Canadian Student makes puzzles for NYTimes

Jeffrey Martinovic is a  aerospace engineering student of Western University Ontario Canada. On his spare time he creates puzzles for the New York Times Crossword. While he has created many puzzles, it is the New York Times Crossword puzzles that can be considered his crown jewel. The engineering student has not published just one or two but 10 puzzles with the latest being the March 19, 2025 But his road to puzzle stardom did not start off without its challenges. To get get his first puzzle accepted Martinovic had to submit no less 23 submissions which were rejected and helped him refine his art.

First Acccepted Puzzle

Jeffrey remembers the day he got the puzzle accepted, he says it was unlike anything he had experienced before and it actually came after a tiring at the university. He was surprised to get a first "approved" email from the Editors of the New York Times. He would get that acceptance email many times afterwards and it really seems that Jeffrey has  come a long way in his puzzle creating process although according to him each puzzle is very different than the previous. He considers it an art rather than a science but in simple terms the process involves Having an idea Coming up with an inspiration for the theme Going through the process of figuring out how to implement the theme Filling in a full grid and expressing some creativity in writing the clues. Sometimes he may seek help from a co author and submit the author with a friend or a colleague. For example the March 19 2025 puzzle was a collaboration between him and fellow student Evan Park.

How it started

Jeffrey remembers when his mom introduced him to the world of crossword at the age of 10, a little later he started playing with creating puzzles of his own. Around the age of 12 he also published his own book Titled 'The Chronicles of Time' which also involves solving a mystery to save the world. ( more info here) He wanted to experiment with this creativity and wanted to test if he had the ability to make puzzles like other people did. And so he started, eventually this would become a lifelong quest that culminated in the New York Times. Jeffrey admits his talented in creating puzzles and not so much at solving them, he also shares some advice for people solving the NYT Crossword.

Future Plans

Solving is a different league game he ways and thinks the biggest struggle is learning the crossword language and terminologies, it is very much a sort of different branch on itself. To solve effectively he recommends playing mostly Monday/Tuesday puzzles to build up your crossword foundation words and get used in a smoothly to the crossword terminology. Although his primary career will most likely always lean towards Aerospace Martinovic plans to keep his crossword creating passion alive for longer as it is an old hobby of him and the satisfaction of getting a puzzle acceptance letter is unmatchable.