Tracy Bennett

Bennett was born Tracy Pinkham and grew up in Maine. Her parents were both in the Navy when her older sister, Cinda, was born, and later divorced. She had an early interest in crossword puzzles. She attended the University of Southern Maine as a theater major, then transferred to the University of Michigan and changed her major to English literature, graduating in 1989. == Career ==

Bennett worked for thirty years for Mathematical Reviews, first as a copy editor and then as the copy editing department manager. In 2010 she won a crossword puzzle contest at The Ann Arbor News and soon became interested in puzzle construction after attending the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Her first commissioned crossword puzzle was published by Knitty. She sold several puzzles in 2013, including her first to The New York Times. She made adjustments to Wordle, which was a new acquisition by the Times from its creator. She reorganizes a set of randomly-chosen words for lexical variety and level-of-difficulty throughout a week's puzzles, and avoids words with variant spellings. On one occasion, she experimented with a themed entry on Thanksgiving Day. She considers the implications of words related to current news and researches possible offensive alternative uses of words. ==Personal life==

Bennett lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she works from home. In 2002 she married George Bennett, with whom she has a son. George Bennett died in 2021. ==References==