Joel Fagliano (born 1992) is an American puzzle creator. He is known for his work on the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

crossword puzzle A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...

s, where he writes the paper's " Mini Crossword".

Early life and education

Fagliano grew up in the Mount Airy neighborhood of

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, in a Jewish family with two brothers. His mother is a grant writer and his father is a chairperson at the

Drexel University School of Public Health The Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health is a part of the Drexel University Health Sciences network of schools. The Dornsife School of Public Health was located in downtown Philadelphia from its inception until December 2013. It has s ...

. He enjoyed puzzles as a child, began completing the ''New York Times'' crossword puzzle regularly during his freshman year of high school at the Masterman School, a

magnet school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...

, and began making his own

crosswords A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...

in his sophomore year. For college, he moved to

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

to attend

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

, where he graduated in 2014 with a degree in linguistics and cognitive science.

Career

Fagliano started submitting standard-length crossword puzzles to the ''New York Times'' in 2007. His first puzzle was accepted in September 2009 and ran the next month, when he was 17 years old. By the time he finished high school, he had had four puzzles accepted and published by the ''Times'' and two accepted and published by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' Syndicate. He interned for three summers with

Will Shortz William F. Shortz (born August 26, 1952) is an American puzzle creator and editor and crossword puzzle editor for ''The New York Times''. Early life and education Will Shortz was born and raised on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Indi ...

, the ''Times'' crossword puzzle editor. After graduating from

in 2014, Fagliano began working for him full-time. At the ''Times'', Fagliano creates and edits the "Mini Crossword", a (or sometimes slightly larger) puzzle released daily, originally envisioned by product director Matt Hural.

Personal life

Fagliano lives in the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City. His hobbies include playing chess and basketball, watching sports, and jogging.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fagliano, Joel Crossword creators The New York Times editors Pomona College alumni 1992 births Living people Writers from Philadelphia People from the Upper East Side