Cracking the Crossword Code

Photo by Josh Perkey

Of the hundreds of crossword puzzle submissions The New York Times (NYTimes) receives weekly, they accept and publish only seven. That makes the competition fierce. Professor Corry Cropper (19th Century French Literature) had submitted more than a dozen puzzles before one was accepted and later published both online (October 6, 2025) and in print (October 7).

Submitting that many times is a grueling and humbling process. Cropper says, “Sometimes they would reply, ‘No, thank you,’ and sometimes they would give direct feedback.”

Sometimes they wanted snappier fill.

“You have four or five theme answers that are longer,” Cropper explains. “The rest of the answers are fill. A puzzle needs to have rotational symmetry, meaning it’s visually symmetrical. Theme answers are going to be in the same spot and mirror each other in the puzzle.”

The NYTimes looks for specific things in each submission. Cropper explains, “You have to follow the constraints of puzzle making. Each word has to be at least three letters long. Each letter has to cross another letter. The tricky part is finding a theme that hasn’t been used before and including a reveal that cleverly ties the theme answers together. My puzzle has four phrases, and the reveal is Icarus, which ties the phrases together.”

Interestingly, the NYTimes often edits the submissions. Cropper explains that he was asked to change an answer term. That one change required modifying several clues and creating new answers in one of the puzzle quadrants in order for the puzzle to still work. The NYTimes editor also changed about 20 percent of the clues, keeping the same answers.

Cropper is pleased with the result, happy to have accomplished a significant personal goal. “I started making puzzles a few years ago during winter breaks as a way to relax. I like words, and since I can’t bike outside during Christmas break, when an idea strikes, I start constructing.”

You can find Cropper’s puzzle at the NYTimes.com.