The Will Shortz session will take place in our chat room on Sunday April 23 from 9pm to 11pm British Summer Time (1-3pm PDT, 4-6pm EDT). If you can't attend, please e-mail your questions in advance to to chat@msoworld.com. Look for a full log of the chat session after the event.

Will Shortz, the only certified enigmatologist in the world, will join us Sunday, 23 April 2000, to talk about puzzles of all varieties, and, we hope, to tell us about the World Puzzle Championship.

Will began his enigmatic career with fifteen years as editor of Games Magazine, a bimonthly magazine devoted to puzzles of every variety imaginable. (By the way, our Deputy Webmaster fondly remembers winning several t-shirts in Games Magazine Contests.

In 1993, Will Shortz became Puzzles Editor for the prestigious New York Times.

Do you remember the New York Times Crossword that appeared on the morning of November 5, Election Day, 1996? That puzzle elicited more response than any other puzzle, because of these four clues

      17A: Forecast
      39A: \v\Lead story in tomorrow's newspaper (!), with 43A
      43A: \v\See 39A
      68A. \v\Title for 39A next year

These four answers spelled out

          PROGNOSTICATION: CLINTON ELECTED MISTERPRESIDENT

a prediction that came true later that same day. However, if you looked at the clues in the other direction, there were intentional ambiguities in the crossing clues. These ambiguities meant that the answer could just as easily have come out

          PROGNOSTICATION: BOBDOLE ELECTED MISTERPRESIDENT

Here are the down clues that intersected with CLINTON. See if you can figure out both variant answers that intersect:

      39D: Black Halloween animal (C?? or B??)
      40D: French 101 word (L?? or O??)
      41D: Provider of support, for short (I?? or B??)
      23D: Sewing shop purchase (???N or ???D)
      27D: Short writings (??T? or ??O?)
      35D: Trumpet (?O??? or ?L???)
      42D: Much-debated political inits. (N?? or E??)

If you would like a copy of that puzzle, we recommend The New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzles volume 52, edited by Will Shortz, of course. The Election Day Puzzle is the #1 puzzle in this collection.

Mr. Shortz commented, "It was the most amazing crossword I've ever seen. As soon as it appeared, my telephone started ringing. Most people said, 'How dare you presume that Clinton will win!' And the people who filled in BOB DOLE thought we'd made a whopper of a mistake!"

Would you like to try this famous puzzle? Visit http://www.litsoft.com/ to download a complimentary copy of the AcrossLite software, then visit http://members.aol.com/themazeman/election-day-puzzle-1996.html to download the Nov0596.puz (the Election Day 1996 Puzzle).

Click here to read more fascinating background of our enigmatic guest.

Other sources

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Will Shortz's weekly Puzzle for National Public Radio
A Short History of Crossword Puzzles (including the first one ever)
Design and Implementation of Crossword Compilation Programs using Sequential Approaches

Will Shortz will be chatting live at http://www.msoworld.com/chat.html on Sunday 23rd April between 9pm and 11pm BST (US times: 1pm - 3pm Pacific, 4pm - 6pm Eastern). If you can't attend, we invite you to send your questions to us at chat@msoworld.com and look here after the event for a full log of the chat session.