Editor
Mara Quill
Grid construction & cluing
Mara edits PuzzleMakers and has been building crosswords since a rainy summer spent filling graph paper with 11x11 grids that nobody solved. She writes mostly about construction: black-square budgets, theme development, and the long unglamorous work of cleaning up fill.
Her standing advice to new constructors is to finish a bad puzzle rather than abandon a good one, on the grounds that you only learn where a grid breaks by taking it all the way to a clue list.
On the record
- 60+ published crosswords across daily and indie outlets
- Test-solves for three independent puzzle newsletters
- Writes the PuzzleMakers construction column
Writes about
How to Make a Crossword Puzzle
The mindset, the rules and the tips: a complete walk through building a crossword from a blank grid to a finished clue list.
Why the First Twelve Squares of a 15x15 Grid Matter Most
Theme entries, symmetry and the black square budget: a tour of the top-left corner, where most crosswords are won or lost.
Nonograms Are Pixel Art You Solve With Arithmetic
How to read the clue numbers, where beginners stall, and three techniques that unlock harder grids.
The Case Against the Crosswordese Blacklist
ERNE, OLEO and friends have been banned by convention for decades. It is worth asking what the ban is actually buying.
Making Word Searches for Classrooms and Care Homes
Two audiences with almost opposite vocabularies and nearly identical design constraints. What changes when the puzzle has a job to do.
One good puzzle a week. No filler.
New articles, constructor notes and a fresh mini crossword every Sunday. Free, and easy to leave.