» Crossword creator:
A Beloit native who studied at UW-Madison and went to California to be an eye doctor draws a national following with his crossword puzzles. Jim Stingl
IN MY OPINION
Bruce Haight grew up in Beloit, studied at University of WisconsinMadison and went off to California to be an eye doctor.
About five years ago, Haight discovered another talent. He is quite good at constructing crosswords and has done 400 so far.
“Sometimes I’ll make a whole puzzle in between patients,” he told me in a phone interview from San Diego, where he lives and works as an ophthalmologist.
We’re not talking about a dabbler here. Haight has sold 40 puzzles to The New York Times and 35 to the Los Angeles Times, including some big Sunday grids. His work is syndicated in newspapers all over the country, including this one.
Not bad for a grandfather who for most of his 63 years didn’t give a ram’s dam (common clue for ewe) about a church recess (apse), sea eagle (ern), jai blank (alai), or who the son of Seth was (Enos).
“I’ve always been more into numbers,” he said. “I always liked Sudoku better than crosswords.”
Bruce’s father and sometimes press agent, Jim Haight, recently told me about his son’s crossword success. Sure enough, I looked at the Mother’s Day puzzle in the Journal Sentinel and there was Bruce’s name at the top. (Spoiler alert: the longer, themerelated answers all spelled out MOM, like milk of magnesia and mind over matter.)
“Bruce has always been creative. He’s lucky. He got his mother’s brains,” said the proud dad, who still lives in Beloit with Bruce’s mom, Joyce.
I like solving and sometimes swearing at crosswords myself, so I jumped at the chance to ask Bruce Haight what goes into making a winning puzzle.
First, he comes up with the theme. Depending on the size of the puzzle, there may be a dozen longer answers around this theme. Haight had a good one recently where he added one letter to various state names and then mixed up the letters to create the answers. For instance, California plus N equals majestic beast. Answer: African lion.
Next, he fits those answers into the grid and decides where the black squares should go. He’s known for forming those squares into recognizable shapes such as a dog, musical notes, or even a large letter that becomes part of the words abutting it.
Then all the smaller and non-theme words need to be filled in, with everything lining up horizontally and vertically. Haight said a computer program like Crossword Compiler assists with that, though he provides word lists.
Finally, it’s up to him to write clues for all the answers. Cleverness counts. Solvers don’t want the same old prompts over and over. Same with the answers.
“You want words that are common enough to where most solvers are going to have seen that word before. You want entertaining words that are vibrant and interesting. And you want words that aren’t racy at all,” Haight said.
Will Shortz, crossword editor at The New York Times, told me in an email conversation that he admires Haight’s creativity and has seen his puzzles get smoother and livelier during the past year or so.
“For example, in a Sunday Times puzzle of his published earlier this year, the fill (non-theme answers) included AW HECK, TO THE MAX, JANKY, AT A PRICE, LANE ONE, CRAWDADS, A.P. TESTS, XEROX, OPEN CASE, STAGE SET and OH WAIT (clued as ‘Actually, come to think of it...’). That’s expert constructing,” Shortz said.
You might think of crosswords as an older’s person’s game, but Shortz said the 75-plus submissions he receives a week come from constructors in their late 30s on average. He has published 36 teens, including a 13-year-old, and a 100-year-old woman.
On average, it takes 6 to 7 months from acceptance to publication. The New York Times pays better — $360 daily and $1,200 Sunday. Los Angeles Times pays just $85 daily and $250 on Sunday, Haight said.
“The LA Times is a little bit easier. I think they have taken the attitude that as people do more and more social media and read less and less, maybe America is not getting smarter as times goes by. So maybe dumbing down the puzzles a little bit is going to sell better,” Haight said.
You might find a whiff of Packers or Badgers in Haight’s puzzles. The California transplant remains a fan. He returns to Wisconsin every summer for a family reunion at Lake Mills.
He plans to continue his successful hobby as long as he’s able. He credits friend and veteran puzzler Peter Collins with getting him into it.
Haight’s patients love solving his crosswords in the office to take their minds off cataract surgery and lasers in their eyes. His grown kids seem less interested in tackling his creations.
“They’re not the word nerd people like I’ve become.”
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl