Word puzzles, cryptics, and general word nerdery

If you like words, wordplay, the history of words, language, grammar, and word puzzles, please join me on this adventure. I’m going to teach you how to do cryptic crossword puzzles — trust me, they’re incredibly fun and anyone can do them! I’m also going to be writing about word puzzles in general; interesting things about words; and probably a good deal about some of words’ naughty little friends, like punctuation marks and grammatical categories, so there will be plenty in here to excite and titillate even the cryptic-skeptical.

Who’s writing this thing?

I’m Jack Shepherd, and I’ve been writing online since the blog era. Once upon a time I was the editorial director at BuzzFeed. I have a long-running podcast where we discussed each of the Baby-Sitters Club novels until we ran out and now we talk about rom-coms and romances. I think the Internet is at its best when it enables collaborative play, and I’ve spent my career trying to create or amplify spaces where that happens. I hope this will be one of those spaces for you!

What do I get?

Subscribers will learn how to do cryptic crossword puzzles and receive regular home-made cryptic puzzles just for them!

They’ll also get my series on fun topics for people who like words, such as the history of crossword puzzles, the evolution of punctuation marks, hot takes about Wordle strategy, fun with grammar and etymology, and more!