About Robert Vermillion, Jr.
Robert P. Vermillion, Jr.
Robert is a prolific writer and puzzlist. We discovered him in our booth at the Maryland Renaissance Festival circa 2011 and learned that he and his mom had been customers since 1995. So of course we recruited him immediately for a variety of chores in researching, writing, graphics and explaining our puzzles, and having long philosophical discussions.
About himself, Robert writes: "I'm always willing to engage in a scientific or philosophical discussion. Solving puzzles and figuring out how magic illusions are done are key interests. I'm a passionate word-lover and am always up for a chat about how little sense English grammar rules make and how amusing the disparities between spelling, pronunciation, and usage can be."
Robert was born December 23, 1982, in Maryland, where he still lives. He studied Engineering and Architectural Design at the College of Southern Maryland and was a dairy stocker at McKay's (putting stuff on shelves) for a number of years. Currently he works at Ace Hardware, a much more comfortable environment. He has plenty of time to think about other, more interesting things, like writing fiction and designing games.
Some of the results of that thinking are highly imaginative short stories and novels. (Think Rod Serling meets Edgar Allan Poe.) A collection of 11 short stories was published on Amazon in 2016, followed by a jigsaw-puzzle of a time travel novel. More news as it happens.
Here are some of Robert's favorite quotes:
Outside of a dog, books are a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. (Groucho Marx)
Life is rather like a tin of sardines: we're all of us looking for the key. (Alan Bennett)
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. (Arthur C. Clarke)
Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. (Dale Carnegie)
Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Albert Einstein)
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer. (Douglas Adams)
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either. (Dick Cavett)
In 2025, Kadon published Robert's amazing puzzle design that we named Robert's T Party, based on four each of six sizes of T-shaped puzzle pieces plus four single squares. These 28 pieces fill a 32-page booklet of puzzle challenges plus several collaborative strategy games. Here is one of its thousands of designs framed as art. Click on it to see more about the set or even to order it.
Photo by Dick Jones