AVCX 15 x 15

Francis Heaney writes AVCX's difficulty ratings and they are always a hoot. I think this one might be a reference to my witch puzzle in the WSJ? Or maybe they were just in a Wicked mood! Anyway, this is my third puzzle for the wonderful people at AVCX, including Nate Cardin, who is a dream to work with. A classic 15 x 15, straight up, no gimmicks, free to subscribers and just $1 to buy. 

Here's a taste: Phony writing, right to the end (5)

Spooky Season 2025 #2: Missing Tombstones

 

My fifth Hallowe'en-themed cryptic for The Browser was published this past weekend. It's bittersweet because The Browser, which for many years has been one of the few venues for excellent North American cryptics, is wrapping up its crosswords at the end of this year.

I'm so grateful to Uri Braum (publisher) and Dan Feyer (editor) for the opportunity to grow as a constructor in the early days of the crossword, when I was writing four or so a year for them, honing my skills and trying new things.

Some personal highlights in addition to the Hallowe'en puzzles:

• co-constructing a puzzle with my long-time testsolver and good friend Diane Heaton
• co-constructing a puzzle with A.J. Jacobs
• co-editing my friend Jess Shulman's cryptic
• co-editing my friend and mentee Colin Tivol's first published cryptic

You can get access to the hundreds of excellent cryptics in The Browser's archive by subscribing here.

You can also buy the collected puzzles in book form.

Steve Mossberg wrote a wonderful tribute puzzle to the Browser, and you can find his post on Square Pursuit (and the puzzle itself) here.

Spooky Season 2025 #1: Cauldron

I have a witchy puzzle called Cauldron in the WSJ today! I used qxw to make the grid. I find this program a little trickier to use than Crossword Compiler, but it has a lot more flexibility when it comes to grid shapes. Didn't Mike Shenk do a beautiful job on the design?

Download it here!

DASH 12

Last weekend I spent the day volunteering for DASH 12. DASH stands for Different Area, Same Hunt. On the same day, in cities all over the world, teams solve puzzles that lead them through a story as they navigate from location to location. The puzzles are centrally developed, but the route (of course) is different in every city. This year, DASH also stood for Delightful Animal Sanctuary Holiday, because the puzzles had a safari theme.

I wrote the puzzle "Ears" for DASH 11, which ran in 2019, and was thrilled to be asked back for the next iteration. You can find my puzzle, "True Stripes", on the DASH 12 page. I wanted to make a puzzle that required some physical manipulation to take advantage of the in-person nature of the hunt, but did get some feedback from other cities that managing strips of paper in windy conditions was not an ideal solving experience. This wasn't a problem in Toronto, where the smaller number of teams allowed for mainly indoor sites, but other locations had too many teams to make this possible. Live and learn!

The teams in Toronto seemed to be having a fantastic time, and from what I've heard this was in general a hugely successful re-launch of DASH after its six year hiatus. As in 2019, I was so impressed with everyone involved in the development and organizing of the event. So many rounds of playtesting, so many logistics to manage, so much planning for the individual cities. And so much creativity from my fellow constructors. I'm very grateful to have been part of it!

Me (right) and my partner in crime for the day, the hilarious Becca, manager of Bakka-Phoenix Books, Canada's oldest science fiction and fantasy bookstore.

The iconic Toronto Reference Library: stop three on the route.

Becca and I also staffed the seventh stop, which was outside at Queen's Park. It rained a little, but that meant I got to use my on-theme umbrella.

Interview with Tonda Ros

I've been obsessed with the puzzle book MAZE by Christopher Manson for years and was thrilled to be able to interview fellow mazehead Tonda Ros about his addictive and hugely successful indie game Blue Prince. Read the interview here:

https://www.mazecast.com/2025/04/interview-with-tonda-ros.html

New Blog Smell

Puzzles! I know how to use Blogger and it's free so this seemed as good a way as any to gather my puzzle stuff in one place. Here it is:

• Cryptic Crosswords
• Other Puzzles
• About Me

I plan to blog about puzzles occasionally, when time permits and the mood hits!