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Adrienne Raphel

Writer and Crossword Puzzle Expert

Adrienne Raphel is a writer and crossword puzzle expert based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them (Penguin Press, 2020), What Was It For (Rescue Press, 2017), and, most recently, Our Dark Academia (Rescue Press, 2022). She is currently on the English faculty at CUNY-Baruch College. She also teaches graduate-level poetry and nonfiction with the Mountainview MFA program of Southern New Hampshire University, the Writer's Foundry MFA program of St. Joseph's University, and the Berlin Writers' Workshop. Raphel has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship from the American Library in Paris and named a James Merrill House Writer-in-Residence; she has been a featured speaker at events such as the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress and the Edinburgh Book Festival.

Education

  • PhD, English, Harvard University
  • MFA, Poetry, The Iowa Writers' Workshop
  • AB, Princeton University

Professional Achievements

  • Her book "Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them" was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
  • Her poetry collection "What Was It For" was the winner of the Black Box Poetry Prize
  • Her essays, poetry, and crossword puzzles have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Poetry, and many other publications.
  • Recipient of the Visiting Fellowship at the American Library in Paris and a Writer-in-Residence Fellowship at the James Merrill House
  • Mentor with the Periplus Collective

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Co-authored Articles (12)

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue: 60+ Sweet, Silly & Savage Poems

Roses are red, violets are blue, these hilarious poems are sure to inspire you Looking to make everyone laugh in your crew? Go on, keep reading, and you’ll have a breakthrough. Roses are red, violets are blue poems are...

How to

Speak Gibberish

You may think gibberish is covert nonsense talk or something a 2-month-old infant might say, but, in reality, it is a "secret language" used by some either for secrecy or just for kicks. If you want to join the conversat...

210 Cute & Romantic Quotes That Will Make Her Smile

Sweet love quotes for your special lady If you want to make your girlfriend, wife, or fiancée feel special, sharing a cute, romantic quote is a great way to start. Make your special lady smile by letting her know how mu...

The Ultimate List of Romance Tropes: Examples from Books, Movies, & TV

Plus tips to use beloved romance novel tropes in your own writingWe’d certainly like to believe that all romance stories start with a meet-cute and end with a happily ever after…but what about all that middle stuff? ...

How to

Write Poetry for Beginners

Writing poetry is a way to convey emotions, memories, and nostalgia without directly stating what you are describing. Writing poetry for the first time can be challenging, since there are so many ways to start and finish...

How to Solve the "Penny Has 5 Children" Riddle

Plus, handy bonus tips for solving any riddle Has figuring out the answer to the riddle about Penny’s 5 children been driving you nuts? Or, maybe you’ve seen the answer, but you just don’t understand it. This artic...

How to

Analyze Poetry

Do you feel like reading and analyzing poetry is like trying to decipher an ancient, lost art? Well, never fear! Whether you're working on an assignment for school or just critiquing it for fun, the process of analyzing ...

How to

Speak Old English

Old English does not mean "English that they used to speak in old timey days." Spoken over a thousand years ago by the Anglo-Saxons, Old English looks almost as foreign to a Modern English speaker as German.. 28 January ...

How to

Create a Kindle Book

This wikiHow teaches you how to use Kindle Create to convert your book manuscript to the Kindle format.

How to

Start Reading eBooks

One of the great new inventions of the last several years is the e-book, which is a digital book that you can read on a variety of devices. From Amazon's Kindle to an iPad or standard laptop, there are many ways to read ...

Using [Sic] Properly: Everything You Need to Know

The correct way to add to your writing Typically, when people use the word "sic," it's enclosed in brackets or parentheses. It might even be italicized. In this context, it's a Latin word that means "thus" or "so" and i...

26 Fun & Free Games to Try if You Like Wordle

Test your vocabulary with these creative word gamesLooking for another game to satisfy your Wordle cravings? The classic wordplay game from the New York Times has dozens of spin-offs, parodies, and related puzzles. Wheth...