WILL SHORTZ, born on this date, is an American puzzle creator and editor who is the crossword editor for The New York Times. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in the invented field of enigmatology. After starting his career at Penny Press and Games magazine, he was hired by The New York Times in 1993. Shortz’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is the country’s oldest and largest crossword tournament.

Shortz was raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was drawn to puzzles at an early age; in eighth grade he wrote a paper titled “Puzzles as a Profession”. (The paper earned him a B+.) At age 13, Shortz wrote to Language on Vacation author Dmitri Borgmann for advice on how to pursue a career in puzzles. At age 16, Shortz began regularly contributing crossword puzzles to Dell Publishing. He eventually graduated from Indiana University in 1974, and is the only person known to hold a college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles. Shortz wrote his thesis about the history of American word puzzles. Shortz achieved this by designing his own curriculum through Indiana University’s Individualized Major Program. He also earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law (1977), but did not sit for the bar exam and began a career in puzzles instead. Shortz is the author or editor of more than 100 books and owns over 20,000 puzzle books and magazines dating back to 1545, reportedly the world’s largest private library on the subject. He is a member and historian of the National Puzzlers’ League.

Shortz has been the puzzle master on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday since the program was started in 1987. He is the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (1978), and has been its director since that time. He founded the World Puzzle Championship in 1992 and is a director of the U.S. Puzzle Team. Shortz is also a weekly guest on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday where he hosts the Sunday Puzzle, a cooperative game between the show’s host and one of the show’s listeners. The lucky player is picked randomly from a group of submissions containing the correct answer to a qualifier puzzle issued the week before.

In February 2009, Shortz helped introduce the KenKen puzzle into The New York Times. In 2013, Shortz lent his name and talents in puzzle writing and editing to a new bimonthly publication entitled Will Shortz’ WordPlay, published by Penny Press. He has said that his favorite crossword of all time is the Election Day crossword of November 5, 1996, designed by Jeremiah Farrell. It had two correct solutions with the same set of clues, one saying that the “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper (!)” would be “BOB DOLE ELECTED”, and the other correct solution saying “CLINTON ELECTED”. His favorite individual clue is “It might turn into a different story” (whose solution is SPIRAL STAIRCASE).

Shortz, who had a history of untreated hypertension, had a stroke at home in February 2024, and a second larger stroke while being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital. He received intravenous thrombolysis. He began rehabilitation at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, transferred in March to a subacute facility close to his home, and in April had returned home. As of November 2024 he was still in therapy as an outpatient multiple days per week. During Shortz’s hospitalization and initial recovery, Joel Fagliano oversaw editing of the crossword for The New York Times through December 2024. Shortz, while still in recovery, returned to edit the crossword starting December 30, 2024

Shortz came out as gay in an interview with The New Yorker in February 2023. He married his husband in August 2023.