Hi. I'm Kevin Wald, at one point a
math grad student at the
University of Chicago (where this
site used to be hosted) and then for a time
a math postdoc at the University of Connecticut.
Links to (non-puzzle) stuff I've written:
Various puzzle-related links:
- National Puzzlers' League:
An old and venerable word puzzle organization, of which I am a member
(under the nom de guerre "Ucaoimhu").
Activities include a monthly magazine (the Enigma), and an
annual convention; my Con Cryptics page has
most of the cryptic crosswords I have written for NPL conventions.
- MIT Mystery Hunt:
An annual weekend-long puzzle-solving extravaganza at MIT; I was on the
team that wrote
2001's hunt,
2008's hunt,
and
2022's hunt.
I've put together lists of the puzzles I wrote
for those hunts, in case anyone is curious, but you'll get a better sense
of the size and variety of the Mystery Hunt if you look at the whole thing.
I also have copies of eighteen cryptics
("Still There,"
"Post-Game Predictions,"
"The Sequel,"
"Power Lines,"
"A Lesson in Cryptography,"
"Yet More Villainy,"
"Further Escapades",
"Time X*X",
"Honeymoon in Segas",
"If At First You Succeed,"
"Another One From The Vault,"
"Next Winter: Wonderland,"
"DAB,"
"Some Extraction on the Side,"
"Another Campaign"
"Mind The Sharp Bits,"
"Through The Wood,"
"Newbie Toonie,"
"Tomezone,"
"Museum Pieces", and
"Nethermore")
I wrote for my teammates shortly before the 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006,
2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017,
2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025 hunts, respectively.
- BAPHL: The Boston Area Puzzle
Hunt League, a puzzle hunt that happens two or three times a year in
Greater Boston. I was on the team that wrote
BAPHL 7 for Spring, 2013,
BAPHL 12 for Spring, 2015, and
BAPHL 19 for Fall, 2019.
- American Crossword
Puzzle Tournament: A crossword puzzle tournament (unsurprisingly), held
every March or thereabouts in Stamford, CT (1978–2007, 2015–) or
Brooklyn, NY (2008–2014). I brought along an unofficial cryptic
every year 2000–2019: 2000,
2001, 2002,
2003, 2004,
2005, 2006,
2007, 2008,
2009, 2010,
2011, 2012,
2013, 2014,
2015, 2016,
2017, 2018, and
2019.
(2000–2002 are HTML pages; 2003–2019 are PDFs.
2008, 2009, and 2015 have had minor edits.) This is also the tournament
that appeared in the vastly entertaining documentary
Wordplay;
this (non-cryptic) crossword lists my
brief appearances in that film.
- Misc Cryptics (some other cryptics
of mine).
- Puzzlecrypt
(archived):
John de Cuevas's monthly variety cryptic crossword (for which I
was the test-solver through most of its run).
- Mushroom
the Journal. Each issue of this quarterly contains a non-cryptic
crossword by me with a mushroom-based theme; see pp. 36–37 of the
sample issue for an example.
- Fireball Crosswords.
Written by Peter Gordon, as the successor to the Sun crossword (for
which he was the editor, and in which I had a few puzzles, including
my Election Day 2008 puzzle).
- P & A Magazine.
Foggy Brume's online magazine, containing an entire puzzle extravaganza
in each issue. This page also contains a lot of Foggy's other
puzzles and extravaganzas, including Intercoastal Altercations 3
and Spacefight, which I was a collaborator on, and the very nifty
Ucaganza
he wrote for my 40th birthday (warning: the Ucaganza contains some
spoilers for my past Mystery Hunt puzzles).
If you'd like to e-mail me with comments or suggestions, or just to say
hello, I'm at
wald@math.uchicago.edu.
- Kevin