Garret Chalfin, 19, a student of University of Chicago, has recently published a puzzle on the NYTimes Crossword. He said he spent over a year creating the puzzle of last Sunday – November 12, 2023. The theme of the puzzle was ‘Right on The money’. If you missed this particular one, you can go here to start solving it on New York Times website.
Garrett is a first-year student enrolled in philosophy and economics classes and says he enjoys creating crossword puzzles in his free time. Being featured in New York Times Crossword at 19 is no easy task, in fact it is an impressive feat for a crossword constructor of any age especially if you consider it is a Sunday puzzle not a Monday or Thursday puzzle. It took him more than 1 year of work and research and tweaking before submitting and being approved by Will Shortz.
The New Yorker balances his time between his studies and crossword-making activity, in fact this puzzle is not the first from him, it is his fourth puzzle and the second Sunday puzzle.
On our website the first puzzle bearing is name dates back to 08/01/22. Other puzzles by Garret include 01/22/23, 05/25/23.
Starting with Crossword Puzzles
Garret went to a summer camp, being the nerdy type of guy he wanted to develop a more engaging way for the entire group of students to interact with each other and crossword puzzles seemed like a meeting point for the entire group. He found that solving crosswords made it easier for the other students to connect and have fun.
Shortly after that he had the idea of making a puzzle with the intention of submitting it to the NYT Crossword staff. So he did, and was very quickly rejected – he was 13 at the time. Although Garret admittedly said the puzzle was not in par with the quality the puzzle demands he did not stop creating crosswords.
The next period of time which allowed him to focus on crosswords again, were the summer months during the pandemic. He was bored and looking for some fun activity to do and he came across a crossword making software and he started ‘flirting with it again’.
Why the theme of the puzzle?
He heard “right on the money” somewhere and the idea of using it for a theme for the puzzle popped up. He thought that would be a good idea to make a turning puzzle – which means answers from the puzzle turn between multiple answers on the crossword. So then he brewed the idea for almost a year. Getting a puzzle published by the New York Times Crossword stuff is not easy because they want something different, uncommon and a bit unpredictable if you will. So he spent a lot of time planning and brainstorming how he could polish the puzzle. The type of turning genre turned out to be something New York Times liked and accepted.
Making time for Crosswords
Garret says that for him, making crosswords is ideal. He enjoys them in the same way as gamers enjoy playing ps5 games or sports fans enjoy seeing their team play live. Crossword puzzles are his equivalent of those activities so they don’t disrupt anything.
Would Garret consider Puzzle making as a Full Time Job?
Garret says that if he was offered a full time crossword editing job position that would be hard for him to turn down. He feels like crosswords are a lifelong hobby for him and he can definitely see it as something he would do all the way till 90 years old.
Being that all you need to compile a crossword puzzle is a pencil and paper or a computer, he can do it from anywhere – Be it a plane, a train ride in Switzerland or anywhere in the world that has WiFi. It is very cool when you think about it, that you can have a job, a hobby, and a work place that you can chose and change as you demand. For many people those criteria would make up the definition of a dream job.