Today we welcome crossword constructor August Miller (he/him, they/them). August lives in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he can enjoy nature and cows.
August! Thank you for letting us learn more about you! Will you start by telling us how you got involved with crosswords?
Crosswords weren’t a part of my life until about 2017. I was in grad school, and my partner and I started solving them together over Skype. My first foray into puzzle-making actually wasn’t with crosswords, but with Split Decisions (a kind of crossword variety puzzle). I probably made a few hundred of those puzzles before trying my hand at a regular crossword, which I did for the first time in early 2020, just before the pandemic. I found it to be a lot more difficult, but also a lot more satisfying. I remember my first attempt pretty clearly — I designed it with pencil and graph paper (the only crossword I ever made like that). The revealer was BURST YOUR BUBBLE, and the theme answers were phrases like (BA)BY TOO(TH), with the bracketing letters in circles (or bubbles, I suppose). I made a whole bunch of mediocre puzzles in those first six months.
That doesn’t sound like a mediocre theme to me! But I get it, my early puzzles were pretty rough, too. Thankfully, I was hooked up with a mentor who helped me out a ton. Did you have a mentor starting out?
No, I didn’t have a mentor. I wish I had sought one out when I was starting, because I think it would have made the learning process smoother and more enjoyable, even for someone as socially anxious as I am. As it was, I slowly and unsteadily figured things out on my own: how to build grids and write better clues, where I could send the least mediocre puzzles I was making, and what resources were available to someone taking up this very niche hobby.
You had to do a lot of the heavy lifting to learn this skill yourself! Do you have any resources you discovered along the way that you’d like to shout out?
Matthew Stock’s compilation of publication specs is hugely helpful. I refer to it constantly. Spread the word(list) is also pretty indispensable, especially if you’re just beginning. I wish it’d existed like a year earlier! But I’m still grateful. They’ve put together an extensive page of resource links as well, so it’s a great resource for resources.
Please share any other hobbies or work with us. Do they ever intersect with crosswords? If so, how?
Crosswording has definitely become my main hobby, though one of my intentions for the year is to branch out more in how I spend my free time. 😊 I’ve been working as a farmer for the last four years — dairy cows and vegetables, mainly, though I’ve also spent time with goats and sheep. From 2021-2023, I was living in community at a hybrid dairy/vegetable farm. While I was there, I made a whole bunch of puzzles for everyone and hosted a weekly-ish “collaborative solving” group where folx could come and do those puzzles together. That was really lovely, and so fun and rewarding — to directly experience people finding enjoyment in the things I was making. The puzzles were all very tailored to that community — about places and people (and dogs and cows) on the farm and filled with our own local lexicon.
Amazing! I bet people there loved that. Has any of your farming experience made its way into puzzles you’ve had published or that you’ve made for your blog?
A little bit, but so far only in small ways. I have added a lot of veg and dairy farm lingo to my wordlist over the past few years, so every so often something like that will show up — WATERING IN new seedlings, for instance. I think it would be a fun goal this year to incorporate more farm-ness into the puzzles I put out into the world. I did make a dairy cow-themed puzzle for farm friends a few years ago that I was pretty delighted with, and I’d love to rework it as a blog puzzle at some point. It was called “Strip Tease,” which is a fairly niche pun (hand-milking a small amount of milk before attaching a milking claw is called “stripping”), so any dairy farmers out there can look forward to that. 😊
Ha! Aside from that gem, will you share some of your greatest hits with us?
I’ve had a few themelesses published recently that I’m quite proud of! My first themeless for the NYT ran on 10/19/24 — a 66-word grid that was one of my first forays into corners with quad stacks. And just last month (2/7/25) I had my first puzzle with AVCX+, “The Search Goes On” — also 66 words, also quad stacks. I think the two best themed puzzles I’ve been able to publish were both with the Modern Crossword — on 12/1/23 (“Double Dose”) and 2/10/24 (“Heart of Hearts”). The Puzzle Society scrapped the Modern archive entirely but if you’d like a copy of either one, please give a shout. 😊
I also post puzzles of all shapes and sizes on a blog, lost for x words, which I set up last winter. I’m not going to try to assemble a list of all-time favorites from there, but I think the last few crosswords are pretty good! One thing I’ve been attempting lately is triple stacks of 15s, and there are a couple of those up on the blog now (#123 and #125, as of this writing, with at least one more soon to come).
What’s something that DCL readers would be surprised to learn about you?
Once upon a time I was going to be a physics PhD. I studied physics in undergrad and tried graduate school (twice), but ultimately that environment just didn’t work for me. And now I come home at night smelling of cows and hay, and it feels so much better.
Will you tell us more about that transition from physics to farming? What was it about farming that appealed to you?
It was a bit random that I ended up on a farm. After leaving grad school, I struggled for a while to find something I genuinely enjoyed and found satisfying; farming was ultimately what did it for me. Growing food for people feels important, and I enjoy the work and the people I do it with. It also helps me feel connected to the land and the natural world in a way I didn’t before.
It sounds like you made a great choice! Thank you for sharing that with us. I recently solved puzzle #127 on your blog, and it had me wondering if there was any overlap with the physics you studied — or do you also have an interest in space?
I wouldn’t say there’s an explicit connection — but I’ve always been interested in astronomy and astrophysics; a lot of the research projects I worked on as an undergrad and grad student fell under that umbrella (my undergraduate thesis was on black hole accretion, for example). I still love learning about those things, even though I don’t necessarily want to do it in an academic setting. One of the books on top of my TBR pile is The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack, which I can’t wait to get to! I’m currently in the middle of Becky Chambers’s galaxy-spanning Wayfarers series — sci-fi, but still.
