Author Topic: Interview with Frank Longo  (Read 3254 times)

Alan W

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Interview with Frank Longo
« on: July 09, 2020, 04:25:48 PM »
I just noticed this interview, published last month on the Book & Film Globe website, with Frank Longo, the creator of the Spelling Bee puzzle in the New York Times Magazine. This puzzle is the inspiration for our 7-by-many puzzles.

The NY Times now actually has two versions of this puzzle: the one discussed in the interview, which appears in print once a week; and a daily online version, available to anyone with a NY Times crosswords subscription. One difference between these is that the weekly version requires words of five letters or more, while the daily puzzle accepts four-letter words too. I was aware of both these options when I started the 7-by-many puzzles, and opted for a five letter minimum, which seems to make for a more interesting puzzle.

One thing I've noticed since releasing 7-by-many books is that the vast majority of sales are in the US, whereas the other types of Chi puzzle books sell more copies in the UK. Presumably this is a spin-off from the popularity of Spelling Bee in the US. As mentioned in the interview, the Times hasn't yet made these puzzles available in books.

Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites