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," and
"Museum Pieces")
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, and 2024 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