The unemployment rate in Virginia is now under four percent -- lower than the national average and well below where it stood during the great recession. Back then, more than 7% of adults in the Commonwealth were looking for jobs. That bodes well for many new college graduates, but for one UVA grad it makes no difference. He’s landed his dream job without even sending a resume.
It’s one of Sam Ezersky’s earliest memories. He was five or six – waiting at the barber shop for a haircut, when he found a booklet of crossword puzzles.
“I just really liked the concept of interlocking words," he recalls, "even though I didn’t know what half of them meant.”
His step father used to do the Washington Post’s crossword, and as a kid he could help with his expertise in youth culture
“I’d peek over his shoulder and answer things like “blank” Wan Kanobie – Jedi in Star Wars, Ezersky sats, ”
And then his father bought him the book:
“I was in Barnes and Noble with him one day, and he found Will Shortz’s Favorite Crossword Puzzles, and that was the first time I’d ever looked at a Times puzzle, and it was love at first sight I guess.”
In addition to doing puzzles, Ezersky spent hours in special chat rooms, learning tricks from others who loved the crossword and meeting a mentor.
“At age 17 we created a puzzle together that Will accepted. I’ve had now 13 total puzzles accepted and published in the New York Times,” Ezersky says.
He started timing himself as he worked puzzles – to increase the challenge, and once solved a Monday crossword in the Times in less than two minutes. He also met his hero at a national tournament,
“Meeting Will Shortz was like meeting the Michael Jordan of crosswords I guess," Ezersky says. " He knew who I was already, because I had gotten work accepted. He didn’t just say hi for five seconds and blow by me. He didn’t carry this A-list celebrity persona. We were immediately on a first-name basis. Even in early e-mail correspondence, he was just very supportive in trying to help me.”
In fact, last winter he invited Ezersky to spend a couple of weeks on the Times’ games team, deciding which puzzles to publish and how to edit clues.
“The New York Times crossword puzzle is entirely open submission. Anybody –can submit a crossword puzzle to the New York Times.”
The good ones, Shortz said, should be on a theme – something exciting.
“It needs to just have an overall fresh feel with some lively vocabulary but not too polarizing," Ezersky explains. "I’ve had like a rap album or two in some of my own puzzles, based on my own interest, but that can be a little too polarizing – unfamiliar, because there’s such a wide solving audience of all different ages and backgrounds.”
And winning puzzles are short on little-known words that prove useful to the authors.
“Entries such as alb – A-L-B – which is a clerical robe or alar, which is an old plant spray – things like that that are just wildly obscure or old timey, but due to their friendlier letter patterns – A_L_R, that’s a common pattern to come across when you’re creating a grid. You want to be able to minimize those entries, even though they work.”
For those who like solving puzzles, Ezersky adds, it’s good to get to know those little words, and to recognize patterns.
“Being able to parse odd strings of letters like CD player – even though it looks weird in a grid – is CDPL and then a bunch of blanks.”
And he suggests those who want to get better at crosswords read as much as possible.
“Outside of just strengthening your language, you know there’s going to be a lot of literature clues in the puzzle, because the Times is ultimately meant to be a scholarly thing that can teach you things that you’re not familiar with and to reward those who are well versed.”
The internship went well.
“He seemed to like my work. We seemed to hit it off. He’s a UVA alum himself, which is just very neat.”
And this fall Ezersky, who double majored in mechanical engineering and economics, will begin work as an assistant to the Times’ puzzle master – a job that actually pays more than he was offered to work as an engineer.
Recognizing his good fortune, Esersky concludes, “I’m living the dream, and I’m incredibly grateful.”