Crossworld News and Notes: May

Congratulations to Erik Agard, winner of the 2023 Boswords Spring Themeless League, and to second- and third- place contestants Tyler Hinman and Will Nediger. League puzzle packs, videos, and full standings are available at boswords.org. Boswords summer tournament will take place July 23 online and at the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Lollapuzzoola 2023 is August 19 in New York City. Registration is open now.

Save the Date: the 46th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will take place April 5-7 in Stamford Connecticut.


We’re happy to commemorate Patti Varol’s first anniversary as editor at the Los Angeles Times crossword. We asked her to share a few words about her first year and goals for the future:

“In addition to being proud of the overall quality and consistency of the puzzles, I’m really happy about the gender balance I’ve brought to the venue. Since I took over, we’ve had full gender parity every month — if anything, it has been unbalanced in the direction of more women than men some months. We’ve also had a ton of debuts, and I love working with and mentoring new constructors — we average five debuts a month, so that means we’ve probably had in the neighborhood of 60 first-timers in the LAT since I took over, including 28 so far in 2023. There’s still work I need to do to improve cultural and ethnic diversity in the constructors and the content, of course, and that’s part of the commitment I’ve made to improving the puzzles overall.”

The latest entry in the New York Times series “60 Seconds with a Constructor” welcomes Christina Iverson as Associate Puzzle Editor.

Congratulations to everyone who has recently made crossword debuts!

New York Times: Sam Buttrey (4/6), Robin Yu (4/13), Clay Haddock (4/14), Mike Hobin (4/16), Katherine Baicker (4/17), Kiran Pandey (4/18), Catherine Cetta (5/8), Spencer Leach (5/13).

Los Angeles Times: Sean Ziebarth (4/4), Adam Arvidson (4/13), Juliet Corless (4/18), Garrett Chalfin (4/23), Stacey McCullough (4/30), Max Schlenker (5/4), Francie Jones (5/5), Margaret Hurley (5/17), Kelly Richardson (5/25), Andrew Anker (5/26), Rose Sloan (5/28);

USA Today: Jimmy Peniston (5/15).


Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 contest-style (meta) crosswords organized by Will Pfadenhauer to help raise money for cancer-related organizations. The puzzles are easy-to-medium in difficulty (for both the grids and the metas). Make a donation of any amount to the cancer-related organization of your choice to get the puzzles. More details are available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.

A-to-Z Crosswords 2023 is open for registration on Kickstarter. Puzzles are daily 9×11 pangrams written by Frank Longo and Peter Gordon. At $14 for the series that’s $0.16 per puzzle. The subscription begins in early June.

Puzzlesnacks Plus Volume 2 by Eric Berlin is available now. 20 variety puzzles, this time bigger and more challenging. $7.99

These Puzzl3s Fund Abortion, Grids 4 Kids, and Puzzles for Democracy are still available — along with TPFA merch!

National Treasures is a free puzzle hunt available at The Puzzle Society. This series of ten word games and puzzles is presented in a detective story format rich with narrative.

We’re sad to see The Crosswords Club discontinued. The longtime puzzles-by-mail subscription added an electronic delivery in recent years and was for our money the highest-quality option for 21x puzzles out there. The June 2023 issue will be the last. We’re grateful to Patti Varol for her great editing work and Penny Publications for their support over the years.

Ross Trudeau announced on his site that he will stop posting puzzles weekly on Sundays, as he has done weekly since March 2020 (and biweekly for a bit prior to that). Two pull quotes we’ll highlight from his reflections:

“I suspect puzzles here will appear on the order of, oh, 1-2 a month, but who knows!”

“There’s a silver lining though. My motivation for letting this and other future Sundays pass with no new puzzle–I’ll keep sharing them irregularly–is that I have new and exciting puzzle projects on the horizon. I encourage you to continue to check back here for updates in the coming months.”

Ross isn’t the only one lately to use “new and exciting projects on the horizon” language, so we’re looking forward to new developments on the scene, whatever they might be.


Stella Zawistowski posted “Decrypting the Cryptic: Resources!” as a list of sources for those looking to get into solving cryptic crosswords.

Tracy Bennett, associate puzzle editor for the New York Times appeared on a recent episode of The, Art of Sway. She discussed gender in crosswords, the social appeal of Wordle, and her own solving strategies.

