Tracy Bennett

Bennett was born Tracy Pinkham and grew up in Maine.^[1][2] Her parents were both in the Navy when her older sister, Cinda, was born, and later divorced.^[2] She and her sister attended free schools.^[2]

According to her family, Bennett began solving jigsaw puzzles before she could talk.^[3] She had an early interest in crossword puzzles.^[4] She attended the University of Southern Maine as a theater major, then transferred to the University of Michigan and changed her major to English literature, graduating in 1989.^[2]

Bennett worked for thirty years for Mathematical Reviews, first as a copy editor and then as the copy editing department manager.^[5][1][6]

In 2010 she won a crossword puzzle contest at The Ann Arbor News and soon became interested in puzzle construction after attending the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.^[6][7] Her first commissioned crossword puzzle was published by Knitty.^[3][8] She sold several puzzles in 2013, including her first to The New York Times.^[1][6][8] In 2017 she cofounded a website offering crossword puzzles created by women and nonbinary people and began editing crosswords.^[1]

Bennett became an associate puzzle editor for The New York Times in 2020.^[4][1] In 2022 she became the paper's Wordle editor.^[5][4] She also edits the paper's crossword puzzles and creates and edits crosswords for other publications.^[4][1] As of April 2025, she has created 7 total crosswords for New York Times, one being a variety puzzle, and one being a puzzle made in collaboration with Victor Schmitt. Her debut puzzle for the Times was published on July 21, 2013, and her latest puzzle was published on April 20, 2025.^[9]

She made adjustments to Wordle, which was a new acquisition by the Times from its creator. She reorganizes a set of randomly-chosen words for lexical variety and level-of-difficulty throughout a week's puzzles, and avoids words with variant spellings. On one occasion, she experimented with a themed entry on Thanksgiving Day.^{[5][1][10][11][12]} She considers the implications of words related to current news and researches possible offensive alternative uses of words.^{[4][1][11][10]} She has received pushback from players about themed entries.^[13][1][5]

Bennett began editing Strands, a themed word search game, when the Times launched it in March 2024.^[14]

Bennett lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she works from home.^[5][4] In 2002 she married George Bennett, with whom she has a son.^[1][2] George Bennett died in 2021.^[2]