David Bukszpan is a writer, former literary and arts publicist, occaisional crossword constructor. In 2025, he was awarded the Sinclair Lewis Fellowship from the Beinecke Library at Yale and the Alfred A. and Blanche W. Knopf Fellowship from the Ransom Center at the University of Texas to conduct research into the histories of literary publishing and puzzles in New York City.

He is the author, most recently, of Crosswordese: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Language of Crossword Puzzles, about which Will Shortz said, "Crosswordese in all its glory has never been so entertaining."  More info about Crosswordese and David's crosswords can be found at crosswordese.info.

HHFs

David is also the author of Is That a Word?: From AA to ZZZ, The Weird and Wonderful Language of Scrabble, which Will Shortz called "a fresh, amusing, 21st-century guide to everything Scrabble." More info about Is That a Word? can be found at isthataword.info.

With the photogragher Michael Kravetsky, David co-created the liteary jersey t-shirt company Novel-T in 2009 . During Covid times, David teamed up with the author Cédric Duroux. to launch the international arts and ideas "blind date" video project, Hyphenings. David is currently drawing up plans for a nonprofit nonfiction publishing house, Brooklyn Ferry Books. (Please feel free to reach out to learn more, including ways you can support its launch.)

The New Yorker once called David an "echt Brooklynite." He's on hiatus from @words_wtf, where he's been called worse. In the meantime, catch him in the streets and parks of Brooklyn, training for his next ultramarathon.