I just wanted to make the announcement on here that I received an email from Will Shortz, and he liked one of my puzzles well enough to publish in the New York Times. I’m really excited, and I can’t wait to see it in print!

The puzzle will run on a Wednesday, and Mr. Shortz said he has a cache built up of about 9 months’ worth of Wednesdays, so it will probably be a while before it shows up, but I’ll be sure to post an update when I get an exact date.

Also, SMPTV is going great. What a crazy whirlwind of a program. Unfortunately I don’t get much free time to write about my experiences, but I’ve been trying to post samples on facebook and on SoundCloud, so if you’re interested in what I’ve been up to musically, head over to my SoundCloud page or my SMPTV page and check out some of the tracks.

Yes I did send off a couple of puzzles to Will Shortz before. It was one of those situations where I knew what the criticisms would be before I ever sent them off. I learned an important lesson: if you’re not confident in your work, don’t bother sending it in.

That said, I think I have a couple of solid efforts this time, so we’ll see if he decides to pick either one of them up.

To celebrate the occasion, I’m posting one of my rejected efforts from before. Maybe someone will get some enjoyment out of solving it, even though it wasn’t up to the NYT’s lofty standards.

BTW, if you’re an aspiring constructor, the criticisms were: 1. Too many 3-letter words, 2. Some ugly partials.

This puzzle requires Java to run.

Had a great birthday yesterday. The weather was fantastic so naturally it was an excellent night to go out and celebrate. Thank you to everyone that I saw out and about!

I have a gift for you all, another blog-exclusive puzzle. Hope you enjoy it!

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My crossword “Schwalterations” is up on the LA Times site, and is being published in syndication all over the country today! If your local paper carries the Sunday LAT, you can find my name in there!

If your paper doesn’t carry it, you can also give it a shot online at the following link:

Schwalterations by Jared Banta

Leave me a comment and let me know how you do on it

The NY Sun also publishes all of their puzzles online, so anybody who is interested in giving it a try can do so.

It should be available sometime this morning at the following URL:
http://www.nysun.com/crosswords/subscriber_puzzle.php

Well good luck to you all. Let me know what you think if you get a chance to try it

EDIT (2/23/2010): Unfortunately, the NY Sun crossword has been discontinued. This means the puzzle is no longer available except via subscription.

This puzzle was also published as part of this book, on page 72.

The former editor of the Sun crossword, Peter Gordon, is also starting up a new subscription crossword service at suncrossword.com called Fireball Crosswords. He does high-quality work, so if you’re interested in puzzles, check out the sample crosswords on his page.

I recently sold my first crossword to the New York Sun. I’ll definitely make a post when it gets close to publication time so everyone can try it! It’s a Monday so it shouldn’t be too tough.

Anyway, to celebrate, I’m gonna post up a few of my first fill attempts just for some solving fun for anyone that wants to try them. I was learning while doing these, so they’re not the highest quality, but they might still be fun to do.

So I’ll start out with the first one I submitted to the LA Times. I wasn’t really expecting for it to get picked up because the theme is a little specialized.. and it was rejected for precisely that reason. Some of you blog folks might definitely get a kick out of it though.

All That Jazz – Across Lite Format – PDF Format

For the Across Lite version, you’ll need this free download, which will allow you to work the puzzle on your computer. Alternatively, you can download and print the PDF version for a pencil/paper version.

Enjoy!

EDIT (2/23/10): I’m trying out a new applet which would allow me to embed these puzzles into the pages of the blog. If everything works, the puzzle should show up below!

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