This month’s constructor is Willa Miller, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re excited to run this feature a bit early this month so that readers can get to know Willa before solving her puzzle at Westwords tomorrow, Sunday, June 22.

Willa! Thank you for generously sharing your time with us. I know you’ve been busy — you’re expecting your second child soon after this comes out. Congratulations!

What has it been like constructing for Westwords?

It’s been awesome! The editors, Kate and Rebecca, have been great to collaborate with. Last year I attended Westwords as a participant — it was my first crossword tournament ever. I came in toward the bottom of the rankings (I’m so slow compared to these speed solvers!), but it was an absolute blast just to be there.

Right?! Crossword tournaments are so fun! So how did you get into crosswords?

I’ve been interested in puzzles throughout my whole life, but I didn’t seriously get into American-style crosswords until I was pregnant with my first daughter, Judy, and on maternity leave. I guess I needed some mental stimulation to take my mind off of “waiting for baby.”

I also had a phase where I was solving a lot of British-style (cryptic) crosswords. That began when someone at a puzzle meetup event handed me a book of cryptics. I started solving them when I got home and was soon hooked.

What kind of crosswords do you enjoy making?

Both themeless and themed puzzles are fun to create, but recently I’ve been leaning toward the themeless ones. I like the process of creating themeless crosswords because it’s more free-flowing — you can go in without a plan and let the flavors evolve. There is something very “Zen” and relaxing about that.

Do you have any goals in mind when you’re creating a puzzle?

Puzzles should be fun to solve and feel fair! I try to fill the grid with answers that a typical casual solver would be familiar with. For the clues, I aim for fresh, interesting angles that haven’t been overused.

What do you avoid in your crosswords?

Anything that would make me groan as a solver — for example, antiquated vocabulary like ETUI and ORT, or spelled-out letters like AITCH and DEE. For knowledge-based clues, I try to avoid any facts that are both obscure and boring. I also tend to stay away from scoreboard-abbreviation clues like [The Hawks, on the scoreboard] for ATL, simply because I’m not very into sports teams myself.

It seems like you make an effort to highlight pioneering women in STEM in your puzzles. Do you see that as a tribute, a push for representation, or something else?

Well, first of all, ADA Lovelace has such a perfectly crosswordable first name, so how can I resist including her? 😉 On a more serious note, I think it’s important to recognize that pioneers like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper laid the groundwork for so much of today’s technology — they really paved the way for everyone, not just women in the field.

Amen to that! And a good segue into your day job. Will you share more about the other work you do?

In my “real life job” I’m a software engineering manager at Google, helping to build visual search. Although crosswords don’t come up often there, I did recently create a crossword as a fun activity for a team summit! I also run the annual Google Puzzle Hunt, which is an internal employee event (not specific to crosswords).

Tell us more about the Google Puzzle Hunt — it sounds intriguing!

I started the event because I knew that a ton of Google employees were big puzzle fans — in fact, I was surprised something like it didn’t already exist. Now it’s an annual tradition! The upcoming 2025 puzzle hunt will be the fifth one. Last year over 700 teams participated (solved at least one puzzle). The event is volunteer-run (shoutout to the *amazing* volunteers who make it possible), entirely online (to be inclusive of employees in different offices), and unfortunately not publicly available (anything external-facing would involve a lot more red tape). The puzzles themselves are “mystery hunt style”: a mix of word games, logic puzzles, and freeform puzzles, where figuring out how to begin is often part of the challenge.

(Quick disclaimer: the Puzzle Hunt isn’t officially endorsed by Google as a whole, and nothing I say represents Google as a company. It’s just a fun employee-led event.)

You also were behind in Mission Street Puzzles. Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah! It’s a project I started several years ago. I wanted to bring together two of my interests: puzzle-solving and exploring San Francisco. During the active “season,” I wrote and released one puzzle every Wednesday evening, and each puzzle’s answer was a local restaurant, bar, or other point of interest. Teams submitted the answers online, but were also encouraged to send selfies of themselves at the answer location. Eventually, I noticed that a lot of interest in the puzzles was coming from remote puzzlers from all over, so I expanded the project to cover a different city each season and deemphasized the in-person element. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been active since 2020 — it was *very* time-consuming — but all the previous puzzles are still online for people to enjoy!

You organized that, as well as the Google Puzzle Hunt! Wow! What motivates you to run these large puzzle events?

I’ve always been a puzzle person. I also co-founded the annual puzzle hunt at my college (Princeton PUZZLES club) when I was an undergrad there. I really had no expectation of any of these becoming “large” events, but my motivation has always been the same: to bring people the rush of delight that comes with solving a good puzzle. I love that feeling as a solver.

Where have your crosswords appeared?

I’ve been published in the New York Times, USA Today, Apple News+, and Universal syndicated papers. There are also a few crosswords in my book “Only the Hardest Puzzles” published by Callisto.

Will you share a bit more about your book with us?

This was an unconventional situation where the publisher sought me out for a specific book they had in mind — they had already decided the title (“Only the Hardest Puzzles”), target audience, types of puzzles, length, etc. Before they reached out, I’d never seriously considered writing a book before, but it sounded intriguing! I remember the timeline was quite tight, so it was hard work cranking out all those puzzles over those short weeks — but it’s a fun experience to look back on.

What a cool opportunity! Do you have any favorite crosswords to share with us?

A couple of personal favorites include:

• “Hidden Meaning” (Universal) – from March 28, 2024.
• Jan. 17, 2025 (New York Times)

Two fun ones! In your constructor notes for that NYT puzzle, you mention being a fan of “Succession.” Are there other shows or media that you’re really into? Have they made it into your puzzles or clues?

Yeah, “Succession” is great! I also love “Black Mirror” and “365: Repeat the Year.” As for movies, the Christopher Nolan films “The Prestige” and “Memento” have been my long-time favorites. I like to include references to my favorite bits of pop culture in puzzles, but I don’t think these have made it in yet! I did have the answer MEMENTO in a published puzzle, but after the editing process it was clued in the generic sense [Souvenir in a scrapbook].

Thinking back on when you first started constructing, were there any seasoned constructors who helped you find your footing?

Huge shoutout to Robyn Weintraub, who reviewed some of my early puzzles and provided invaluable feedback! I’ve also learned so much from collaborating with Matthew Stock and Erik Agard. The crossword constructor community has been incredible to work with.

Any words of wisdom that stuck with you?

Robyn encouraged me to download some expanded word lists (previously I had been relying only on my software’s default word list). This was a game changer for my themeless puzzles! The expanded word lists have a lot more long, interesting phrases that might not show up in a standard dictionary.

What advice would you give to new constructors?

Patience is essential! Constructing crosswords requires painstakingly reviewing long lists of words, hitting dead ends in the grid, tearing apart sections you thought you’d finished and starting over, and receiving many rejection emails. Embrace the process!

“Embrace the process” is a nice way to put an optimistic spin on all that! 😂

Now, for the lightening round — don’t overthink it, just go with your gut! 

Cryptics or American-style crosswords?

American-style! The barrier to entry is way lower and they’re easier to explain to friends and family who are beginners. I do love a good cryptic in private though 🙂

Constructing or solving?

Both — you have to be a solver to be a good constructor!

Solving in pencil, pen, or on a screen?

Pen… I MUCH prefer how a pen feels on paper! That said, I do also make a lot of mistakes, so in practice you’ll probably see me using a pencil, begrudgingly…

Go-to emoji?

😍

Actually, I once submitted a proposal for a new emoji to the Unicode Consortium: “Person Jumping With Arms Outstretched,” to represent the concept of jumping for joy. I never heard back, but if that had been accepted, it would probably be my go-to emoji.

Wait, you can submit emoji proposals!? That’s amazing. I wish they had accepted it — I’d totally use that one.

Sweet or savory?

Sweet! I have such a sweet tooth!

Drama or comedy (or something else)?

Drama

Best crossword tournament? 😉

Westwords — it’s the only one I’ve been to (so far!)

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

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.