A Bradford man has been puzzling people over the years with his
challenging word and number puzzles, puzzles he devises not for the
money he earns, but for the enjoyment he gets from his longtime
hobby.
Walt Mackey of McKune Avenue said he was a big fan of
cross-sums, cryptogram lists and word arithmetic puzzles. After a
while, he started making his own puzzles, starting with 9 x 9
Sudoku-like puzzles with numbers. The 9 x 9 refers to the number of
letter or number spaces across and down in each of the puzzles.
Mackey starts by scribbling ideas for the puzzles down on paper,
and then once he has it just the way he wants it, he recopies
everything to a new sheet so it’s neat and easy to read.
Once he made his own, Mackey said he started expanding from the
9 x 9 puzzles to 16 x 16 puzzles.
“When I saw what I had, I started sending it in just to see what
they would say,” said Mackey, who works in the boilerhouse at
International Waxes.
Mackey gathered together a presentation of different types of
puzzles he had made and presented it to Dell Champion magazine, a
magazine of more difficult puzzles and challengers that now goes by
the name of Dell Magazines.
After a while, Mackey got a phone call from former Dell Champion
Editor Nancy Schuster, who told him she liked his puzzles and was
willing to pay him for them. Mackey agreed and got his first check
in 1989 for his first puzzle. He has been publishing puzzles ever
since.
His puzzles have appeared in Dell Math and Logic, Dell Family
Variety and Pencil, Puzzles and Word Games magazines. He said the
puzzles also have appeared in Dell Spectaculars, which are bigger
issues in the summer and fall. He describes his puzzles as “letter
place and number place challengers, usually in the back of
magazines.”
Mackey said he makes about $1,000 a year on the puzzles he sends
in.
“I make just enough to pay off my country club fee,” Mackey said
with a laugh.
He said when he gets checks it says which of his puzzles they
used, what issue it’s in and what page it’s on.
“Sometimes, I see it before (I get my check) because it hits the
newsstands long before I get my check,” Mackey said.
Mackey said he would often see nine different letters or numbers
in various places in his life.
“I would see something like a sign on the highway that said
‘Exit 25 mph,’ and hey that has nine letters in it,” Mackey
said.
He said he would often come up with his puzzles that way and
began looking at everything as if it could be used for his puzzles.
Mackey said sometimes he’d find 15 to 13 letter phrases to use for
his 16 x 16 puzzles, and he tried to figure out a way to get the
phrases in the puzzle.
“I had like an obsession with it,” Mackey said. “It kept
building and building.”
Mackey did keep building off of his puzzle ideas. He said he
does his puzzles in the same way as Sudoku but in a larger scale
with no repeating letters or numbers. For instance, he made one 25
x 25 puzzle where each 5 x 5 square adds up to 65. He also uses the
letters in the alphabet (minus one) for some of his 25 x 25
puzzles.
Mackey’s puzzles often incorporates what he needs to fit phrases
in. For instance, Mackey does have some puzzles with repeating
letters along with puzzles with spaces, numbers and letters mixed
together, quotation marks, the star symbol and various other
symbols. He said he has also used puzzles with capital and lower
case letters because this can help differentiate letters in puzzles
with repeating letters. One of Mackey’s 16 x 16 puzzles had
“Miracle on 34th St” as the phrase. In this puzzle, the “th” in
34th was used as a single unit in the puzzle.
Because Mackey has opened up the number of possibilities in his
puzzles by expanding on original ideas, editors have told him his
puzzles are often too difficult for their magazines.
“Of course, I get my rejections and stuff,” Mackey said.
“They’re really easier to solve than they are to make.”
Mackey said the magazines test solve each of the puzzles he
sends them to make sure they’re unique and that they can only be
done one way. He said he’s only had one puzzle sent back to him
with a mistake in it since 1989. Mackey said he had to eliminate
the whole bottom section to correct it.
“I get upset sometimes like that,” Mackey said. “When I make
mistakes, I just hate it. I try to white it out. But then it
doesn’t look right, and I end up doing it over again.”
Mackey has gotten some praise and recognition for his puzzles.
He had received a letter in 1995 from a retired mathematician and
professor of computer science at the University of California
saying he had came up with a computer program to help him solve
Mackey’s difficult puzzles.
Mackey also said he got a call from Will Shortz, puzzle maker
and crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times, last summer.
Shortz interviewed Mackey over the phone for a new book Shortz was
writing.
Mackey also said a bi-monthly Dell Sudoku Extreme magazine came
out in August. For this magazine, they want six of Mackey’s 16 x 16
puzzles with either a simple “a through p” letter or “one through
16” number puzzle for each magazine. This means that Mackey, along
with getting a raise, will be producing 36 puzzles a year. He said
a lot of puzzles are already made up, and he often sends 12 puzzles
at a time so magazines have time to test solve them.
Since he’s selling more puzzles now, Mackey said he has had to
start filing income tax on the money he makes from the puzzles.
“It’s not half of what it’s worth in the time it takes to make
them,” Mackey said with a laugh.
Mackey said his son suggested he find a publisher to make his
own book of puzzles someday. Mackey said that would be a way for
his puzzles to find just the right audience.
“I know I’ve got a good product here,” Mackey said. “I’m just a
little hesitant sometimes because they say the puzzles are too
difficult. But there are plenty of people that like a
challenge.”
