Merl Reagle: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 07:01, 14 February 2007
Merl Reagle (b. January 5, 1950, Audubon, NJ) is a U.S. crossword puzzle creator. Since 1985, he has constructed a puzzle every Sunday for the San Francisco Chronicle (originally the San Francisco Examiner); it is now also published by the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Hartford Courant, the New York Observer and the Arizona Daily Star, among others. Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, has said that “. . .his themes are consistently fresher and funnier than anyone else’s. And he’s one of the greatest puzzlemakers at interlocking words in intricate, wide-open patterns.” [1]
Reagle made his first crossword when he was 6 and sold a puzzle to The New York Times at age 16, a feat that made him the youngest published Times puzzle constructor at the time.
He is noted for making puzzles with pencil and paper, without the aid of a computer. The 2006 documentary Wordplay by Patrick Creadon depicted Reagle’s on-camera construction of a crossword that subsequently was published in the Times. The film then showed various famous crossword enthusiasts, including Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, The Indigo Girls and Mike Mussina, attempting to solve the puzzle. Reagle has often constructed puzzles for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which he first attended in 1979, its second year. He now serves as a tournament judge.[1]
He has been featured on CNN, the Today show, Nightline, Oprah[2] and National Public Radio .[2]. An article he wrote on crossword construction for the Philadelphia Inquirer in February 1997 was reproduced in shorter form in the July 1998 Reader's Digest.
One of the few crossword puzzle constructors who makes a full-time living at his craft, Reagle, with the assistance of his wife, Marie, has published 12 volumes of his Sunday crosswords, which he sells from his website. Merl and Marie make their home in the Tampa Bay, Florida area.