Report: “Dartmouth College Librarian Laura Braunstein Works to Diversify Crossword Puzzles”
From Seven Days:
…a crossword puzzle is a perfect pandemic activity. Solvers no longer even need a physical paper or book of puzzles. The Times crossword app delivers a daily puzzle straight to your phone and offers a huge archive; the Washington Post, Slate and Merriam-Webster are in the online crossword game, too.
[Clip]
Still, crossword constructors like Lebanon’s Laura Braunstein have noticed disparities in who, exactly, creates them. Simply put: “There just aren’t a lot of women or people of color in the crossword world,” she said.
Together with Tracy Bennett, a Michigan-based copy editor and crossword constructor, Braunstein founded the Inkubator, which publishes two puzzles a month — soon to be three — by women and nonbinary people and offers mentorship for beginner constructors. The Inkubator, now in its second year, raised more than $30,000 on Kickstarter from 800 backers and currently has about 1,300 subscribers.
[Clip]
Braunstein, 50, a digital librarian at Dartmouth College, has been solving crosswords since childhood.
Learn More, Read the Complete Article (approx. 950 words)
Filed under: Journal Articles, News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.