28 Facts About Will Shortz

William F Shortz was born on August 26,1952 and is an American puzzle creator and editor who is the crossword editor for The New York Times.

Will Shortz graduated from Indiana University with a degree in the invented field of enigmatology.

Will Shortz was born on August 26,1952, and raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Will Shortz was drawn to puzzles at an early age; in eighth grade he wrote a paper titled "Puzzles as a Profession".

At age 16, Will Shortz began regularly contributing crossword puzzles to Dell Publishing.

Will Shortz eventually graduated from Indiana University in 1974, and is the only person known to hold a college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles.

Will Shortz wrote his thesis about the history of American word puzzles.

Will Shortz achieved this by designing his own curriculum through Indiana University's Individualized Major Program.

Will Shortz earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, but did not sit for the bar exam and began a career in puzzles instead.

Will 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.

Will Shortz is a member and historian of the National Puzzlers' League.

Will Shortz began his career at Penny Press Magazines, then moved to Games magazine for 15 years, and was its editor from 1989 to 1990, when the magazine temporarily folded.

Will Shortz was rehired in late 1991, then let go in August 1993.

Will Shortz has been the puzzle master on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday since the program was started in 1987.

Will Shortz is the founder of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and has been its director since that time.

Will Shortz founded the World Puzzle Championship in 1992 and is a director of the US Puzzle Team.

Will Shortz is 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.

In February 2009, Will 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.

Will Shortz has said that his favorite crossword of all time is the Election Day crossword of November 5,1996, designed by Jeremiah Farrell.

Will Shortz has co-owned the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville, New York since 2009, and has been playing table tennis daily for the past 11 years.

In 2017, Will Shortz published a Times crossword by a prisoner named Lonnie Burton who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old boy, in addition to having burglary and robbery charges, prompting backlash from some solvers.

Will Shortz did not include the reason for Burton's imprisonment in his accompanying blog post.

In 2019, The New York Times issued an apology after Will Shortz chose to publish the racial slur "BEANER" in the crossword, cluing it as "Pitch to the head, informally".

Will Shortz admitted that he saw the derogatory definition when he researched the word, but claimed he had never personally heard it, and explained that as long as a word has a "benign" meaning, it meets his editorial standards for publication.

In 2012, Will Shortz set a goal for himself to play table tennis every day for a year, but surpassed his goal, playing for 1000 consecutive days, and then eventually reaching a streak of 10 years in 2022.

Will Shortz came out as gay in an interview with The New Yorker in February 2023.

Will Shortz, who had a history of untreated hypertension, had a stroke at home on February 4,2024, and a second larger stroke while being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital.