Will Shortz, Enigmatologist

Today, Will Shortz, puzzle-master and NYT crossword editor, spoke to a crowd of curious librarians and crossword solvers.

He told us about what makes a crossword up to his standards, and a little about how he edits the puzzles.

The Basics:

• Crossword puzzles in New York Times must be symmetrical. This is mostly for the aesthetic.
• Every letter must be “checked,” meaning that every letter in an across word, must also be in a down word and vice versa.
• Words should not have double letters.
• A word cannot be repeated within a single puzzle.

Oh, and one thing he said seems intuitive, but apparently isn’t: PUZZLES CANNOT HAVE MADE UP WORDS.

Will believes the clues to his puzzles should really make you think. He takes immense pride in his crosswords being creative. He said that in a great crossword, the grids should be packed with lively and colorful words and phrases.

Fun Facts:

• The youngest crossword “constructor” to be published in the NYT is 14 years young; he was published just this year.
• Will, himself, started writing crosswords at 16.
• Will usually writes (rewrites) about 50% of the clues of the published puzzles. For instance, a clue was submitted for the word aire: clue= "Leds river." Will changed the clue to: "suffix to zillion."

Then, of course, we played some games. One of which included Will giving us some examples of clues that had been submitted, but were incorrect in some way. We had to guess what made them inadequate crossword clues.

The librarians’ favorite:
Clue: Imply = Infer
****We all know that imply and infer are not synonyms!

Hearing Will talk was really interesting. Only at a place like ALA do you have the opportunity to get a glimpse into the mind of the man whose name you see every day on the NYT Crossword. I never thought of a crossword being about colorful language, but as Will was describing some of his favorite puzzles, it was easy to see the true artistry a “Shortz-caliber” puzzle exudes.

Day 3: The Speakers

David Isay
I love StoryCorps. A lot. I discovered it when one semester during grad school when I had a Friday morning class, and listened to StoryCorps on NPR as I drove in. I loved it. I love hearing regular people's stories. I love getting to hear stories from all sorts of different people, and I love the fact that the stories are archived and housed at the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress so people can listen to them for years to come. After that semester, I subscribed to the podcast so I could listen to it every week.

Thus far...

So when we got here, Arianna went to the first speaker session with David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. I'm sure she'll post something about this later, so I will leave it for her. Jamie and I went and got a couple of ARCs signed, a couple debut authors and one by Judith Viorst and Lane Smith. Very exciting. So far I've loaded up for the first time with books, and I'm quite excited to get some more later today. Oh, I would also just like to make a random note that I was standing next to Maggie Stiefvater earlier and she seems adorable, very unassuming and funny. Right now we're at the second speaker session, they're giving out awards and Will Shortz is the keynote. It's wonderful and a bit sad to see these awards given out: it's outstanding that these individuals are being recognized for their work but it continues to bring to mind that libraries and librarians are facing difficult times and must overcome so much. Anyways, we are patiently waiting for Will and trying to recoup from heavy bags and tired feet. Later on more ARCs, book signings, the President's Program, and book cart drill teams!

Oh, just so you all know we are planning on creating a spreadsheet of all the ARCs that we've gotten sometime in the next couple of days.

Day 2: The Speakers

We got to see some wonderful speakers today, so here's the run-down:

Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
The first speaker I saw today as part of the Auditorium Speaker Series was Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor. They talked about their upcoming book, Traveling with Pomegranates, a memoir that they co-wrote. Sue Monk Kidd mentioned that one of the things she's always asked about this book is if she and Ann are still speaking to each other, which she found very telling about mother-daughter relationships. She quoted a bit, from Adrienne Rich and a fabulous one from Lillian Carter: “Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin." Hee.