| Anna Shechtman | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Education: | Swarthmore College Yale University |
| Occupation: | Journalist and crossword constructor |
Anna Shechtman (born 1990/1991) is an American journalist and crossword constructor. Shechtman is the film editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and constructs crossword puzzles for The New Yorker and The New York Times.[1]
Shechtman grew up in a Jewish family in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood.[2] [3] She earned her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College.[2] In 2020 she received her PhD in English literature and film and media studies from Yale University.[1]
Shechtman was 19 when her first crossword appeared in the New York Times.[2] [3] Until she was 25, she created most of her puzzles by hand using graph paper and dictionaries rather than crossword software. Shechtman is the second youngest female crossword creator to be published in the New York Times. After graduating college, Will Shortz asked Shechtman to be his assistant at the New York Times.[4]
In May 2019, The Guardian called her "the new queen of crosswords".[3]
She has been praised for including youthful references and lighthearted clues, such as [State of being awesome, in modern slang] for EPICNESS.[5]
Shechtman's memoir The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle was published on March 5, 2024.[6] In this, she discussed how some of her puzzles have been caught in "culture war" controversy, especially over what kinds of facts and figures are considered puzzle worthy. The book also discusses her struggle with anorexia nervosa as a teen.[7] One figure she highlighted in the book is Margaret Farrar, the first editor of crossword puzzles for the New York Times.