Placement (AP) program at the College Board, and enjoys coffee, trivia, and periodically writing a #crypticclueoftheday on Twitter at @ckstern.

Matthew Stock (he/him) lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he teaches ninth-grade algebra through an Americorps-affiliated fellowship. He has been contributing work for various puzzle publications since December 2019, and he now runs his own site at happylittlepuzzles.com. When he's not constructing crosswords, Matthew can be found playing pickup basketball or posting photos of his kitten on Twitter (@1MatthewStock).

Ross Trudeau (he/him) is a writer and educator in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His puzzles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Universal Crosswords, and many other outlets. He publishes a weekly independent puzzle at Rossword Puzzles.

Robyn Weintraub lives in Westchester County, New York and has been constructing crosswords for ten years. Her puzzles have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The Inkubator, Crosswords With Friends, and other venues. She has also constructed puzzles for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, Lollapuzzoola and the "West Wing Weekly" podcast. Last, but hardly least, her name includes all five vowels and the letter Y.