Name David Steinberg | Role Crossword editor | |
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Occupation Crossword constructor and editor | ||
latest report on the pre shortzian puzzle project by david steinberg
David Steinberg (born in 1996) is a crossword constructor and editor. At 14, he became the then second-youngest person to publish a crossword in The New York Times during Will Shortz's editorship. At 15, he became the youngest published constructor in the Los Angeles Times and the youngest known crossword editor ever for a major newspaper (Orange County Register).
Contents
- latest report on the pre shortzian puzzle project by david steinberg
- Early life and education
- Puzzle career
- References
Early life and education
Steinberg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in California and Washington. In middle school, he was introduced to The New York Times crossword puzzle by his parents and, after seeing Merl Reagle build a puzzle in the movie Wordplay, began constructing. He attended Turtle Rock Elementary School in Irvine, California, the Lakeside School in Seattle, and Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. He attends Stanford University.
Puzzle career
Steinberg's first crossword publication was in The New York Times on June 16, 2011. Since then he has published more than 400 puzzles in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsday, Orange County Register, Fireball Crosswords, Daily Celebrity Crossword, the American Values Club Crossword, BuzzFeed, 10-4 Magazine, The Jerusalem Post, and books. One of his puzzles was selected for Twenty Under Thirty, and another appeared in The American Red Crossword Book.
In June 2012, he founded the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, a collaborative effort to build a digitized, fully analyzable database of The New York Times crossword puzzles published before Will Shortz became editor. Steinberg directs the project, which was an outgrowth of a project he conducted for a science research course while a freshman in high school.
An e-book with 25 crosswords by Steinberg, Chromatics, was published in September 2012. Two months later, he was made crossword editor of the Orange County Register's 24 weekly associated newspapers. This puzzle feature expanded into the Riverside County Press-Enterprise and the now-defunct Los Angeles Register associated newspapers.
In December 2012, Steinberg was named Person of the Year on XWord Info, which recognizes "remarkable contributors to crosswords."
In June 2013, Steinberg collaborated with veteran New York Times constructor Bernice Gordon on a puzzle that was historic because of their 83-year age difference. At 99, Gordon was the oldest currently publishing New York Times crossword constructor; at 16, Steinberg was the youngest.
In August 2013, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development announced its 2013 Davidson Fellows Scholarship recipients, and Steinberg was awarded a $25,000 scholarship in the "Outside the Box" category for his work on the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project.
In 2013, Steinberg was the most prolific New York Times constructor, published a total of 15 times that year.
In February 2014, one of Steinberg's puzzles was the Margaret Award winner for Simon & Schuster's Mega 14 Crosswords.
In May 2014, Steinberg won First Place in the Quill and Scroll 2014 International Writing and Photo Contest – Blogging Competition for his Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project blog.
In January 2015, another of Steinberg's puzzles was the Margaret Award winner for Simon & Schuster's Mega 15 Crosswords.
In March 2015, he became the youngest person ever to win the C Division championship at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
In June 2015, Steinberg gave a talk at ideacity 2015, a TED-like conference in Toronto, Canada, and was an invited panelist at the Davidson Young Scholars Summit in Reno, where he spoke about the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project.
Juicy Crosswords, a book containing crosswords Steinberg edited for the Orange County Register, was published by Sterling Publishing in 2016.