John Galbraith GrahamW
John Galbraith Graham

The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father Eric Graham, a Church of England priest.

Jonathan CrowtherW
Jonathan Crowther

Jonathan Crowther is a British crossword compiler who has for over 45 years composed the Azed cryptic crossword in The Observer Sunday newspaper. He was voted "best British crossword setter" in a poll of crossword setters conducted by The Sunday Times in 1991 and in the same year was chosen as "the crossword compilers' crossword compiler" in The Observer Magazine "Experts' Expert" feature.

Adrian BellW
Adrian Bell

Adrian Bell was an English ruralist journalist and farmer, and the first compiler of The Times crossword.

David BenkofW
David Benkof

David Benkof is an American political commentator who lives in Jerusalem. He was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and then went to college at Stanford University, where he came out as gay his freshman year. In 1989 he served as the international president of United Synagogue Youth.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

Emily Cox (puzzle writer)W
Emily Cox (puzzle writer)

Emily Cox is an American puzzle writer. She and her partner, Henry Rathvon, wrote "The Atlantic Puzzler," a cryptic crossword featured each month in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly from 1977 to August 2009. They also create acrostic puzzles for The New York Times, cryptic crosswords for Canada's National Post, various puzzles for the US Airways in-flight magazine, and Sunday crosswords for The Boston Globe. Cox and Rathvon are now also contributing cryptic crosswords to The Wall Street Journal on Saturdays.

Jonathan CrowtherW
Jonathan Crowther

Jonathan Crowther is a British crossword compiler who has for over 45 years composed the Azed cryptic crossword in The Observer Sunday newspaper. He was voted "best British crossword setter" in a poll of crossword setters conducted by The Sunday Times in 1991 and in the same year was chosen as "the crossword compilers' crossword compiler" in The Observer Magazine "Experts' Expert" feature.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

Colin DexterW
Colin Dexter

Norman Colin Dexter was an English crime writer known for his Inspector Morse series of novels, which were written between 1975 and 1999 and adapted as an ITV television series, Inspector Morse, from 1987 to 2000. His characters have spawned a sequel series, Lewis, and a prequel series, Endeavour.

Tom DribergW
Tom Driberg

Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell was a British journalist, politician, High Anglican churchman and possible Soviet spy, who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1942 to 1955, and again from 1959 to 1974. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for more than twenty years, he was first elected to parliament as an Independent and joined the Labour Party in 1945. He never held any ministerial office, but rose to senior positions within the Labour Party and was a popular and influential figure in left-wing politics for many years.

Margaret FarrarW
Margaret Farrar

Margaret Petherbridge Farrar was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968). Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she wrote a long-running series of crossword puzzle books including the first-ever book of any kind published by Simon & Schuster.

Vic FlemingW
Vic Fleming

Victor Anson "Vic" Fleming is an American judge, law professor, and writer residing in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Matt GaffneyW
Matt Gaffney

Matt Gaffney is a professional crossword puzzle constructor and author who lives in Staunton, Virginia. His puzzles have appeared in Billboard magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Beast, Dell Champion Crossword Puzzles, GAMES magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, the New York Times, Newsday, The Onion, Slate magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, The Week, and Wine Spectator.

Mangesh GhogreW
Mangesh Ghogre

Mangesh Ghogre is an international crossword constructor with puzzles published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He is credited as being the first Indian to have constructed crosswords for many top newspapers in the USA. His crosswords have also been featured in publications like Games and World of Puzzles and syndicated by over 200 newspapers around the world.

John Galbraith GrahamW
John Galbraith Graham

The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father Eric Graham, a Church of England priest.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

Henry Hook (crossword compiler)W
Henry Hook (crossword compiler)

Henry Hook was an American creator of crossword puzzles, widely credited with popularizing the cryptic crossword in North America. With Henry Rathvon and Emily Cox, he wrote the crossword for the Boston Globe.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

William LutwiniakW
William Lutwiniak

William Lutwiniak was an American crossword constructor who was also known for his work as a cryptologist with the National Security Agency. He composed a total of 8,413 puzzles; his first five thousand were composed between 1965 and 1985, as a hobby.

