Data editor
Priya Anand
Puzzle data & difficulty
Priya writes the data side of PuzzleMakers. She keeps a spreadsheet of several hundred published grids and uses it to answer questions that usually get answered by vibes — how much harder a Thursday really is, how often a given entry recurs, what a fair clue length looks like.
She is a decent solver and an honest one: she records her own solve times even when they embarrass her.
On the record
- Maintains a 400-grid difficulty dataset
- Background in statistics and data journalism
- Writes the PuzzleMakers numbers column
Writes about
What Makes a Monday Crossword a Monday
Difficulty curves explained, from clue phrasing to word length, using numbers pulled from 400 published grids.
Logic Grid Puzzles and the Zebra Problem
Five houses, five nationalities, five drinks. The puzzle that taught a generation how to think in constraint tables, and how to build your own.
How to Get Your First Crossword Published
Submission guidelines, response times, pay rates and what editors actually reject - with the rejections sorted by frequency.
How a Puzzle Proves It Has Exactly One Solution
Uniqueness is the quiet contract behind every good logic puzzle. Here is how setters actually check it, and what happens when they do not.
The Hidden Message Word Search Explained
The leftover letters are the best part of the format, and almost nobody uses them. How the technique works and how to plan one that fits.
A Short History of the Crossword from 1913 to Your Phone
One newspaper filler puzzle, a moral panic, a publishing empire and a subscription app. The century that made the format.
One good puzzle a week. No filler.
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