Puzzle Notes
All of my puzzles are made by hand. The only computer assistance I use is to alphabetize the words or arrange them according to the number of letters they have. Since 1987 I have used a paint program on the Macintosh to make them look pretty for the solving stage.
I do not include clews, and my puzzle grids have no numbers. I give you all the words that go in the grid. Most of them are proper names and clews would be very difficult. After 1982, I gave the "space" in multi-word names its own box. I love to intersect "spaces" when available. My first perfect puzzle was the one in which every word has at least one "space". I consider it perfect because every word intersects at least two other words. A few of my puzzles are just words from the dictionary (nothing capitalized except Zodiac, no hyphens or spaces). Some of those puzzles also have themes. I also like to put certain words next to other related words. One of my puzzles has "MOUNTAIN" followed by "DEW". Another puzzle has "DELICIOUS", "CHOCOLATE", "MILK" consecutively.
A few of my puzzles can be used for educational purposes. The best so far for that is "STAPITALS". I have already given that one to over thirty schools. I highly encourage its distribution.