The couple met when she was training as a flight instructor and he was an airline pilot. Koehler and her husband take to the skies in her Piper airplane. ![]() When she isn’t obsessing over crosswords, Ms. I’ll post that I’m stuck and others will encourage you without spoiling the puzzle.” Koehler finds comfort with fellow Muggles online. While she likes to keep a low profile, Ms. Khoeler maintains a spreadsheet tracking the number of correct contest entries every week. As the unofficial Muggle recordkeeper, Ms. Whenever she’s stuck on a contest puzzle she likes to write down a list of theories, look for patterns and review past puzzles to pick the brain of the author. “The harder they are, the more satisfying it is to solve them,” she told the Journal. People share how they got it right or where they went wrong.”īarbara Koehler isn’t one to back down from a difficult crossword contest. “It’s a collaborative group and people are very encouraging to those who were stuck. “This isn’t a competitive group,” he said. Stevens to welcome new Muggles to the community. Stevens lets the community know how many Muggles have uncovered the week’s contest answer and successfully made it “on shore,” and how many are still “lost at sea.” The announcement also allows Mr. ![]() Good luck!Īs the de-facto crossword “cruise director,” Bob Stevens has managed the XWord Muggles blog for the past two years. You can also read a special article by Matt about contest crosswords and how to solve them here. We also asked one of the weekly contest creators, crossword maestro Matt Gaffney, to make a special puzzle filled with words from the world of Muggles (including many sprinkled in the profiles below). They’ve even created a special language to talk about the progress they have made in completing the puzzle and how it compares to past contests.īelow, we’ve spotlighted some of the Journal’s best-known Muggles and a few new members to the group. They discuss puzzle strategies as well as their non-crossword lives from vacations to sports to family. ![]() All Rights Reserved.Fans of the weekly contest, who refer to themselves as ‘Muggles,’ regularly chat with each other on an online discussion space they created. As always, you can send comments about our crosswords to ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. You’ll see Mike’s name more, and can see for yourself why he’s considered one of the most ingenious crossword constructors ever. The Wall Street Journal’s policy is not to use pseudonyms in any of its journalism. Crosswords aren’t journalism, but times have changed and we recognize the practice lacked transparency. So starting this week, we’ll use only real names in our crossword bylines. Colin Gale and Alice Long are hat-tips to the Collegian, the Penn State student newspaper where Mike created a crossword five times a week during his undergraduate days (still remembered as a legendary feat in puzzledom). Mike’s noms are often playful messages in anagram code: Marie Kelly is really Mike. Noms de plume have been a part of the culture of crossword puzzles throughout its century-long history, frequently adding an extra layer of mystery and wordplay to the puzzle. For his own puzzles, Mike often joined an illustrious line of crossword constructors who use pseudonyms.
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