Meet the Editor: Susannah Painter

Now in its sixth decade at the top, ‘Puzzler Collection’ sells +1.7 million copies a year. The editor, Susannah Painter, tells iSubscribe why the magazine holds the title for the UK’s biggest-selling puzzle mag!

There are over 160 brain-busting puzzles in each issue of ‘Puzzler Collection’. How are the puzzles created?

Yes, it’s puzzle-packed! The puzzle elves work tirelessly to bring puzzle fans the very best! Such elves include myself, other eds and compilers. Many are hand-crafted, some compiled using grids alongside a carefully curated database. We all have one goal – to devise interesting and fun puzzles, making sure each edition is varied and full of the highest quality content.

Each issue contains a huge variety of puzzles, from classics like crosswords, wordsearch and codewords, to challenging ones such as cryptics, number puzzles and logics. How do you decide which puzzles are featured?

The winning combination of puzzles is one reason why ‘Puzzler Collection’ is the nation’s best-selling puzzle mag. There are classics including Cross-Quiz, Dateline, Double Acrostic, Jolly Mixtures, Kross-Filler, Numerical Crossword, Sudoku and Pieceword, and also many exceptional puzzles that, thanks to those aforementioned elves, remain unequalled anywhere. Iconic puzzles include Round-Tour, Alphabet Jigsaw, Continuity, Story Crossword, Outsider, Honeycomb and Roundabout.

Each issue is unique: it’s one of the many things I love about ‘Puzzler Collection’, and I choose the puzzles based on the most important thing – our readers. Our puzzlers give us insight into their favourites and what they’d like more of. I make sure we pack in as many puzzles as possible – it’s important our customers have the best value and enough to satisfy their puzzle fix till the next issue!

How are the puzzles tested and checked? 

As proud editor, I check every puzzle by hand. We also have expert proofreaders (aka, more puzzle elves!), and together we make sure everything has been solved, checked and rechecked. Quality is so important to ‘Puzzler Collection’ – I’m incredibly lucky to work with a team so passionate about maintaining it.

What’s the best thing about being the editor of ‘Puzzler Collection’?

How long have you got? All of it is magic. The readers, unquestionably, are by far the best thing. It means so much and makes me beam to know we bring puzzling happiness to so many. I receive loads of lovely letters and emails saying how readers look forward to receiving their copy each month, what puzzles they enjoy the most, and chatting about puzzle types they always love or have tried and enjoyed for the first time.

Puzzler fans really care about ‘Puzzler Collection’. It’s a national treasure, and I feel so privileged and lucky to be the ed. My job is to chat to wonderful solving fans about puzzles, and to create and solve puzzles every day. Nothing could be better!

Read the full interview over at iSubscribe.