The Year In Crosswords, 2017
A diamond anniversary, a few famous guest constructors, and a new celebrity-heavy feature were highlights in a year that had a lot of people looking for puzzles to provide relaxing escapes.
But even this space wasn’t entirely free of controversy. Reality doesn’t always conform to the breakfast test, and 2017 was… 2017.
A caveat: this is a volunteer work assembled in my spare time. Any errors or omissions are mine, and if I’m alerted to anything I feel should’ve been included, I’ll revise accordingly.
Crossword Features
The big new feature of the year appears to be Crosswords with Friends, available for Android, iOS, and Facebook. The product of a partnership between Zynga and People Magazine, with generally People-inspired content, Zynga appears to be aiming for the easy-solvin’, mainstream-celeb-obsessed segment served by Daily Celebrity Crossword. The contributor list is one that any newspaper crossword would be proud to sport.
Penny Dell Crosswords also moved into the app space, though without People’s marketing muscle or notable contributor names.
AppyNation launched a much simpler crossword with a graphic-clue interface for younger users (or ESL students).
Wayne Robert Williams retired his syndicated feature this year, and Oregonian editor Mark Katches found himself hard pressed to replace it. His account sheds some light on basic issues of the newspaper market.
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
The not-so-failing New York Times had a strong 2017 for, oh, all kinds of reasons, but its celebration of its 75th year in the crossword business didn’t hurt. It might have gotten an early start on the year with its largest-ever puzzle in December of 2016, the Super Mega, part of an annual feature called Puzzle Mania, which returned in even more force this year. 2016’s crossword was 50x50, 2017’s was 53x53… and the 2017 cover included a 200-space spiral crossword, another record-setter.
It updated its puzzle-serving architecture and started running its Daily Mini feature on Snapchat Discover…
…which recently included an emoji as a clue (a breakthrough noted at the end of this celebratory piece).
This December also saw an NYT-sponsored “Crossword Crossing” overseas cruise in partnership with Cunard, featuring several key members of the puzzle staff: crossword columnist Deb Amlen, digital puzzle editor Joel Fagliano, and Ben Zimmer… though only the pre-cruise package involved an appearance by the NYT’s chief crossword editor, Will Shortz.
It also welcomed its youngest-ever constructor.
The Times’ chief 2017 innovation was a set of crosswords co-authored by famous figures, spaced out over the year. While their veteran partners ensured the puzzles wouldn’t stray too far from Times standards, these celebrities helped put friendly faces on the usually impersonal grid. And again, these little diversions were entirely uncontroversial…
…though in one case, that was a bit of lucky timing.
Bill Clinton’s link to the NYT puzzle goes back a ways: he worked with Shortz on a special online-only crossword published in 2007 and appeared as a solver in Wordplay, the principal documentary about the field. He also had a starring role in the puzzle Shortz has called his all-time favorite. But times change, and without getting too far into the reassessment of Clinton, this puzzle might have drawn more controversy if it had been released in October or November. We may remember 2017 as the last year a politician could author a Times puzzle quietly.
If the NYT dodged that bullet, it didn’t dodge Shortz’s decision to publish the work of Lonnie Burton, an Aberdeen inmate more than halfway through a 46-year sentence. Shortz and Burton both appealed to anyone’s right to pursue redemption, but the severity of Burton’s crime, to which he has confessed (see the link below if you need to know) was a lot for some puzzle fans to swallow.
It’s worth noting that another inmate in another prison is the editor and sole contributor to a crossword feature — admittedly, one with a distribution limited to within the San Quentin State Prison walls.
All this attention, good and bad, affects business. The NYT may have had a robust year, but revenues are still well below what they were a decade ago. Users next year will likely get the ability to subscribe simply to the crossword without subscribing to the rest of the paper — so maintaining that crossword’s image is vital.
But if the NYT can occasionally put a foot wrong, Timothy Parker puzzles are like, “Hold my beer.”
Worst Puzzle of 2017
Books
Paolo Bacilieri has composed a graphic novel that’s part crossword history, part detective fiction, and the most remarkable, unique “crossword book” of the year.
Classic British cruciverbalist Torquemada also published a detective story back in 1934, a story with scrambled pages and the victims’ identities as mysterious as the villains’. Part of a larger puzzle book, its solution has been lost for more than 80 years — and found just now.
Other Media
On TV, Wheel of Fortune’s crossword feature doesn’t seem to have caught on. It returned for one installment, with less than auspicious results.
On the other hand, Monster High: Adventures of the Ghoul Squad challenged its viewers with episode-specific trivia, an unusual use of the word game in a popular children’s media franchise.
The British comedy-horror anthology Inside № 9 did an episode linked to a puzzle simultaneously published in The Guardian, a trick reminiscent of “Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words” and that Simpsons episode’s corresponding puzzle in the NYT.
Tournaments
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was dominated by familiar faces after last year’s surprise upset, but the finals were still compelling viewing with a surprise twist of their own:
The tournament honored Manny Nosowsky with the second annual MEmoRiaL Award, named for the late Merl Reagle.
Though Dan Feyer and Tyler Hinman’s ACPT streaks are legendary in the States, there’s one tournament champ who has them both beat: Mark Goodliffe, whose Times National Crossword Championship streak in the UK is now unbroken after more than a decade.
International Markets
The Guardian and the Bangalore Mirror discuss the issues that British and Indian crossword-solvers face, as certain kinds of crosswords are normally imported from other nations and rely on trivia they’re unlikely to encounter in their everyday lives. Can an “American-style” crossword work with British-style clues? The Guardian also compares practices in Germany with those in Britain.
Constructors
Just as the year was ending, one of the field’s giants passed away: retired New York Magazine crossword editor Maura Jacobson, who enjoyed a 31-year run at the magazine and an even longer run contributing to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Linked below are New York’s retirement announcement and an obituary notice from Shortz.
Roger Squires, the world’s most prolific constructor, has retired at 85.
The constructor known only as Paul is probably the first to do most of the work of building a cryptic crossword while running. No word on whether this provides more cognitive benefit than making a crossword while standing still.
Will Nediger introduced video links to crossword clues.
Most Disappointing Solve of the Year
Crossword games are a regular form of gambling, but big winners like Devery Carr ($250,000) don’t need to show much in the way of solving skill. In October, Donna Pirie was offering a giant jackpot to solvers willing to tackle a very easy Christmas crossword: a fully furnished mansion valued at 1.7 million pounds, over $2.2 million. The 25-pound entry fees, allegedly, were meant for a Dundee-based charity.
But Pirie has twice extended the deadline, allegedly to raise more money. The action instead raises eyebrows, and a question: if she was willing to donate her home and wanted to help a charity, wouldn’t it be more effective just to donate her home to the charity directly?
Yeah, that’s a puzzler.