Seven crossword constructors fighting for better representation in the beloved puzzle
'It is such a multicultural world, and I think that the crossword puzzle has an obligation to reflect that'
Since the first-known crossword was published in 1913, crossword puzzles have amused and delighted the world. They're now found in almost every language and country.
But some influential cruciverbalists — people who are skilled at creating or solving crosswords — say the beloved puzzle needs an update.
For decades, crossword answers and clues have been heavily influenced by those in charge of publishing them — typically heterosexual white men. The lived experiences of today's crossword solvers, however, often don't align with those of the editors, making for very different frames of reference.
Nova Scotia-based constructors Tass and Lita Williams want to see more crosswords made by women — and are leading by example. Nate Cardin created his own publication, Queer Qrosswords, after noticing a lack of LGBTQ representation in puzzles. Soleil St-Cyr, a Black constructor who became the youngest woman to have a crossword published in the New York Times, is making sure her voice is heard.
They're part of a growing group of crossword enthusiasts featured in Across and Down, a documentary from The Passionate Eye, who believe puzzles need to reflect the diversity of the people who solve them.
Here is a selection of their commentary from the film, plus thoughts from other cruciverbalists about the issue of inclusion. (Their quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Tass and Lita Williams
These sisters from Dartmouth, N.S., were raised in a puzzle-loving family. After more than 40 years of solving crosswords, they decided to try making their own — a journey that got off to a very rocky start. Joining a Facebook group dedicated to constructing crosswords was game-changing, Lita says.
Lita: We construct crossword puzzles. We've been doing so for about two years. My sister does the theme portion of the thing, and I do the construction.
Tass: I find my crossword themes everywhere and anywhere. The grocery store. You look at billboards. You're reading something. Driving in the car.
Lita: It's not been an easy thing for a lot of women to get their puzzles published.
People want to have a reflection of themselves in their entertainment, rather than just a certain subsection of the population being represented, right? You want to see men, women. All cultures should be represented.
I was on Facebook and I saw a link to the Inkubator, which is an online independent puzzle site that focuses on puzzles for and by women.
[Having a] mentorship aspect has brought our game up to the point where we can actually sell a puzzle now.
Tass: It just was amazing to see our names together, Lita and Tass Williams, on a byline together forever.
Natan Last
This crossword constructor from Brooklyn, N.Y., works in research, advocacy and technology for the U.S. government. He recently nabbed a deal for his book about crosswords: "a study of the influx of attention on the crossword puzzle, and the staggering new talents — from computer scientists to film critics to comedians — attempting to remake this curious cultural object in their image."
People love puzzles and see [them] both as diversions and as an art form.
There were tons of voices in the crossword community who, sort of, long felt either silenced or underrepresented or pushed aside when it came to questions of what's a fair crossword answer. A lot of people who love crossword puzzles are now coming around to the fact that crossword puzzles have to change.
I worked at the New York Times as an editorial assistant when I was in college, and it was a real insider's look into how the puzzles got made. But I think it also made me realize that one person can have a ton of power, sometimes outsized power, in what got published and what didn't.
We're at a moment when people are demanding more of their newspapers, their local businesses, the communities they're in, in terms of being inclusive and sensitive.
[After an ethnic slur was used as an answer in a New York Times puzzle,] alarm bells were sounded by all sorts of voices. There was an enormous backlash afterwards. Constructors, solvers reached out. They were very much up in arms.
I think the main point was just to say this is far from isolated, and it's been happening for so long that it's reached a fever pitch and needs addressing.
And so we wrote an open letter [to the Times] asking for personnel shifts.… A kind of public commitment to adding diversity to its editorial staff.
Nancy Serrano-Wu
At the beginning of the documentary, this immigration attorney and crossword enthusiast from Belmont, Mass., says her puzzles have been rejected by the New York Times 11 times, but she remains focused on her goal of contributing a puzzle to the publication. She says some of her earliest memories of crosswords were from elementary school; her parents had come to the U.S. from Colombia, and always had newspapers around to help them learn English.
There are a lot of different publications — and don't get me wrong, I would love to be published in those as well — but I want to be published in the New York Times. That is my goal. That is 100 per cent my goal.
My parents are from Colombia, South America. My husband is Chinese-American, and we have raised our family with both cultures.
I need to construct these puzzles that reflect my knowledge, my culture, my experience, which I think is pretty varied…. It is such a multicultural world and I think that the crossword puzzle has an obligation to reflect that.
In the crossword world, there needs to be better representation in the constructors that are published in the newspaper. It's important for people who are, you know, the child of immigrants from South America to see Colombia not advertised as a narco country. It's just time to change the narrative. So, I felt like, well, that's what I'm going to do.
