“Three out of my four grandparents also did crosswords and we’d solve them together. “Mom used to do a lot of puzzles, so I’d solve crosswords with her,” he says. Now 29, Croce’s interest in crossword puzzles began when he solved kiddy-style puzzles for kindergarten assignments by age 9 or 10, he was doing newspaper-style crosswords. “My goal is to hit for the cycle, having a puzzle published in The New York Times on every day of the week,” he says. To date, Croce’s puzzles have been published on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as this story goes online, several of his puzzles are slated for Tuesday publication and another is scheduled for a Monday. The Times’ daily crossword puzzles grow increasingly difficult from Monday to Saturday, and each earns its creator $200 Sunday’s puzzle is so complex the newspaper pays its creator $1,000. Only the most expert solvers can probably do it!” “Unfortunately, it’s a Saturday puzzle,” says Will Shortz, New York Times puzzle editor, “which is one of Tim’s specialties. Just try matching wits with him by attempting to solve the puzzle accompanying this story, recently published in The Times and reproduced with permission. For the solution, see below.Ĭreative and competitive are two other adjectives that aptly describe Croce’s personality. A crossword by Tim Croce ’05 (ENG), reproduced from the New York Times with permission.

Croce has created more than 25 crossword puzzles for The New York Times (answer to 1/Down). Intrigued? You may be a cruciverbalist, one of three words Tim Croce ’05 (ENG) (answer to 1/Across) uses to describe himself. The pre-eminent publisher of the cleverest, most engaging, and at times trickiest crossword puzzles. Met his wife while both performed in the Pride of Connecticut.ġ.

Newspaper crossword puzzle maker