The Brooklyn Ledger Puzzle No. 3,652 Difficulty: Thursday ●●●○○ Edited by J. Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge

Puzzle Editor · a curriculum vitae, in 13 entries

Brooklyn, NY| ebenezer.scrooge@example.com| (555) 010-3652| example.com/ebenezerscrooge

I have edited 600 published puzzles over 10 years, the last five at a daily that reaches 2 million solvers. I read every submission twice: once for the theme, once for the fill. I still test-solve on paper, in pencil, which is why the answers below are already filled in.

Solved by the editor. Pencil, one erasure, 4 minutes 12 seconds.

ACROSS

1 What Ebenezer has edited 600 of since 2016 (9) CROSSWORD

5 He turns down about 40 of these per week and mails a reason with each rejection (5) GRIDS

7 Regret, as over the pun theme he accepted in 2017 and still hears about (3) RUE

8 What every entry must do correctly before 2 million solvers see it (5) SPELL

9 Masthead job, briefly: what he and his 3 colleagues are (3) EDS

10 He rewrites roughly 60 of these per puzzle, average 8 words each (4) CLUE

12 The all-paper proofing one ended when he wrote the house style checker in 2021 (3) ERA

13 He has read 3,100 pitches for these in 10 years and accepted 412 (6) THEMES

DOWN

2 Yes, in Montreal, where he ran convention programming in 2023 (3) OUI

3 Rowing blade, and a stale entry he has cut from 200 or so grids (3) OAR

4 Word-list ___: his annual purge of tired fill, 1,200 entries removed in 2024 (5) DIETS

6 What 2 million people do with his daily puzzle by 9 a.m. (5) SOLVE

9 What each of his 12 retained test solvers lends a draft (3) EYE

11 What a difficulty rating must never do to a Tuesday solver (3) LIE

Solver's Notes

Employment history, in order of appearance

Puzzle Editor · The Brooklyn Ledger, Brooklyn NY 2021 – present
  • Edit the daily crossword for 2 million solvers; 365 puzzles a year, zero missed publication dates in 5 years.
  • Wrote the house style checker that flags banned fill and duplicate clues; proofing errors reaching print fell from 11 per year to 1.
  • Raised constructor pay twice and doubled first-time constructor debuts, from 9 in 2021 to 21 in 2025.
Associate Puzzle Editor · Gridwork Weekly, New York NY 2018 – 2021
  • Handled the Sunday-size queue: 120 submissions a month, each answered within 3 weeks.
  • Built the shared word list with difficulty scores for 88,000 entries, still in use at 2 publications.
Assistant Editor · Meridian Puzzle Syndicate, New York NY 2016 – 2018
  • Fact-checked 700 clues a week across 5 syndicated features; caught a wrong state capital 2 days before it ran in 40 papers.
  • Test-solved every grid on paper and logged solve times that became the syndicate's difficulty scale.
Programming Chair · Crossings Con (annual puzzle convention) 2022 – present
  • Proposed and created the chair role in 2022; now schedules 48 sessions and 90 speakers for 1,400 attendees.
  • Started the open constructor critique room; 260 grids reviewed across 4 conventions.

Education

Filed under 14-Across in an earlier puzzle

B.A. Linguistics, Harwick College, 2016 · Senior thesis on wordplay frequency in American cryptics, 96 puzzles sampled

References on request Answers final · No erasures accepted after publication