Skip to Main Content

Event box

Adult Summer Reading: Inside the Crossword: A workshop with Natan Last

Ever wondered what goes into creating a great crossword puzzle? Join acclaimed crossword constructor and author Natan Last for an engaging, hands-on workshop exploring the art and craft of puzzle making.

In this session Natan will go over the 4 steps of making a puzzle — thinking of a theme, placing the black squares, filling the grid, and writing the clues — and dive into the interesting controversial history of crossword puzzles that Natan describes in his book, Across the Universe.

Whether you're a devoted solver or simply curious about how crosswords are made, this workshop offers a unique opportunity to learn from one of the field’s leading voices.

Natan Last is an author, crossword constructor, and humanitarian immigration policy expert. His essays, puzzles, poems, and policy research have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hyperallergic, and elsewhere. He is the author of Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle, a cultural history of the crossword.

Date:
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Time:
7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:
Marx Family Black Box Theater
Audience:
  Adult     Senior  
Categories:
  Summer Reading  
Registration has closed.

Natan Last is a researcher, policy advisor, writer, and crossword constructor in New York City.

He is the author of Across the Universe, a non-fiction book about crossword puzzles. He regularly contributes crosswords to The New Yorker and The New York Times.

He is trained as a social scientist, focused on migration, political economy, technology, and law. Recently, he developed digital products and humanitarian policy for refugees and asylum seekers at USCIS, the federal immigration benefits agency; served as a Director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project an advocacy non-profit that models itself as a union for asylum seekers; and was a founding member of the International Rescue Committee's research and innovation lab.

He has a master’s degree from Columbia’s School for International Affairs, where he studied climate migration, international human rights law, macroeconomic theory, and world literature. He has lectured on refugee policy, immigration politics, data ethics, literature, crosswords, and other subjects at Princeton, the Harvard Kennedy School, SxSW, The New Yorker Festival, and the U.N.’s annual refugee consultation in Geneva.

His writing spans essays, academic research, policy papers, poetry, and criticism. Recent work appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Drift, Los Angeles Review of Books, Money on the Left, Hypoallergenic, Narrative, and elsewhere.