Welcome

Hi!

Thanks for visiting. Sorry I can't greet you in person.

This blog has been inactive for years, unfortunately. But crosswords are still great.

Thanks to Patrick Merrill at the NYT crossword blog for the mention.

sincerely,
curtis

Is he talking about me?

"Among the links to "Blogs" there is at least one where no posting has appeared since March 2006.

I would suggest that bloggers to whom Kevin has extended the courtesy of a link should ask him to remove it if they have not been posting for, say, one month.

In any case, the inactive blog is on a crossword that is likely to be of little interest to the regular visitors to Cruciverb."

If anything, I think there is archeological value to blogs. In the distant future, blogs would be the record of note to how life was at the turn of the millennium. Anyone who wanted to know what life was like then (now), need only search through blogs by keywords. Niche areas, like crossword puzzles, emo music, basket weaving, minor political races, they can all be researched in these archival oral records. To say that these historical accounts are of "little interest" to people, is a myopic insult, not only to me, but also researchers in the 22nd through 25th century.

The Annual Report

Hi friends,

Just a quick word to keep you abreast of my crossword happenings. I was recently published in the New York Times. Finally! Just within a year of when I started constructing. It was a Monday puzzle, and I recieevd no prior warning about it, so when I booted up my acrosslite for that day, it was a jolly good surprise. You can access that and other puzzles at www.curtisyee.com/crosswords .

Other than that, my output speed has been trickling now that my graduate studies is in full gear. And I'm learning to play the piano. But every now and then, a puzzle will pop up here and there.

Hey Y'all

It's been a while since I updated my website. The good news is that more and more puzzles of mine are being published, predominantly in the LA Times, a couple in the NY Sun, and my first in the Chronicale of Education. The bad news is that I don't have much time to come up with new puzzles nowadays since my graduate school work is picking up. I've set up a website that has archives of my published work (www.curtisyee.com/crosswords). Other than that, still chugging through the daily NYT.

Word up!

Hey friends. There is some good news in the last few weeks. First of all, I got my third puzzle accepted at the NY Sun. I've never had a transformation puzzle accepted, so this is good news indeed. Also continuing this trajectory, I finally heard back from Will Shortz on puzzles I sent in last July. Most of it was bad news, and he rejected a good deal of those puzzles, but the good news is, one was straightout accepted and he had three revise and resubmits. The one that got accepted was a pretty modern quote that I was questioning. Even though it's quite funny, I break up the quote in the middle with 2 four-letter, one-word-each entries. So yeah, nary six months after I started in this con, and I'm accepted at the NYT - pantheon of all crosswords. Excitement abound!

Throwback

Tuesday's puzzle from Jay Leatherman, as I was doing it, reminded me of the days of crosswording before I started doing puzzles. I think this is his second puzzle (his first being a friday) and while it has contemporary theme entries, there are some totally crosswordese words in it. Here are some pretty out there entries I'm surprised at:

Asian goat - TAHR
Persian governers - SATRAPS
Rhone Tributary - ISERE
Lecherous sort - ROUE
Nucleic acid sugar - RIBOSE

And the theme entries are pretty good though (QUITDAYDREAMING, DONTBESONAIVE, GETREAL, ENOUGHALREADY, COMEDOWNTOEARTH). Which makes me so surprised the two mix kinds of crossword puzzles mix at all.

Can it be?

So soon? After so many months of puzzling, my first puzzle will be appearing in the LA Times (10/10) today. This was a puzzle I was skeptical could be sold anywhere because it's theme is not someone one would associate with crosswords, but good because the themes crossed. It makes you wonder whether was really is that many instances of it that crossing themes could occur. When I tell my friends what it's about, they're not surprised because it is very LA. So hop over to the LA times and find this debut of mine.

I have to say, I was really surprised by how fast the turnaround with Rich Norris is. More surprised is how quick he was able to put it in print. With the NY Sun, there was a 4 month queue, so when Rich told me it would be a month down the line. It made me quite happy. There's another one coming out this month too.