Puzzling

OK, and on with the story ... and then we can really get stuck into puzzles and words and stuff. Over the years (1990s and on) I kept working on puzzles on and off, but I was also running a graphic design business and homeschooling my kids, and wasn't doing puzzles that seriously. In 1997, when I was a web developer for the Australian Science Archives Project, I managed to sneak in a collection of puzzles , so clearly they were always something I was thinking about! Finally, I had the opportunity to write a puzzle book about animals for the RSPCA. The Amazing Animal Puzzle Book came out in 2002. I was ready for a change in the business, and decided to give puzzles a proper try. I did some cold calling (yuck!) and actually landed a job writing a book for the Royal Flying Doctor Service  in 2003 — I specialise in 'themed' puzzles, puzzles written on a particular topic, so for this book the entire book was about the RFDS, and was printed in large quantities and given to...

Now that you've met the important people (Petal and Griff), I'll introduce myself ... I'm Denise Sutherland, I am a professional puzzle writer. I have studied biological sciences, and have a degree in graphic design. I am a trained indexer, too.  Over the past ten years I have self-published about seven puzzle books, and have authored two books in the Dummies series: Word Searches For Dummies , and Cracking Codes and Cryptograms For Dummies (co-authored with Mark Koltko-Rivera), both for Wiley USA. I have also been technical editor on three Wiley puzzle books. I am a syndicated puzzle writer, too, which means that I have an agent who sells (and hopefully re sells) my regular puzzle series to a range of newspapers and magazines around Australia and beyond. My agent is Auspac Media .  I live in Canberra, Australia with my my husband Dr R (an astrophysicist) and two grown-up kids, who are 20 and 22. My daughter Ms J (20) is a games programming student, and my son Mr R...