The Aesthetics of Crossword Puzzles” by Robbie Kubala published in the British Journal of Aesthetics in March explores the three sources of aesthetics in crossword puzzles: “the experience of one’s own agency, the visual appeal of grid art, and the literary pleasures of idiomatic language” using examples of puzzles and commentary from across the puzzle landscape.

The Labor of Play” by Ben Tausig for Public Books Magazine includes short interviews with puzzle and game writers Adrienne Raphel and Oliver Roeder.


Some ACPT 2023 retrospectives and media that we enjoyed:

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Black Crossword: Mini by Juliana Pache. .pdf, online.
Club 72: Freestyle 786 by Tim Croce. .puz, .pdf.
Crosshare Community: Daily Mini and Featured Puzzles.
The Daily Princetonian: Rah Rah Rah! by Gabriel Robare. Online.
Girlbosswords: Head First by Malaika Handa. .puz, .pdf, online.
Metas On A Tuesday: Obscure For A Reason (Meta) (Meta) by benchen71. .puz, .pdf, online.
MEOW: A Plus (Meta) by DrTom. .puz, .pdf, online.
Muggle Meta Mondays: Valentine Remix (Meta) by Peter Abide. .puz, .pdf.
Olio Grids: Let’s Talk About Sex by Brian Callahan. .pdf, online.
YourPuzzleSource: Daily Puzzle (Midi) by Phil Fraas. .pdf, online.

Autostraddle: Autostraddle Mini — February 15, 2023 by Rachel Fabi. .pdf, online.
AVCX: ($) DJ Mixes by Ben Tausig. Subscribe at link.
Crossword Club: Daily Crossword: February 15, 2023 by Erica Hsiung Wojcik. .pdf, online.
Fireball: ($) Heart to Heart by Paul Hunsberger. pdf. Subscribe at link.

The Atlantic Mini: by Paolo Pasco. .pdf, online.
The Crosswords Club: ($) Oh, You Two!: Quite the pair. by Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke. Subscribe at link.
Crosswords with Friends: Wayback Wednesday by Andy Kravis. App Store | Google Play
Crosswords with Friends: Midi Puzzle by Todd McClary. App Store | Google Play
Crosswords with Friends: Mini Puzzle by Patrick Berry. App Store | Google Play
Daily Beast: No Show, Wed. Feb. 15, 2023 by Matt Gaffney. .pdf, online.
Daily POP Crosswords: by Patti Varol. App Store | Google Playonline.
Los Angeles Times: by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano. Online, pdf. Free Cruciverb account for .puz.
Los Angeles Times Mini: by Elizabeth Gorski. Online.
McKinsey: Love is Love by Peter Gordon. .pdf, online.
The Modern Crossword: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 by Amanda Rafkin. Online, .pdf.
New York Sun: ($) Warrior by Bill Weber. Reissues from 2003.
New York Times: ($) by Sean Ziebarth. Online, .pdf, app.
New York Times Mini: by Joel Fagliano. Online, app.
The New Yorker: The Crossword: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 by Elizabeth C. Gorski. .pdf, online.
Newsday: Twosomes by Fred Piscop. Online, .pdfbackup online.
The Telegraph: Cross Atlantic by John Halpern. Online.
Universal: Drop-off Points by Howard Neuthaler. Online, pdf. .puz.
USA Today: Open Sesame by Zhouqin Burnikel. Online, .pdf, app.
Vox: by Adesina O. Koiki. .pdf, online.
Vulture 10×10: Puzzle for the Girlies by Malaika Handa. .pdf, online.
The Wall Street Journal: Exchanging Digits by Gary Larson. Online, .pdf. .puz.
Washington Post Daily Mini Meta: by Andrew White & Pete Muller. Online, .pdf.

Ben’s Cryptic Crosswords: Birthday Battlers by Ben Robinson Online.
Square Chase: ($) Flip the Block (Variety Cryptic) by Steve Mossberg. Patreon subscription.

