Stanley Newman
Daniel Stark
Stan's pre-crossword careers included stints as a college teacher, consumer market researcher and Wall Street bond analyst. A crossword solver since childhood, Stan's entry into the puzzle business came about as a direct result of his winning the first U.S. Open Crossword Championship in 1982. He started a crossword newsletter in 1983, serving as its editor and publisher, and began creating crosswords for magazines soon thereafter. He also began publishing books of his crosswords.
After being ''involuntarily retired'' from Wall Street in the aftermath of the 1987 crash, Stan plunged into crosswords full-time, as a puzzle creator, editor, publisher, syndicator, and mail-order bookseller. Newsday was his first major client.
Today, the Newsday Crossword is syndicated worldwide to over 100 daily, Sunday and Internet newspapers. As a puzzle creator, Stan's work has appeared regularly in People, Sport and Business Week magazines. And as a puzzle solver, he holds the world's record, set in 1996 under Guinness Book conditions, for the fastest completion of a New York Times crossword: 2 minutes, 14 seconds.
In 1990, Stan fulfilled a lifelong dream by appearing as a contestant on a TV game show. During his three weeks of appearances on The Challengers, hosted by Dick Clark, his cash winnings totaled $112,000.
From 1993 to 2000, Stan was Publishing Director of Random House's Puzzles & Games division, and while there published over 200 titles from America's best-known sources. He is the author or editor of more than 90 of his own books, most published by Random House and available at bookstores and online booksellers. These include books of crosswords and word games, three crossword-reference books, and 10,000 Answers: The Ultimate Trivia Encyclopedia.
Stan has organized and conducted scores of puzzle and trivia events nationwide over the past 20 years, including seminars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
He hosts an annual Crossword-themed Cruise, where puzzlers enjoy a week of puzzles and games aboard a luxury liner. Information on Stan's next cruise can be found at www.specialeventcruises.com/crossword.html,
or by calling 1-800-326-0373.
Stanley Newman lives in Massapequa Park, New York with his wife and has three grown children.
Daniel Stark, coauthor of The Million Word Crossword Dictionary, is a professional crossword creator and editor whose work appears nationally in newspapers, books and magazines. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and collaborator, Roslyn.
Dan's interest in word and number games goes back a long way. In fifth grade, he won a
Scrabble game as an award in English class and soon realized the value of compiling and
then memorizing all the
two- and three-letter words he could find. In seventh grade, he read the "Encyclopedia Americana" word-by-word through the letter L.
At that time, a friendly librarian gave him some discarded college textbooks on geometry and surveying
which then sparked his interest in math.
After majoring in mathematics at Cleveland State University, he began a career as an IBM mainframe systems
programmer and database guru, traveling extensively in the Midwest. In this capacity he began to explore the possibilities of microcomputers in
an integrated corporate network, several years before IBM developed the PC. Seeing the
potential of the micros and minis, he learned Basic, then Pascal and C to aid him in establishing
some early mainframe-microcomputer applications.
In 1986, in response to a challenge from Roslyn, he began developing PC software to aid in the construction and typesetting of crosswords. After
completing the prototype, he began using it and soon he and Roslyn had developed
extensive word and clue lists to assist the project. Dan's background in database design and
programming were invaluable in the compilation of this book.
Over
the past 15 years, the Starks have
created and edited more than 10,000 crosswords. Dan has constructed puzzles for The
New York Times, Newsday, and the Crosswords Club.
He creates daily and Sunday crosswords for United Feature Syndicate and
is a frequent contributor to Dell Puzzle Magazines.
The Starks have edited 26 volumes of the Crosswords Challenge series for Running Press and have also authored a book of crossword puzzles for Reader’s Digest. Dan has also compiled two New York Times crossword-reference books (with Stan Newman).
For relaxation, he and Roslyn read voraciously, hike, and practice meditation and flower gardening.