Ooh sounds interesting [writes down book recommendation]. So, when you set out to construct a crossword, do you find yourself gravitating towards making a themeless puzzle or a themed one? What makes your crosswords unique?
In the past year I’ve transitioned to making more themeless than themed puzzles, though I still make and try to publish both. I’m wading very, very slowly into the world of cryptics, and every so often I’ll indulge the urge to make a spiral — something quick and different, useful for getting out of ruts. As far as distinguishing features of my puzzles, gosh, I don’t know! Anyone who makes a crossword is going to bring to it their own particular experience of the world, their own sense of humor, their own passions and obsessions, and I know I’m no exception. I reckon you’ll find more Samia and Neko Case lyrics in my puzzles than just about anywhere else.
What do you strive to create when you make a crossword? Do you have any goals in mind — like a certain experience for the solver or goals for the grid/cluing?
I feel like I am continually revising my answer to this question, even now. I’m always trying to balance several different goals, and which one(s) I prioritize depends a lot on the audience I’m making it for. I always want to make something that feels good to solve. That doesn’t mean all of it has to be easily digestible or common knowledge, but it should feel fair, and it should feel satisfying when you get to the end. And hopefully you’re amused at some point along the way. Crosswords are also just a fun way to share things with people: bizarre facts, people and media that I personally adore or that I’ve discovered and think more people should know about. But there are countless times when this desire conflicts in some way with the others. I might be tempted to clue a word as a proper name, for instance, or with a fill-in-the-blank lyric from a song that’s been looping through my head nonstop, but maybe that makes one of the crossings ambiguous for someone who doesn’t know the reference, and I really don’t wanna do that … but, like, some small slice of people who do the puzzle might really connect with it (and I really want to talk about it), so I still really do? It’s a game of never-ending tradeoffs, and I feel like I land somewhere slightly different each time.
Ah the beautiful struggle of balancing creativity, personality, and accessibility! What do you try to avoid in your crosswords?
In terms of fill, something I ask myself routinely is “Have I ever seen this outside of a crossword? Can I imagine using it in another context?” That leads me to nix some entries that might otherwise appear a lot, like ASEA or ADOS. Also, plurals of exclamations or interjections: AHS, OHS, HEHS, etc. (actually, AHS I might clue as “American Horror Story”). As a solver I hardly ever mind encountering a name I don’t know, as long as it’s clued fairly and is gettable from the crossings. So, as a constructor, I don’t really shy away from including potentially unfamiliar proper names, provided the same conditions are met.
On a more conceptual level, I try to avoid falling into the trap of believing I have an accurate idea of what “most solvers” will know or appreciate, or even that that’s an idea worth foregrounding. I’m always going to mine my own personal lode of knowledge and experience, but I’m also going to reach out toward unfamiliar corners of the world and hope that the resulting word mash is, you know, kind of interesting, kinda different, kinda fun.
Who are some of your favorite constructors to solve?
I think my two favorite constructors to solve are Brooke Husic and Will Nediger. They’re also the constructors I try the hardest to emulate, in different ways. Whenever I sit down to solve one of their puzzles, I know I’m going to learn stuff. I know I’m going to smile to myself. I know I’m going to get lovingly tripped up and spun around before coming out the other side. I know I’m going to be seriously impressed.
Where have you been published?
The NYT, the LAT, and the WSJ; Universal, the Atlantic, the Modern Crossword (R.I.P.), Apple News+, and AVCX and AVCX+. Actually, I had two themeless puzzles published in the past week — with Apple News+ on 3/22, and AVCX on Wednesday 3/26. I really like both of them; the AVCX puzzle, in particular, is one of my favorite themelesses I’ve written to date.
Do you have any favorite outlets to solve or work with?
I usually struggle mightily with favorites, but this is actually an easy question to answer! My favorite outlets to work with would have to be AVCX, Apple News+, and Universal. As a contributor I always feel respected, like the editing process is a collaboration, and like my vision for the puzzle or my intention for a particular clue has real weight. As a solver, I love the offerings from AVCX. Also, I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to shout out Ada Nicolle’s Patreon. She’s so prolific, so fresh, and so fun to solve — I look forward to it every time.
What is your approach to collaboration?
For reasons I doubt would be interesting to anyone, I haven’t really approached collaboration up to now. But it’s something I would genuinely love to do going forward! I don’t have many close friends in the crossword community (yet — I’m crossing my fingers), and it’s always been difficult for me to reach out to people I don’t know, but chances are if you asked me to collaborate on something, you’d get an enthusiastic yes.
I hear you; it’s hard. And for me, it even feels kind of vulnerable to ask people I don’t know to join in on a creative project. Well, I can’t wait to see what new puzzles (collabs or not) you put out into the world next!
Okay, to wrap up each Constructor Spotlight, I’ve decided to include a handful of rapid-fire questions. I know crossword constructors never overthink things, but just in case you’re tempted to – don’t! Just listen to your gut! 😉
Crossword solving: pencil, pen, or on a screen?
Pen
Coffee or tea?
Tea
Early bird or night owl?
Honestly, neither. Kind of a midday bird?
Fruit or vegetables?
Yes, all the time!
Favorite comfort food?
Risotto with mushrooms, made by my friend Zoe
Go-to emoji?
❤️
Best way to listen to music?
Live in concert
Famous person, living or not, that you’d want to have dinner with?
Miranda July
Three words your closest friend(s) would use to describe you.
Not loud enough
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
This interview has been edited and condensed from a series of written survey answers.
Jess Rucks is a therapist and crossword constructor. She is happy to combine her love of learning about others with her love of crosswords for DCL’s Constructor Spotlight.
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