6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT NOVEMBER 1, 2024 Tracy Bennett's puzzle journey: NYT Wordle Editor bids farewell to Groundcover News ALLISON WEI Groundcover contributor You could say that Tracy Bennett was born a puzzle-lover. Before she could even talk, at 17 months, Bennett was doing jigsaw puzzles, according to her mom. As a young girl, Bennett’s appetite for puzzles couldn’t be stopped: she did her older sister’s jigsaw puzzles then moved on to crossword puzzles. At 17, she did her first New York Times crossword at a friend’s house and fell in love with it. But she couldn’t afford to get a New York Times subscription. “Growing up, we were very poor. I lived in a house with no running water and an outhouse,” said Bennett. To feed her love for puzzles, Bennett asked neighbors and friends for their NYT crosswords. Decades later, Bennett has gone from not being able to afford a NYT subscription to being the NYT’s first and only Wordle editor. As an associate puzzle editor, Bennett also edits crosswords and Strands. “It’s my dream job,” said Bennett. But for the longest time, puzzling was just a hobby. Never could she have imagined it would turn into a career. Originally from Maine, Bennett moved to Michigan to study English literature at the University of Michigan, joining her sister at U-M. She’s been in Ann Arbor ever since. It was here, in one of America’s most well-read cities, that Bennett discovered her love for words. “In my senior year, I became fascinated with how words worked,” said Bennett. Post-grad, she considered a masters in linguistics or publishing. She ended up choosing the latter, working as a copy editor for the journal Mathematical Reviews. Here, she further honed her love for language. “I loved editing. It was like working in two different languages: technical math language is a language in and of itself, but I was also working with a lot of non-native English speakers.” Working at Mathematical Reviews, Bennett was content. Life went on. She got married. Had a son. She continued pursuing puzzles, but only on the side. In 2010, at the urging of a friend, she entered a local puzzle solving contest and won. Afterward, she entered the American Crossword Tournament. “I didn’t do well as a competitor, but I met people who make puzzles for the first time. It was like a light turned on — I saw that people don’t just solve puzzles, but make them. That sounded so wonderful to me.” Bennett began learning how to construct puzzles under mentor Victor Fleming, who’s had his crosswords published in the New York Times and co-contributed crosswords to Groundcover. In 2013, Bennett had her first crossword published in the New York Times. In 2014, she got her first job offer as a puzzle constructor at Bust magazine. She started creating puzzles for Crosswords with Friends. All this came at a cost. “I was still working my day job, raising a child, and doing puzzles on top of all this. I was getting up at 5 a.m. or going to bed late exhausted just to get everything done,” said Bennett. Making puzzles is hard work. “It’s very time consuming to make a puzzle, it can take me three days to make a good one,” said Bennett. Beyond skill, it wasn’t easy breaking into the puzzle making scene. “The puzzle industry was primarily whitemale dominated,” said Bennett. “When I first started, there were these 16-20 year old Computer Science major phenoms being celebrated. As a 40 year old mom with a whole other career, I wasn’t really getting the same attention.” That’s part of why in her puzzle career, inclusivity has always been important to her. At Bust, Bennett created crosswords with feminist themes. In 2017, she co-founded the Inkubator: a magazine that trains women and non-binary folks how to create crosswords and pays them for their work. “I started to feel like I was really making puzzles for a living and my day job was just paying the bills. In 2020, when the job for associate puzzle editor at The New York Times opened up, I applied and got it,” said Bennett. “I was in my late 50s and made a major career change.” Bennett was hired at the same time as Wyna Liu, who edits Connections. “When I joined the Times, it was pretty much exclusively white male … but they were trying to expand that.” Since she joined NYT, Bennett has continued focusing on inclusivity. One way she does this is through mentorship — she’s mentored three people through the NYT’s Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship. "When you think of inclusivity, you always think of race and gender, but there’s also subtle ageism. It’s hard to be treated like you’re amazing when you’re older and starting a new hobby — that’s something I’m sensitive to Do you play the popular New York Times puzzle game, Wordle? The same person who picks the word of the day has been contributing puzzles to Groundcover News for five years. since I started making puzzles in my forties. One of my mentees was in her seventies.” Bennett also keeps in mind inclusivity when choosing the Wordle word of the day. “When you make a puzzle, who are you assuming is solving the puzzle? Who are you excluding when you say a word is obscure? “I wanted to expand the narrative of who’s solving the puzzle — to make more people feel seen and included in the story.” That hasn’t come without challenges. “I got complaints when I ran the word 'MANGA' and people didn’t know what it was. I got the same reaction for 'PENNE' (like the pasta). People thought I was trying to trick them with some weird foreign word but it’s not foreign — it’s English … so that’s a barrier I’m constantly pushing against.” Dealing with backlash is something Bennett has had to learn since joining the Times. “When I first started, I decided to do a few themed words. I ran 'FEAST' for Thanksgiving. There was so much furor over that word. Slate magazine ran an article titled 'The New Wordle Editor Is Ruining Wordle.' “The response to that — it was a wake up call,” said Bennett, a self-described introvert who’s most comfortable behind her computer. Despite the pressures of being in the limelight, it’s worth it. Some of Bennett’s favorite parts of being a Wordle editor are what she calls “moments of magical synchronicity” — when a word magically lines up with something happening in someone’s life. “I ran 'CAROL' one day. A woman wrote to me saying that that day was her mother’s memorial service — her mom's name was Carol and she was a lifelong Wordle lover.” A lot of intentionality goes behind choosing the five letter Wordle. Created by James Wardle in 2020, Wordle has a set bank of 2400 five letter words. “I set a random generator from 1 to 2400. If we haven’t run that word already, I’ll set that word up for the week. I do this until I have 7 picks and then order them in the order I think flows best.” Before moving forward, Bennett researches each word. “I look up the meaning in the dictionary and research the word’s secondary and tertiary meanings to make sure I’m not offending anyone.” Bennett is also careful about context. “If there’s something in the news like October 7th, I try to choose a bland word. We try to be sensitive about what we’re putting out there.” The words go to a dedicated team of puzzle solvers for testing before finally being approved. Bennett brings that same passion to her work at Groundcover. Since 2019, Bennett has been making some of the Groundcover crosswords, after being referred by Peter Collins, a fellow Ann Arborite who’s published 100+ crosswords in the New York Times, and many in Groundcover as well. Five years of puzzle making for Groundcover behind her, Bennett is see CROSSWORD next page
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