Meet Gail Marie Beckman

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gail Marie Beckman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gail Marie below.

Gail Marie, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Through making people laugh. It began as a kid as a way to fit in, then amplified into performing standup comedy at a few places in Las Vegas. Your confidence definitely improves when the audience can relate to what you think is funny in life. Plus, with creating my business, Custom Crosswords & More over 33 years ago, I promote fun and games, providing my writing services to everything from an individual — all about their life — to a large corporation wanting the public to learn of their latest services and products.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

For over 33 years, I’ve been writing personalized and business crossword and word search puzzles using the client’s list of words, phrases and ideas, or with information found through my own research. Puzzles have been for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, celebrations of life, graduations, farewells, office parties, events, fundraisers, for training, and promotion of products and services — all created in a fun and games fashion.

I acquired the website customcrosswords.com in 1991, and was told by others the world wide web concept would never happen, and here we are. I’ve written numerous subject puzzles for many magazines over the years while retaining the copyright on the majority of them, and now reproducing them into subject puzzle books through Barnes and Noble. In April I completed Cannabis CrossWords & More, and in August, Food Connoisseur CrossWords & More, and am currently working on one I’ve assembled from medical puzzles written over the years: Mind / Body CrossWords & More. Recently I participated in a book-signing with 31 other local authors in Las Vegas at the Summerlin Book Festival, and I’ll be doing my own puzzle book signings at a couple of the Las Vegas area Barnes and Noble stores in 2025.

Another project is the accumulation of celebrity puzzles I’ve written over the years and adding new ones to create a puzzle book of famous folks I respect and admire, including the crossword I made for Betty White’s 99th birthday. After seeing an interview with Betty White where she was excited her name was in a TV Guide crossword, I contacted her agent and he agreed to deliver the puzzle to her himself, a crossword all about her life. Other puzzles include a word search that’s half I Love Lucy and half The Rolling Stones, plus Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel crosswords.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The first thing that comes to mind is growing up a Word Nerd and a Spelling Freak. My first crossword was written when I realized not everyone cared as much as I did about spelling. While working at a cable TV company, a couple co-workers would spell cable: C-A-B-E-L, so I developed a puzzle comprised of cable television terminology that couldn’t be completed unless you spelled it all correctly.

My love of learning through reading has kept my puzzle creating interesting and enjoyable, and has given me the opportunity to help others get their message across in a unique and memorable way.

My advice as a sole proprietor is to let go of things others can do for you and concentrate on what you do best.. the WHY that they got involved in their field of expertise.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

Although the dictionary and thesaurus have been a huge part of the development of my business, I’d say the first Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson would be a book that gave me innovative and creative ideas to promote my small business, most of which were low cost. Some of the nuggets of wisdom include: “Don’t hang a banner to advertise a sale; give away products on the street.” Another: “Don’t place expensive ads; pull a PR stunt for free publicity.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.customcrosswords.com
• Instagram: customcruciverbalist
• Facebook: Gail Marie Beckman
• Linkedin: Gail Marie cruciverbalist at Custom Crosswords & More
• Twitter: @GailMar57803092
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/lvP2ecWfZsY