Derrick Somerset MacnuttW
Derrick Somerset Macnutt

Derrick Somerset Macnutt (1902–1971) was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. His main oeuvre was blocked-grid and "specialty" puzzles. Even though he only provided conventional blocked puzzles once a week for the Observer Everyman series for about two years his strong views on clueing, expressed in his 1966 book, have been a source of debate in the cryptic crossword world ever since.

Eugene T. MaleskaW
Eugene T. Maleska

Eugene Thomas Maleska was a U.S. crossword puzzle constructor and editor.

Jeremy MorseW
Jeremy Morse

Sir Christopher Jeremy Morse KCMG was an English banker, cruciverbalist and chess composer who was Chancellor of the University of Bristol from 1989 to 2003, and was chairman of Lloyds Bank.

Stanley Newman (puzzle creator)W
Stanley Newman (puzzle creator)

Stanley Newman is an American puzzle creator, editor, and publisher. Newman has been the editor of the Newsday Sunday crossword puzzle since 1988 and the editor of the Newsday daily crossword puzzle since 1992. He is also a trivia buff and the co-author of a trivia encyclopedia, 15,003 Answers.

Manny NosowskyW
Manny Nosowsky

Manny Nosowsky is a U.S. crossword puzzle creator. A medical doctor by training, he retired from a San Francisco urology practice and, beginning in 1991, has created crossword puzzles that have been published in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other newspapers. Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, has described Nosowsky as "a national treasure" and included four Nosowsky puzzles in his 2002 book, Will Shortz's Favorite Crossword Puzzles. Since Shortz became editor of the Times crossword in November 1993, Nosowsky has published nearly 250 puzzles there, making him by far the most prolific published constructor in the Times. Nosowsky is frequently chosen to produce puzzles for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Brendan Emmett QuigleyW
Brendan Emmett Quigley

Brendan Emmett Quigley is an American crossword constructor. He has been described as a "crossword wunderkind". His work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, and The Onion. He appeared in the documentary Wordplay and the book Crossworld: One Man's Journey into America's Crossword Obsession.

Henry RathvonW
Henry Rathvon

Henry Rathvon is a puzzle writer. He and his partner, Emily Cox, wrote The Atlantic Puzzler, a cryptic crossword featured each month in the magazine The Atlantic Monthly from September 1977 to October 2009. They also create acrostic puzzles for the New York Times, cryptic crosswords for Canada's National Post, puzzles for the US Airways in-flight magazine, and Sunday crosswords for the Boston Globe.

Merl ReagleW
Merl Reagle

Merl Harry Reagle was an American crossword constructor. For 30 years, he constructed a puzzle every Sunday for the San Francisco Chronicle, which he syndicated to more than 50 Sunday newspapers, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Times, The Plain Dealer, the Hartford Courant, the New York Observer, and the Arizona Daily Star. Reagle also produced a bimonthly crossword puzzle for AARP The Magazine magazine, a monthly crossword puzzle for the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, and puzzles for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

Mike SelinkerW
Mike Selinker

Mike Selinker is a game designer, puzzle maker, and president of Lone Shark Games, a company which he founded.

Will ShortzW
Will Shortz

William F. Shortz is an American puzzle creator and editor and crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times.

Stephen SondheimW
Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist known for his work in musical theatre. One of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theatre, Sondheim has been praised for having “reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackle "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication." His shows have been acclaimed for addressing "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience," with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life.

Roger SquiresW
Roger Squires

Roger Squires is a retired British crossword compiler/setter, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler. He compiled under the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian, Dante in The Financial Times and was the Monday setter for the Daily Telegraph.

David Steinberg (crossword editor)W
David Steinberg (crossword editor)

David Steinberg is a crossword constructor and editor. At 14, he became the then second-youngest person to publish a crossword in The New York Times during Will Shortz's editorship. At 15, he became the youngest published constructor in the Los Angeles Times and the youngest known crossword editor ever for a major newspaper.

Derrick Somerset MacnuttW
Derrick Somerset Macnutt

Derrick Somerset Macnutt (1902–1971) was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. His main oeuvre was blocked-grid and "specialty" puzzles. Even though he only provided conventional blocked puzzles once a week for the Observer Everyman series for about two years his strong views on clueing, expressed in his 1966 book, have been a source of debate in the cryptic crossword world ever since.