Happy Pride! I had a long rambly paragraph of stuff to put here, but maybe I’ll let the puzzle speak for itself.
Thanks to Nate Cardin (of Queer Qrosswords fame) and Christopher Adams (of arctan(x)words) for test solving!
Cahoots! (with Will Eisenberg)
Over on Will’s puzzle blog Half-Baked Puzzles we’ve got a freshly baked treat for you. (Well, actually, it’s been in the oven for months, but sometimes you want to cook for a long time at low heat. Anyway.) A fun puzzle with a wild grid. We each constructed half the grid, and then clued the other person’s side—see if you can guess who did what!
More puzzles soon, including some Pride puzzles. For whatever reason (pandemic exhaustion? things are still locked up here in Ontario…) I’ve been very slow to construct puzzles lately, which doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on them! But hey, shout out to the outlets (like Universal and USA Today and Inkubator and… am I forgetting anyone?) who have been highlighting queer constructors this month. Rah! (Oh, and of course go do more of Will’s puzzles, if you aren’t already.)
Stream themeless (Ada Nicolle, Brooke Husic, and friends)
Hi friends! Yes, it’s been a month since I’ve posted a puzzle. No, I have not stopped working on puzzles. But sometimes it’s good to take a break and reflect. And also, there are so many excellent puzzles and puzzle-makers these days! Like Ada Nicolle and Brooke Husic, two of my favourite constructors, who made this grid and then… well, I’ll let them explain:
Remember that thing we did in the 13th month of March 2020 when we got on Twitch and livestreamed our clue writing? Here it is ready to solve, for both people who don’t know what we’re talking about, people who do know what we’re talking about but didn’t attend the stream, and people who attended but totally forgot what went down (and, I guess, people who remember everything but want to ~relive the experience~)!
A big thank you is in order to everyone who participated in the livestream, especially the incomparable Chris Piuma for moderating on somewhat last minute notice and Will Eisenberg for test solving. About half the clues were written by the following constructors whose work you should check out:
Adam: 6D, 8D, 50D
Antinermal: 39D
Avram: 55D
Brendan: 32D
Brian: 11D, 33D
Jac: 21D, 54D
Kormad: 51D
Lyle: 38A
Malaika: 9D, 22D, 35D, 36D
Max: 28D
Norah: 7D, 26D
Paolo: 53A, 59A
Quiara: 4D, 10D
Rachel: 46A
Ria: 5D
Ricky: 13D, 25D, 43D, 48D
Saswat: 3D, 12D
Yeah, I agree, you should check all those cool people out. Anyhoo, the puzzle came out great. Thanks to Ada and Brooke for inviting me to moderate the event, and for letting me share the puzzle with you all. Enjoy!
The cruellest month
Hello! If you’re here because you enjoyed my contribution to the Baltimore Abortion Fund puzzle pack and are curious to see more; Welcome! Uh, most of my puzzles here are a lot harder and weirder than that one. But if that sounds daunting, well, remember that what’s important is that you’re having fun. Solve with a friend, google liberally, reveal a few tricky letters: it’s all good! It doesn’t mean you “lost” the puzzle or “cheated” or whatever. You’re doing great.
April is National Poetry Month, and while this is kind of a silly thing — back when I helped run a poetry reading series, we often took April off, in spite — but anyway, it’s a good excuse to build a puzzle around a few poets I love. And it’s a chance to try out a cluing voice that is really interested in how clues sound, and is not al all interested in the laconic cluing style that the newsprint era normalized. Nothing inherently wrong with short clues (cough), but that’s not all there is.
Annnnnyhoo. Enjoy the puzzle. Check out the poetry, if you don’t know it already. Links for further reading are below the puzzle. And thanks to Brooke and Will for test solving!
BAF!
The fabulous Rachel Fabi asked if I’d be willing to contribute a puzzle to a fundraiser for the Baltimore Abortion Fund, and how could I say no? Like most people, I am frustrated and outraged by the lack of equitable, accessible healthcare in the US.* While we fight for more systemic solutions, we need to take care of people now. So if you can, please donate to this campaign — and, as thanks, you will receive a dozen or so thematically appropriate puzzles from some all-star constructors! And also me.
But here, let’s let Rachel explain more:
We are thrilled to release our crossword pack, "These Puzzles Fund Abortion," in support of the Baltimore Abortion Fund (BAF), an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to people who live in or travel to Maryland for abortion care. BAF is part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which consists of 70+ independently operated funds across the country. Abortion funds like BAF work to ensure that people have access to the resources necessary to make the decisions that are best for them and their family by removing financial barriers that may otherwise prevent them from accessing abortion care.
This puzzle pack was made by a group of crossword constructors who are dedicated to promoting reproductive justice: Chris Piuma (midi-puzzle); Claire Rimkus; Matthew Stock; Rebecca Goldstein; Robyn Weintraub; Erica Wojcik; Natan Last; Nate Cardin; Brooke Husic; Finn Vigeland; Martha Kimes; Juliana Tringali Golden; Erik Agard; and Rachel Fabi.
Note: the puzzle pack is not yet available, but all donations to BAF made through this page before April 9, 2021 will pre-register you to receive the puzzles in the first wave of the release!
And so here’s my puzzle from the collection, as a little sampler. If you enjoy it, please give what you can!
* While Canada, where I live now, has significantly more equitable and accessible healthcare, it could also be a heck of a lot better. But that’s a story for another day.
