Poet Cynthia Macdonald died on August 3 at age 87. She had suffered from Alzheimer's for more than a decade.
Macdonald's "idiosyncratic blend of humor and the grotesque made her a distinctive voice on the American poetry scene," the New York Times wrote. Her works included Amputations, "(W) holes" and I Can't Remember. She was also a psychoanalyst and was co-founder and director of the creative writing program at the University of Houston.
---
Merl Reagle, longtime crossword creator for the Washington Post, died on Saturday. He was 65 and had a case of acute pancreatitis.
Reagle was one of the stars of the 2006 documentary film Wordplay, about crossword puzzles, puzzlers and constructors.
Speaking of Reagle, longtime friend Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times, said, "Many of today's top constructors, in fact, got their inspiration from him. His puzzles were genuinely funnier than anybody else's, and he was an expert interlocker."
With his wife, Marie Haley, Reagle founded the Puzzleworks, distributed by IPG, and published three crossword books: Merl Reagle's 100th Anniversary Crossword Book, The Best of Merl Reagle's Sunday Crosswords: Big Book No. 1 and The Best of Merl Reagle's Sunday Crosswords: Big Book No. 2.