Anna Shechtman has also authored a book called ‘The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle’ which is available on Amazon too.
Anna was a in early adolescence when she found out that here are are real people behind puzzles that she played after seeing a documentary called Wordplay. She then went home and started experimenting with puzzles in her math class papers. Later she started sending puzzles to the New York times Crossword Editor Will Shortz (who was featured on the documentary). Even why the initial puzzles were up to par with the quality needed, Shortz encouraged her and eventually she got her puzzle published on The New York Times Crossword at around 19 years of age. Later Anna ended up getting the role of becoming Will Shortz assistant and as of right now she makes crosswords regularly for The New Yorker.
Last year she did an interview on Shannon Henry Kleiber podcast about the women in the puzzle word and how crosswords are a common language between different groups of people the podcast is available on Apple Podcasts in the link below
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/57-do-more-crosswords-the-sexual-politics-of/id1680330412
Some interesting questions that Anna Shechtman answered in the podcast.
q: Did you include words that were not previously used in Puzzles?
a:Every puzzle created its a reflection of ideas of its maker and somehow it showcases their fields of interest and worldview. Some of the early puzzle words she introduced were
vine-ripe, gay anthem, and she tried to include male-gaze but it was not approved by shortz at the time.
a:Was there any debate about what clues were puzzle-worthy?
q:There is always some debate because it has to do with the anticipated puzzle audience. Will has always been trying to make the puzzle as inclusive as possible. But I am sure the inclusiveness concept has changed and evolved for him as time has passed. Will wanted to allow as many people as possible to solve the puzzles without much frustration. This has always been his line of thought and the reason why Will did not often approve of words that were called ‘niche’ at the time and very few could comprehend some of these niches were for example Black Culture,Queer, Women’s etc. For reference we are talking about the time around 2010-12.
q: So is the job of a crossword puzzle to entertain and to challenge?
Is the goal of a crossword puzzle to challenge and to entertain the player?
Or is it to help the audience create a common knowledge together that in a sense helps people feel a connection?
a: Both are equally important and should be the goal of a puzzle maker. You try to imagine a puzzle solver. What they like? How they feel about certain topics? My personal experience while solving a puzzle that I like is only if I put an effort to play with words to get to the answer. A clue Anna wrote is ‘Media icon with an en eponymous Starbucks Beverage’ and the answer is ‘Oprah’. This refers to the The drink – called the Oprah Chai which was a product made by Oprah + Starbucks to raise money for her eponymous Leadership Academy Foundation.
It is also a nice surprise to see a phrase that you did not expect to see in a puzzle like it happened to me when I was listening Soulja Boy on the radio and I saw a reference of him in the puzzle I was playing. I found that so strange at the time.
There is a mix of experiences and expectations as well as a sense of identification. Because maybe thousands of other players are having the same experience while playing it.
