Where can I find the Spelling Bee puzzle by Frank Longo online?

February 27, 2016 7:36 AM

Where can I find the Spelling Bee puzzle by Frank Longo online?

I enjoy the puzzle weekly in the NY Times Magazine, and I think my mother would, too. I've never seen them in book form, and I'd like to print out a bunch of them for her. Short of that, is there an online resource that could help me construct the puzzle along with all of the possible answers? (Apologies to those who don't know the puzzle. I can't find even a single link to an image. It's six different letters surrounding a single letter that must be used in every word of at least 5 letters.)

posted by sixpack to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Best answer: That sounds similar to the Polygon puzzle that appears in the London Times. The Times is paywalled, and I can't find any images online either, but Polygon gives you a layout of 6-8 letters around a central letter: you have to make words of at least three or four letters, always including the central letter, and there will be at least one word using all the letters.

The Times doesn't publish books of Polygon puzzles, but using that as a search term, I found these books of word puzzles offering nine-letter grids, which might be close enough to Spelling Bee to hit the spot.

In case it helps, I also found a few other names/titles for that sort of puzzle:

Word Wheel, as seen in the Express;
Target, which looks to be the standard name for it in Australian and South African newspapers;
Word Target, a Canadian version;
Word Builder, for a variant in which clues are provided for the words.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:00 AM on February 27, 2016

Response by poster: Lots of great examples, MLC, and the books are perfect. Thanks!
posted by sixpack at 6:18 AM on February 28, 2016