Alumni Profile
Will Shortz
BA'74, Individualized Major Program — Enigmatology
New York Times crossword puzzle editor, Pleasantville, N.Y.
"Figure out what you like in life and go after it. Whatever it is that you
want to do, whether it's something odd or something ordinary, go after it."
Will Shortz
Can you solve this puzzle? The Bard (abbrev.) + comic actor Martin + Z. Give up? It's IU alumnus Will Shortz, an independent thinker, passionate scholar, and lover of puzzles who followed a unique route to career success.
Raised on an Arabian horse farm near Crawfordsville, Ind., Will Shortz developed a keen interest in puzzles as a boy. He was 14 when he sold his first puzzle to a national Sunday school magazine, and by 16 was regularly contributing puzzles to Dell puzzle magazines.
Shortz majored in economics at Indiana University and had completed all the requirements for his degree when he learned of the Bloomington campus's Individualized Major Program. This challenging program gives students the opportunity to create their own degrees. Shortz's lifelong dream of having a career in puzzles led him to create a degree program in "enigmatology" — the art and science of puzzle construction.
"Not surprisingly, IU offered no courses in puzzles, so I created my own curriculum," said Shortz. These courses included "20th-Century American Word Puzzles," "Construction of Crosswords," "Anagrams," "Popular Mathematical Puzzles," "Logic Puzzles," "Crossword Magazines," and "The Psychology of Puzzles." Each semester Shortz found a professor in a related department who was willing to work with him on the topic.
His fondest memories of attending IU include listening to piano music while studying at the Indiana Memorial Union, reading in the newspaper stacks at the library, and parties downtown at a pub called The Fiddler's Green. His fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, also holds a special place in his heart. Shortz also earned a law degree from the University of Virginia, with the intention of "practicing law for 10 years, making a lot of money, and then retiring to do what I really wanted — create puzzles," he said. But law was not creative enough for him, and he soon accepted a more appealing job offer: the editorship of Games magazine. He edited the magazine for 15 years before succeeding the late Eugene T. Maleska as editor of the popular New York Times crossword puzzle.
In addition to editing the New York Times crossword, Shortz creates weekly puzzles for National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday. As the "Puzzle Master", Shortz can be heard on WFIU every Sunday morning. Shortz founded the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and the World Puzzle Championship. He captains the U.S. team, which boasts several first- and second-place finishes.
Shortz was featured in the 2006 documentary film Wordplay. The movie, directed by Patrick Creadon, traces Shortz's career, spotlights the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and contains appearances by many celebrity fans of the New York Times puzzle.
"Figure out what you like in life and go after it," Shortz advises. "Whatever it is that you want to do, whether it's something odd or something ordinary, go after it."