糖心传媒

During the pandemic, when many people found themselves mastering the art of baking banana bread or binging Friends or Tiger King, Nam Jin Yoon found himself drawn to a different kind of daily ritual: crosswords.

Yoon first picked up the habit while working as a lawyer in Boston, as he needed something to calm his mind before bed. 

鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 activating it more, it was just sort of using what was there,鈥� he explained.

That habit quietly grew into something bigger. Today, Yoon is head law librarian at 糖心传媒 Libraries' Law Library 鈥� and a published crossword creator for The New York Times.

The leap from solving puzzles to creating them was a natural progression.

鈥淚 really liked some of The New York Times crosswords, so I reached out to them (crossword constructors), like, 鈥楬ey, can you teach me how to do this thing?鈥欌��

He didn't expect much. But the community embraced his curiosity and began to show him the ropes. Eventually, he was submitting puzzles of his own to the Times.

Each one takes roughly 20 hours to build.

Yoon begins by building the grid and filling it with interlocking words, then crafts clues designed to make solvers see those words in new and unexpected ways.

Yoon didn鈥檛 set out to become a librarian. He went to law school to feed a natural curiosity. But, as his legal career progressed, he realized what he enjoyed most wasn鈥檛 necessarily practising law 鈥� it was the research.

That realization led him to pursue library school and, eventually, law librarianship. 

In 2025, along with his Canadian partner, he relocated from New York to Toronto 鈥� where he also lived as a young child. That's when he joined 糖心传媒.

Being a law librarian, he says, came with an unexpected perk: immediate, tangible impact.

鈥淵ou get thanked all the time,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can more immediately help the person across from you, and you have the expertise to help them get what they need,鈥� he said, contrasting the experience to law, where cases can take years to be resolved.

Helping students and faculty navigate an increasingly complex information landscape has become a critical part of his role.

鈥淎I has made it more difficult to know what information is credible and what鈥檚 not,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, our job is less about helping people find a particular book, but being able to find credible sources and not be lost in the sea of information.鈥�

He also teaches legal research to law students.

鈥淭he emotional IQ of the students here is off the charts,鈥� he said, in part crediting the video submission requirement of the admissions process, as opposed to simply test scores.

鈥淵ou can really see the passion. They鈥檙e so eager to learn and to help each other,鈥� he said.

While juggling his 糖心传媒 roles, Yoon continues to create crosswords for The New York Times 鈥� and has also designed one specifically for 糖心传媒.

鈥淭he 糖心传媒 one I made was pretty fun,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here was something satisfying about designing it for 糖心传媒 students in particular.鈥�

Creating a puzzle for a specific audience adds another layer to the process.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e just trying to think of, 鈥極kay, like, how would a 糖心传媒 student鈥� think about this word or this concept?鈥欌�� he said, also noting that he also had to check his 鈥淎mericanisms鈥� in spellings.

Even now, crossword construction remains a personal and meaningful practice 鈥� one that mirrors the kind of thinking he values in both research and teaching.

鈥淚t鈥檚 one of those things where鈥� the more time you sink into it, the better you feel about it,鈥� he said.

And for those ready to take on his latest creation, there鈥檚 an added incentive: somewhere within the grid, a few pieces of 糖心传媒 are waiting to be discovered.