You
Twice each week
The Monroe Times hits the news
rags the post office
and then mailboxes like the
Mathesons.
As a kid,
Ryan Matheson found something
in the paper that fired his
own newspaper ambition
to one day be published
in no less than the New York
Times.
I think that was kind of like a
big point for me.
It was getting published in the
New York Times as a teenager.
It's something that 70-some
people have done and they're
80 years of doing a daily
crossword puzzle.
It was the newspaper's
crossword puzzle that inspired
young Ryan.
Something introduced to him
by his grandmother.
My grandma, she would be
solving the Monroe Times
crossword every once in a while
and she would involve me by
saying, oh, I think you would
know this answer.
Since a natty baseball team and
I would say reds because I
would know that.
So I thought, oh, this is an
interesting thing.
I'm going to try to start
solving them and you start
solving them and you think,
hmm, can I try to make this?
Ryan was determined to solve
how the puzzles are made.
As he entered the world of the
crossword constructor, he learned
it was key to start with a
theme.
So you're trying to come up with
some clever thing that is tying
these answers together.
The puzzle Ryan is working on
now has the theme cold opens,
with words beginning with
synonyms for cold.
Cool beans, bittersweet,
frozen acid, and then cold
opens.
Kind of getting colder as we go
down with.
So now that we have the theme in
place, we have to put in the
blocks.
After the blocks comes what is
called the fill.
The word's not on theme, some
suggested by the computer.
I'm just trying to find
lively fill to put in there.
So maybe we'll put entree and
then desert.
It kind of looks like entree
and dessert, which is fun, but
it's actually entree and
desert.
Words in place, it's time for
cluing.
And Ryan is on his own with no
computer assist.
Then we have PBS in the middle,
so we could do Wisconsin life
channel, something like that.
Since becoming a constructor,
Ryan gets crossword inspiration
everywhere he goes.
I was sitting in Spanish class
and I heard my teachers say
language barrier and I thought
that should be a crossword puzzle.
The language barrier could
literally be the black squares
and the puzzle.
They're separating words where
they can also help my theme.
So it would be C-SPAN, like the
TV channel, and then Ishmael,
Spanish would be in the circle
letters.
Another example would be having
Greek, the end of ogre, and then
the E.K. would start something
like eke out, like eke out a
living.
Ryan is not eking out a
living through puzzles, but he
is getting paid.
The Wall Street Journal bought
his language barrier puzzle,
one of several Ryan has
published while still a
teenager.
So my first ever published
crossword was when I was 17
in Universal, which was a
syndicate.
And my next published puzzle
I had turned 18 was in the
USA Today.
Time was running out on
Ryan's New York Times teenage
dream, but he never gave up.
It was my 40th submission to
New York Times is when I first
got an acceptance letter.
When I finally saw that
email, I was like, I've done it.
At 19, Ryan Matheson reached
the pinnacle of puzzle
publishing from the Monroe
Times inspiration to the
New York Times publication.
You have, I don't know how many
hundreds of thousands of
millions of people solving a
puzzle that you created.
So I think it's kind of cool
to know that some of their
excitement for the day is
coming from something I made.
Sharing with his fellow
crossword lovers is the best
part.
There is a world out there
who is doing my puzzle.