Financial Times: FT Crossword: Number 17,333 by IO. .pdf.
The Globe and Mail: The Daily Cryptic Crossword. .pdf, online.
The Guardian: Cryptic crossword No 28,994 by Picaroon. .pdf, online.
The Hindu Cryptic: 13789 by Lightning. .pdf, online.
The Independent: Cryptic Crossword by Eccles. .pdf, online.
Ubercross: Small C by T Campbell .pdf

Other American-style crosswords:

Reviews and Discussion at Diary of a Crossword Fiend | Boatload Puzzles/AARP | Crosshare | CrosswordsBackwards | Cruciverbalista (en español) | Dictionaries6 | Easy Crossword | FreeDailyCrosswords | GameLab | Hard Crossword | r/crossword | Squares.io | YourPuzzleSource | XWord-Muggles Meta Calendar

Other Cryptic/Variety crosswords:

A Frame Games | cf.kmbweb.de Links Library | Harper’s ($) | Lovatts | Magpie ($) | Mokelfish Links Library | MyCrossword | NPL | Panda Magazine ($) | Private Eye | PuzzleCrypt archives | Puzzling StackExchange | r/crosswords | Split Decisions | Sydney Morning Herald ($) | The Telegraph | The Times (UK) ($), includes The Listener

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Club 72: Freestyle 741 by Tim Croce, club72.wordpress.com. .puz, .pdf.
Crosshare Community: Daily Mini and Featured Puzzles.
Jeff’s Puzzles: Mostly Musical Mini 21 by Jeff Linder. .puz, .pdf
MEOW: The Hardest Crossword (Meta) by Joshua Rubin. .puz, .pdf, online.
Nautilus Puzzles: The Aubrey-Maturin Puzzle by Ben Tolkin. .puz, .pdf, online.
The Tin Man: Four Apparently Random Clues by Tin Man. .puz, .pdf, online.

A-to-Z Crosswords: ($) Puzzle #73 by Peter Gordon & Frank Longo. Subscribe at link.
Aries Puzzles: ($) Aries Freestyle #5.35 by Andrew J. Ries. Subscribe at link.
AVCX: ($) Power Players by Ben Tausig. Subscribe at link.
Crossword Club: Daily Crossword by Quiara Vasquez. Online.
My Jewish Learning: MJL Mini by Rebecca Goldstein. Online.

The Atlantic Mini: by Paolo Pasco. .pdf, online.
Crosswords with Friends: by Donna S. Levin. App Store | Google Play
Daily Beast: Acting Weird by Matt Gaffney. .pdf, online.
Daily POP Crosswords: by Robin Stears. App Store | Google Play Online.
Los Angeles Times: by Shannon Rapp. Online, pdf. Free Cruciverb account for .puz.
LA Times Mini: by Elizabeth Gorski. Online.
McKinsey: Green Business by Peter Gordon. .pdf, online.
New York Sun: ($) Warrior by Bob Peoples. Reissues from 2002.
New York Times: ($) by Joe Deeney. Online, .pdf, .puz, app.
New York Times Mini: by Joel Fagliano. Online, app.
The New Yorker: The Crossword by Elizabeth C. Gorski. .pdf, online.
Newsday: Inner Circles by Mark McClain. Online, .pdf, backup online.
Universal: DownSPout by Gary Larson and Amy Ensz. Online, pdf. .puz.
USA Today: Crying on the Inside by Zhouqin Burnikel. Online, .pdf, app.
Vox: by Adesina O. Koiki. .pdf, online.
Vulture 10×10: The Seduce and Scheme Puzzle by Malaika Handa. .pdf, online.
The Wall Street Journal: Online Dating by Harry Doernberg & Jeff Chen. Online, .pdf. .puz.
Washington Post Daily Mini Meta: by Andrew White & Pete Muller. Online, .pdf.

Ben’s Cryptic Crosswords: Pizza Rap by Ben Robinson Online.
The Rackenfracker: Arrowhead (Acrostic) by dadgumituh and jmsr525. .pdf. online.

Financial Times: FT Crossword: Number 17,187. .pdf.
The Globe and Mail: Daily Cryptic. pdf, online.
The Guardian: Cryptic crossword No 28,850. pdf, online.
The Independent: Cryptic Crossword by Raider. pdf, online.

Other American-style crosswords:

Reviews and Discussion at Diary of a Crossword Fiend | Boatload Puzzles/AARP | Crosshare | CrosswordsBackwards | Cruciverbalista (en español) | Dictionaries6 | Easy Crossword | FreeDailyCrosswords | GameLab | Hard Crossword | r/crossword | Squares.io | YourPuzzleSource | XWord-Muggles Meta Calendar

Other Cryptic/Variety crosswords:

A Frame Games | cf.kmbweb.de Links Library | Harper’s ($) | Lovatts | Magpie ($) | Mokelfish Links Library | MyCrossword | NPL | Panda Magazine ($) | Private Eye | PuzzleCrypt archives | Puzzling StackExchange | r/crosswords | Split Decisions | Sydney Morning Herald ($) | The Telegraph | The Times (UK) ($), includes The Lis