Shortz began his career at
Penny Press Magazines, In 1978, Shortz founded the
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and has been its director since then. He founded the
World Puzzle Championship in 1992 and is a director of the
U.S. Puzzle Team. He has also been the puzzle master on
NPR's
Weekend Edition Sunday since its launch in 1987, where he hosts the Sunday Puzzle, a cooperative game between the show's host and one of the show's listeners. The lucky player is picked randomly from a group of submissions containing the correct answer to a qualifier puzzle issued the week before. In October 1993, he succeeded
Eugene T. Maleska to become
The New York Times crossword editor, the fourth in its history. In February 2009, Shortz helped introduce the
KenKen puzzle into
The New York Times. In 2013, Shortz lent his name and talents in puzzle writing and editing to a new bimonthly publication entitled ''Will Shortz' WordPlay'', published by
Penny Press. He has said that his favorite crossword of all time is
Jeremiah Farrell's
Election Day crossword from November 5, 1996. Known as a
Schrödinger or quantum puzzle, it had two correct solutions from the same set of clues; one saying that the "Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper (!)" would be "BOB DOLE ELECTED", and the other saying "CLINTON ELECTED". His favorite individual clue is "It might turn into a different story" (whose solution is
SPIRAL STAIRCASE). In addition to his work as a crossword editor, Shortz is a skilled
table tennis player. He has co-owned the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville, New York since 2009, and has been playing table tennis daily for the past 11 years.
Controversies In 2017, Shortz published a
NYT crossword by a prisoner named Lonnie Burton who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old boy, in addition to having burglary and robbery charges, prompting backlash from some solvers. Shortz did not include the reason for Burton's imprisonment in his accompanying blog post. Burton had previously had crosswords published in the
Los Angeles Times. At various times in his career Shortz has apologized for cluing decisions that sparked public backlash for being racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive. In 2019,
The New York Times issued an apology after Shortz chose to publish the racial slur "
BEANER" in the crossword, cluing it as "Pitch to the head, informally". Shortz admitted that he saw the derogatory definition when he researched the word, but claimed he had never personally heard it, and explained that as long as a word also has a "benign" meaning, it meets his editorial standards for publication. Shortz defended his use of "BEANER" and noted he has published and stands by the benign meanings of the terms "
CHINK" and "GO OK" (or "
GOOK"), both slurs for people of Asian descent. In 2020, more than 600 crossword constructors and solvers signed an
open letter to the
NYT executive director of puzzles, asking him to address systemic biases against women and minorities within both its puzzle department and the puzzle itself. The letter also highlighted the resignation of Claire Muscat, a test-solver who said she was only hired to provide a perfunctory
token female perspective. ==Honors and awards==