How Merl Reagle (1950–2015) Changed the Way American Crosswords Were Made. ... The New York Times crossword, for instance, did not even print the latters’ bylines before 1993.

At the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT), the Woodstock of wordplay held each spring in Stamford, Conn., Chronicle Magazine puzzle master Merl Reagle is a latter-day cross between ...

Crossword puzzle creator Merl Reagle, whose Sunday puzzles for the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers were known for their wit, puns and wicked inventiveness, died Saturday in a Tampa, Fla ...

NEW YORK — Merl Reagle, a playfully irreverent crossword puzzle constructor whose clues set off spirited cerebrations from fans rather than frustrated surrenders to dictionary arcana, died ...

Merl Reagle, the imaginative and irrepressibly amusing verbal virtuoso who created the crossword puzzles published each week in The Washington Post Magazine and in many newspapers, died Aug. 22 in ...

Superstar crossword creator Merl Reagle once described his puzzles as being a lot like life. You start out clueless. You pick up a few words. You learn from mistakes. In one of the Carrollwood ...

Merl Reagle, a beloved crossword puzzle maker whose work anchored the magazine of the San Francisco Examiner and later The Chronicle, died suddenly Saturday in his hometown of Tampa, Fla. For 30 ...

At the age of 6, Merl Reagle could spell the names of every kid in his first-grade class. For some reason, he still doesn’t know why, he started linking them together.“Maybe somebody gave me a ...

Merl Reagle, a playfully irreverent crossword puzzle constructor whose clues set off spirited cerebrations from his fans rather than frustrated surrenders to dictionary arcana, died Saturday in ...