By Giselle Goodman

Shawn Kennedy loves all kinds of logic-based puzzles: cryptograms, word hunts, jumbles. But he does not like solving them. Puzzled? Here's the answer: Kennedy likes making them. "My first puzzles appeared in the June 1999 issue of Games (Magazine)," said Kennedy, a Scarborough native. "I nearly fainted when I went to Borders and plucked the magazine off the shelf and found my name inside it, next to all the other contributors whose work I had worshipped as a child."

Kennedy was only 13 at the time. Now, at 21, he is one of the country's foremost logic-based puzzle makers. His work has appeared countless times in newspapers, magazines and online puzzle sites. He is the author of two puzzle books and he also interned with The New York Times crossword puzzle editor, Will Shortz, for three summers, helping him write games and contributing logic puzzles for Shortz's newest book, "The Giant Book of Sudoku"