Blog Posts

Making It Look Easy

7/16/2017

Of all the wedding photos my friend, the extraordinarily talented Dallas Curow, has taken, there is one that I find particularly magical.

It’s a shot that was taken between shots, which is to say in a candid moment. The bride and groom are laughing uproariously at something we can’t see. On either side of them, guests turn their heads, searching for the source of that mirth, smiling the hesitant smiles of people who anticipate seeing something funny very shortly.

(Credit: Dallas Curow)

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And Now For Something Completely Cryptic

7/6/2017

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Today’s the day! If you meander down to your local library or bookstore today and pick up a copy of Montreal Review of Books, you’ll find a cryptic crossword puzzle written by yours truly.
(You can also download the puzzle right here -->)

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It’s the first time I’ve had a cryptic in print and I'm thrilled. It's especially cool to know that The Bookshelf in Guelph, which was my favourite hang-out in high school, will have copies.

This is a special puzzle because it was custom made for the Summer 2017 issue of Montreal Review of Books. I absolutely love this publication, which exists to highlight the literature of English-language writers and publishers from Quebec, and I wanted the puzzle to reflect that. Six of the clues are personalized, including three clues that make reference to authors whose books are reviewed in this issue (one of the reviews was written by me).

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The Proof is in the Cryptic

6/26/2017

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In just ten days, I'll have my first cryptic crossword in print and I couldn't be more excited. It's being published by Montreal Review of Books, which you can get all over Canada (see here for a list of places that carry it). I'm especially honoured given that this is the first time they've published a cryptic crossword before.

I hadn't really thought of it until my editor called to double-check a word in one of my clues, but proofreading a cryptic crossword puzzle must be really tricky. Clues can sound really weird even when they're right and even a perfectly symmetrical grid can have a structural error (which happened with The Globe and Mail a few months back).

If you don't happen to solve cryptic crosswords, which my editor doesn't (yet), how do you proceed?

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Bizarre and Beautiful Language Phenomena

6/16/2017

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Blood Fall, Antarctica. (Photo credit: Peter Rejcek, NSF)

When BBC Travel posted a list of the world's most bizarre natural phenomena in August of last year, I read it with rapture.

Did you know that there's a blood red waterfall in Antarctica?

Or that in northern Canada there's a lake full of frozen bubbles? (Ironically, the bubbles are highly flammable)

Frozen methane bubbles in a northern Alberta lake (Photo credit: @robertharding/Alamy)

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Cryptic Coincidences

3/25/2017

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Tell me if this sounds familiar.

Every once in a while, when I'm solving a puzzle, the strangest feeling comes over me of being simultaneously in the driver’s seat of my thinking as I tackle a cryptic crossword and a powerless passenger as my brain conjures a word from goodness only knows where.

Take the clue 17 Down on this Saturday’s Globe and Mail cryptic crossword:

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Happy Cryptic To Me!

1/27/2017

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It’s my birthday!
As a special present for myself, I carved out a little time every day of the last week and put together a cryptic crossword with personalized clues.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the momentum that good puzzles have and with this one, I’ve paid close attention to the difficulty level of each clue in the hopes that solvers will be pulled along.

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Measure Twice, Cryptic Once

1/9/2017

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Figuring out how to fit everything into the small master bathroom.

Have you ever renovated?

We spent the entire fall in the throes of a major house reno. It was tons of fun, everything worked out well, and I learned a great deal. The most important lesson was the golden rule of construction: measure twice and cut once.

This is smart advice to take literally but it's also a wise principle to apply more generally. Spend a lot of time planning. Review your work. There will be fewer mistakes and when surprises do crop up, you'll be better prepared to deal with them.

Planning carefully is key to producing a good cryptic crossword puzzle, which is why I was so surprised this past Saturday when there was a mistake in Fraser Simpson's cryptic crossword in the Globe and Mail.

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Slip Slidin' a Cryptic

12/27/2016

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My friend Monica, who plays a lot of sports, once told me about the day that volleyball slowed down for her. She had been playing for months but the learning curve so steep that even after all that time, all she could do was scramble to process what was immediately happening. Then one day, just like that, she could suddenly see the game as a whole. She was able to anticipate where the ball would be in a second's time and, therefore, where she needed to be.

About a year ago, I experienced the same thing with cryptic crosswords.

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Sing a Song of Cryptic

12/7/2016

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A few weeks ago, at the Quebec Writer’s Federation Gala, I discovered that I had won the honour of serving as the CBC/QWF Writer-in-Residence for 2017. It’s hugely exciting and I can’t wait to get started blogging about my home, the amazing city of Montreal.

As a kick-off, I was invited to be on the CBC radio show Cinq-a-Six, which is a program in which guests choose songs that have been meaningful to them and talk about why.

Me (centre), in shock, as I accept the Writer-in-Residence position at the QWF Gala.

I was excited to be on the program. But I was also extremely nervous.

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What Rhymes With Cryptic?

11/11/2016

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When I was child, growing up in rural Ontario, I thought there was a letter “r” at the end of the word “spatula”.

Can you guess why?

It’s because that’s how my father, who was born and raised in southern England, pronounced it.