UBC Professor’s hobby of crosswords turns into published work

Mark MacLachlan is an accomplished chemistry professor and Dean of Science at the University of British Columbia, and while he’s not juggling his academic tasks, he’s taken a long-time hobby and turned it into something most have never considered.

“This is what I do in my vacation time and evenings and weekends when I can find 15 or 20 minutes that I can apply to relaxing,” said MacLachlan in an interview with The Leader Spirit.

“I started doing crosswords in about 1999, and really enjoyed doing them, and after a few years, I wondered who makes these crossword puzzles? So, I looked into it and found that anybody can submit a crossword puzzle to the New York Times.”

It sparked a new interest for MacLachlan, sending his first puzzle off for consideration in 2007.

While he faced rejection with the first handful of submissions, he struck luck in 2016, with his first puzzle being published in the Los Angeles Times 2016, something he has since framed in his office.

“I worked harder for that one than anything else that is on my wall,” he joked when pointing at the frame on the wall in his office.

He has since seen 75 of these masterful puzzles in papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — spending upwards of 80 hours laying out the intricate interface.

“I start by coming up with a theme and often that’s looking at things around me and thinking about work, play, or thinking about phrases that we commonly use and how they can be re-purposed for a crossword puzzle,” MacLachlan explained.

“Once I have got a consistent theme, I’ll put that into the grid, fill it with black squares, and start putting words around it, and I use software to help me fill in the words — and you can not have many obscure words, people should be able to solve the puzzle without having a crossword dictionary at their side.”

“It reveals the word compass at 65 across – which is what we call a revealer,” he explained.

The local cruciverbalist — also known as a person who enjoys, solves, and creates crossword puzzles — says he’s gearing up for a busy school year but that won’t stop him from taking part in his unique extracurriculars.

“I will probably dabble in some puzzles until the Christmas vacation and then I’ll have some dedicated time to work on my next ones,” MacLachlan said.