Ten letters in circles

Normally, in North American–style crosswords, every letter in the grid is expected to be “checked”—which is to say, used in more than one clue. That way if you can’t get a letter one way, you can get it another way. It’s a pretty clever idea. But lately I’ve been thinking about what exactly it means for a letter to be used in more than one clue. Here’s another experiment along those lines.

Also, do what you want to make the puzzle more fun—reveal a few letters, google something, whatever. I want my puzzles to be challenging to get on your own, because I like a good chewy NYTimes Saturday–style puzzle, but there’s no wrong way to solve a puzzle. But I like it when I finish a puzzle and want to find out more about something I encountered there, and I’ll put a few (spoileriffic) links below the puzzle if you’re curious.

For more information (these are all spoilers for the puzzle): 24-Across (but more importantly). 33-Across. 34-Across. 47-Across. 13-Down. 38-Down (and then this!).

Sweaty spaghetti (Mikeystyle #6)

Mikey has other interests beyond not solving crossword puzzles, you know! So I made this puzzle to amuse him. Maybe it’ll amuse you too?

Also! I have a guest puzzled called “My name is Fifteen” up over at Ada Nicolle’s excellent site! She often hangs out during my morning crossword streams, and she makes delightful crosswords, and so I’m glad she was willing to give this puzzle a home. It was inspired by a certain Crosswordy Discord’s love of fifteen-letter phrases...

The new brew (A puzzling story)

The clues to this puzzle tell a story (first the across clues, then the downs). What are you supposed to fill in the grid? Well, hidden within each part of the story is both a standard crossword clue to solve, as well as one or more consecutive words that form an anagram of an answer. You have to find both of them (good luck!).

For example, if the story went: “You race back home in time to enjoy a fish dish” and you were looking for an 8-letter word, you might try anagramming RACE BACK and find the answer to the crossword clue “fish dish”, namely: CRAB CAKE.

(One of the inspirations for this puzzle was David Harris on twitter asking about fiction in crosswords.)

Huff, huff, cough

This circle-in-a-circle is not the end of my circle exploration, but I kind of never want to clue this many answers again. So the next one might be a collab. We’ll see. Enjoy!