Tufts students' crossword puzzle published in New York Times

Duncan Kimmel's fascination with crosswords began during his long commute to high school, when he would pick up a local paper and do a crossword puzzle to pass the time. Soon, he said, he got pretty good at them, so he started working on the New York Times puzzles, and later submitted his own. At the same time, watching her father complete the Boston Globe and the Times crosswords, Clara Williamson became interested in crosswords and was inspired to work on them herself.

These two Tufts sophomores, who met during the Pre-Orientation program FOCUS, achieved a shared goal by jointly creating, submitting and ultimately publishing a crossword puzzle, entitled "The Big Feller," in the Nov. 25, 2015 Times.

Prior to meeting at Tufts, Kimmel and Williamson both grew up with interests in completing and creating crossword puzzles. Although their friendship initially had little to do with crosswords, they worked on crosswords together, and eventually decided to try actually creating one. They submitted two puzzles unsuccessfully to the Times before having their third submission published, with a theme of television. One example of the clues was “House of Cards,” to which the corresponding answer was “Hallmark Store.”

Kimmel explained that he and Williamson almost always use this type of wordplay as well as puns in their clues.

“I think it’s the theme first, is what we generally do," Williamson said. "We text each other ideas all the time.”

Kimmel agreed, saying that he and Williamson bounce ideas off of one another almost constantly.

“Even if we're not trying to think of a theme, I'll read something [Williamson] writes out loud ... and it snowballs until it's something actually good,” Kimmel said.

After they submitted their third puzzle, the pair waited to hear back from the Times. Kimmel initially expressed some uncertainty that their puzzle would be accepted.

“I remember saying to [Williamson] ...‘I don't know about this one, [Williamson],’ and she was like, ‘I feel good about it,'" Kimmel said.

According to Kimmel, early in the Fall 2015 semester, the Times sent them a message, stating that the paper was very interested in their puzzle, which Williamson said, the duo "took that as a yes.”

Ultimately, the puzzle needed a little more editing. The Times suggested some changes, and Kimmel and Williamson complied.

“They liked the themed clues except for one of them,” Kimmel said. “I think we had ‘paperweight’ for ‘Schoolhouse Rock,’ and it was kind of outdated, so they didn't like that.”

While corresponding with the Times, Williamson and Kimmel interacted with several notable individuals, including Will Shortz, the Times Crossword Editor and self-described enigmatologist - or puzzler.

“He wanted to get to know us,” Kimmel said, “So we would send little blurbs about ourselves.”

Despite the fact that both were teenagers at the time of their submission,Kimmel and Williamson noticed that the Times took them quite seriously. As both of them will turn 20 in 2016, editors hastened to publish the puzzle in the fall, to ensure both Williamson and Kimmel could be recorded as teens published in the Times puzzle section.

“They really expedited it,” Kimmel said. “It was like two-weeks notice.”

Kimmel and Williamson are not the only successful contributors to the Times crossword puzzles on campus, as junior Ben Pall had four puzzles published while he was in high school. Pall submitted his first crossword to the Times when he was 12, and was published when he was 14.

“I became the youngest in the modern history of the Times to have a crossword accepted,” Pall said. “And I started meeting [Shortz] and other prominent people in the crossword community.”

Pall believes the fact that there are three successful crossword constructors at Tufts is not such a random phenomenon.

“I think that Tufts is a place where you get a lot of people who are interested in doing weird things, and also people who are very motivated," Pall said. "And I think that those are two qualities that really define a crossword maker.”

The future of crosswords among young audiences seems to be a positive trend, according to Kimmel, Williamson and Pall. They pointed to the more recent Buzzfeed crosswords being published as an opportunity for a younger audience to participate in puzzling.

“It's a whole different animal, it's actually really cool trying to write a crossword for that kind of audience, rather than the Times, which has people as young as 15 to 16 trying to solve them and as old as 80,” Pall said.

He also noted that he created a Buzzfeed puzzle which was published on Oct. 20, 2015.

In the future, Williamson and Kimmel hope to continue submitting puzzles to the Times, although they are uncertain about the possibility of a long-term crossword-creating career. Professional crossword-making is a very selective profession, Pall explained.

“Very few people manage to do it,” he said. “You have to really spend all your time working on puzzles.”

However, for submitting a crossword to the Times, it's possible to earn $300, and Sunday puzzles come with a payoff of $1,000, Pall said. There are also individuals who offer private individualized crosswords, and some constructors publish whole books of puzzles.

“When you think of crosswords, you don't think of a big community," Pall said. "But there's a whole bunch of people who all know each other who all create and collaborate and make and enjoy and love these cool puzzles."

In the past, schools including Brown and Yale have had crosswording clubs, according to a Dec. 6, 2010 Times article. Pall hopes that the news about Williamson and Kimmel’s successful crossword will draw the attention of other Tufts students.

“I hope that Tufts becomes a breeding ground for crossword writing,” Pall said.

But do these word puzzle aficionados ever do the Daily crossword?

“Oh yeah, we do them every morning,” Williamson and Kimmel said.