Manny Nosowsky (born January 1932, in

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

) is a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

crossword 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 ans ...

puzzle creator. A medical doctor by training, he retired from a San Francisco

urology Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and '' -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive org ...

practice and, beginning in 1991, has created crossword puzzles that have been published in ''

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 ...

'', the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', and many other newspapers.

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 crossword puzzle editor for ''The New York Times'', has described Nosowsky as "a national treasur

and included four Nosowsky puzzles in his 2002 book ''Will Shortz's Favorite Crossword Puzzles''. Since Shortz became editor of the ''Times'' crossword in November 1993, Nosowsky has published nearly 250 puzzles there, making him by far the most prolific published constructor in the ''Times''

Nosowsky is frequently chosen to produce puzzles for the

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is a crossword-solving tournament held annually in February, March, or April. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 tournament was canceled. In April 2021, the 43rd tournament was held virtually. Founded ...

br>

Record-breaking puzzle

Nosowsky is known for constructing puzzles with wide-open grids, often published later in the week, for expert solvers. On July 24, 1998, he set an early record by publishing a standard 15x15 daily crossword puzzle with only 21 black squares. This record stood until 2001, when Joe DiPietro published a 20-black-square puzzle. On March 11, 2005, the ''Times'' published a Nosowsky puzzle that set the new record: 19 black square

this record was finally broken on August 22, 2008, when an 18-black-square puzzle by Kevin Der was published. On a popular web site for crossword constructors, Nosowsky published an articl

describing his method for making the record-breaking puzzle; he also was featured discussing the puzzle in the bonus material for the DVD of the 2006 documentary '' Wordplay (film), Wordplay''. His puzzle "Double Digit Inflation" was the first to be published in the ''

'', which now has a crossword as a weekly feature. Nosowsky has worked to encourage new puzzle constructors to the field, particularly through contributions to cruciverb.com. In one articl

he argued for the importance of "sparkle" in a puzzle's construction. He is recognized for clever, sometimes misleading (though "fair"), clues for puzzle entries. Examples include "Browning piece?" for ELECTRIC TOASTER and "Northern air" for O CANADA. His cleverness extends to his themed puzzles, as well. A student of Latin, Nosowsky once produced a puzzle in which common Latin phrases were changed by one letter: QUID PRO QUO became QUID PRO DUO with the jocular clue, "You scratch my back and I'll do the both of us?" In the same puzzle, TABULA NASA was clued as "Blackboard for rocket scientists?" and others followed in a similar vei

"Puzzle Lady" mysteries

In collaboration with the mystery novelist Parnell Hall (writer), Parnell Hall, Nosowsky has produced puzzles that appear in Hall's "Puzzle Lady" novels, such as ''You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled''.Hall, Parnell, ''You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled'', Bantam, 2006 Hall's narrative sets the storyline, and in four of his novels, Nosowsky's puzzles drop clues for the reader. Nosowsky resides in the Diamond Heights neighborhood of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

with his wife Debby.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nosowsky, Manny Nosowsky, Manny, crossword puzzle maker Nosowsky, Manny, crossword puzzle maker Crossword compilers Nosowsky, Manny, crossword puzzle maker Physicians from California