Recently, I've been working with a mentor, and he had a crossword puzzle published in The Atlantic, and I gasped because he was able to put in "AREPAS" as a Colombian or Venezuelan treat. As opposed to switching it to "ARENA," right?
Some people say the regular constructor would know "ARENA." Well, I'm the regular constructor and I would know "AREPA," and it makes me feel seen.
So, I've been trying to add words, myself, that represent me. These things, I think they do matter because they let you be seen, but they're also a window, an opportunity to let you learn new areas.
Soleil St-Cyr
This Harvard student and New Jersey native made her New York Times Crossword debut in February 2021 at the age of 17, making her the youngest woman to have a puzzle accepted by the publication. She found her mentor, expert constructor Ross Trudeau, when he published an open call to help puzzlers from underrepresented backgrounds, including women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ community.
The root of the [inclusion] problem was that crossword constructing was kind of stuck, like it was just a big boulder that's not moving anywhere and the world is moving a lot faster than it.
I can think, off the top of my head, maybe two or three Black constructors who regularly contribute, which is crazy.
When you see a puzzle that has clues that might relate to your life or something that you yourself have experienced — or at least something that is within your realm of knowledge — then it makes you feel a little bit better. It makes you want to solve more puzzles. It also makes you feel a bit smarter, I think.
I love listening to music, and sometimes I like seeing recent album releases and their titles in crossword puzzles. Me or a friend of mine would see that [and] be like, "Oh my gosh, I actually know this!"
I was reached out to by the New York Times, saying they were doing a Black puzzle constructors week and that they knew I had made puzzles and they would like to put me in the issue.
It was really exciting just to know that … I could produce something of New York Times quality work.
Ross Trudeau
This writer and digital media producer, from Cambridge, Mass., is an expert constructor — his puzzles have appeared in publications including the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. After colleagues started pointing out his themes disproportionately featured white men, he left the aforementioned note — offering to mentor constructors from underrepresented communities — on one of his New York Times puzzles.
When I started solving in the early 2000s, the New York Times crossword puzzle was generally thought of as the domain of the erudite Ivy League crowd, of which I was one.
People like me were under the impression that the crossword was for them because we saw ourselves in the crossword. But that wouldn't have held true for people who didn't grow up in New York City, who weren't reading the New York Times.
I threw my strong support behind the people who organized [the open letter calling for change].
That was an inciting incident for a lot of us. It did prompt individuals like me to think long and hard about the ways in which we were contributing — or not contributing — to equity in crossworld.
In 2020, I decided that I was going to stop sending the Times solo-constructed puzzles, so I started mentoring a lot of people.
I talked to [St-Cyr] about word lists and some crossword conventions, and she was off to the races.
It requires a little bit of kind of inborn audacity for a teenager to say, "My voice is worthy of inclusion," and to Soleil's credit, she said exactly that — and that is just what crossworld needs more of.
Nate Cardin
This chemistry teacher from Los Angeles, and recent Wheel of Fortune contestant, describes himself on Twitter as: "Anti-racist. Feminist. Relentlessly gay." Frustrated with aspects of the crossword industry, he helped launch Queer Qrosswords to bring "more queer representation in crosswords to make sure that everyone feels included."
I want everyone to feel like they can tackle crosswords or be a part of it.
I will candidly admit that, for the longest time, I thought crosswords were for people who are smarter than I am. And that's coming from someone who went to an Ivy League school, then got a PhD at Stanford and now teaches at a top private school. And that's not to toot my own horn, but that's just to say that even with all that, I thought I wasn't smart enough to do crosswords or solve them or make them.
I think part of what I've realized through all of my work in crosswords — both in solving and in constructing — is that being "smart enough" for crosswords isn't so much on the people solving them, but a lot of it is on the puzzle itself and what gets included. If you're solving a puzzle that only has a bunch of baseball players from a hundred years ago … then of course it's going to feel hard.
My biggest beef has always been clues that make very overt assumptions. So, like when the clue is "husband's spouse." … Oh, you mean "wife." Because you assume that I'm straight.
It feels like you're being left out of the cultural conversation.
So I — either foolishly or bravely — [decided], "I'm going to get a whole bunch of queer crossword constructors together, have them write puzzles based on whatever they want, and put them together."
Part of it is, "If you don't want to include us, we'll just go do our own thing." Part of it, practically, is to give ourselves an outlet, to give ourselves a voice, to give ourselves a space where we can be ourselves and reflect our identities. But I think part of it is also to try to move the needle across all the different institutions.
Watch Across & Down on The Passionate Eye.
