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The Results from the 14th ORCAS Awards!

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The ORCAS are the Oscars of the crossword community, dedicated to celebrating excellence in crosswords, and that was certainly the case during last night’s awards ceremony!

Clocking in at just under an hour, this was an event at breakneck speed, opening as all online award shows should: with technical difficulties.

David Kwong offered some anagram suggestions for other award shows and then passed the mic to Rich Proulx, whose bowtie game was ON POINT.

Rich’s intro was delightful, particularly when he shared that over $15,000 had been raised for the Trevor Project through the ORCAS puzzle packet!

With 97 people in attendance — including many nominees and puzzle luminaries in the chat — the first award was preceded by a tough trivia puzzle celebrating all of this year’s presenters:

After the solution was revealed, Ophira Eisenberg joined David in the hosting duties before inviting our first two guest presenters to handle BEST META CROSSWORD and BEST EASY CROSSWORD.

Aimee Lucido (author of Words Apart) read out the nominees for BEST META CROSSWORD.

I must confess that meta crosswords aren’t always my bag, but there’s no denying the skill and craftiness it takes to construct an effective meta. I ended up voting for “Blind Stitch” by Hanh Huynh because it felt like such a solidly constructed introduction to the concept of meta crosswords. It’s a great solve.

WINNER: Evan Birnholz for “Flying Colors”

“Queen of the Mondays” Lynn Lempel then read out the nominees for BEST EASY CROSSWORD.

Making easy crosswords is way tougher than it looks, and making easy crosswords that are still surprising and engaging is even harder. Despite that, this was a stacked category.

My vote went to Nate Cardin’s Untitled puzzle from the LA Times on February 25. Managing to find five phrases/compound words (OVERDRAFT, BODY WASH) where both parts could be followed by the word BOARD was an impressive feat of cruciverbalism.

WINNER: Jess Shulman for “Clear Up to Here?” (Lynn was the first presenter of the evening to do the “opening the envelope” gimmick for the winner.)

T Campbell and Laura Braunstein joined to present the next two categories.

Laura, one of the minds behind The Inkubator crossword, presented the EMERGING CONSTRUCTOR AWARD.

I sadly wasn’t familiar with all of the nominees in this category, so I had to go with someone whose puzzles I felt I’d had a good sampling of. My vote went to Carina da Rosa, whose work in Puzzmo and LilAVCX I’d enjoyed throughout the year.

And it turns out I wasn’t alone in my assessment!

WINNER: Carina da Rosa

T Campbell did a wonderful introduction about what separates BEST SUNDAY-SIZED CROSSWORD from the usual crossword fare before reading the nominees.

Despite the sheer ambition of “Just One Clue 2” and its crowd-sourced cluing, my vote came down to either the grid shape wordplay of Jonathan Raksin and Jeff Chen’s “Self-Starters” and the diabolic vocabulary in crosstina Aquafina and erik agard’s “themeless no. 36.”

I mean, we got SATAN WORSHIP and TWO CHEEKS OF THE SAME ASS, neither of which I’ve ever encountered in a grid. That being said, my deep affection for visual gimmicks in crosswords won out here.

WINNER: crosstina Aquafina and erik agard’s “themeless no. 36.”

Stella Zawistowski and Kim Vu were the next two guest presenters, with Stella handling BEST VARIETY CROSSWORD.

I love variety crosswords, because there are so many ways you can play with the traditional crossword formula to make something new and exciting. Rows Garden and Marching Bands puzzles are deviously designed masterpieces when constructed well, and this category showed off skill and cleverness in equal measure.

My vote went to a puzzle style I’d never seen before, as Ryan Faley’s “Nonplussed 4” combined across and down cluing with a non-traditional grid and a Rows Garden-style interior shape (pluses instead of blooms). I loved the construction and creativity, and the revealer was the cherry on top. Terrific stuff.

WINNER: joon pahk’s Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad

“joooooooooooooooooooooooooon” calls rang out both over the stream and in the chat to celebrate joon’s win.

Kim then read the nominees for BEST TOURNAMENT CROSSWORD.

Tournament puzzles are invariably bangers because they can push the difficulty AND creative envelopes, and this category was LOADED with heaps of cool ideas and challenges. (Last year’s Lollapuzzoola alone could have filled this entire category.)

The two puzzles that stuck with me the most were David Steinberg’s Westwords puzzle and Kareem Ayas’s Wild Discoveries puzzle from Lollapuzzoola. They were both wildly inventive, challenging, and above all else, memorable. This was the toughest choice of the entire ballot.

In the end, Kareem got my vote. And again, I wasn’t the only one impressed by his playful puzzling.

WINNER: Kareem Ayas for “Wild Discoveries”

A brief In Memoriam played next, offering tongue-in-cheek farewells to Deb Amlen (for ending her tenure with The New York Times), the Browser Crossword, and the free version of The New York Times Mini Crossword.

We then got a sincere send-off for influential creator and puzzle icon Mel Taub.

Our next two guest presenters were Peter Collins and Vic Fleming. They had a great little gimmick involving a swear jar and a virtual handover of $10 to celebrate the eventual winner of BEST CLUE (and my favorite of the nominated clues):

WINNER: [They might have “fuck you” money] for SWEAR JARS by Amie Walker and Amanda Rafkin, AVCX, April 18th

They next presented BEST THEMED CROSSWORD, which was another stacked category.

This category was a case of leading with your strongest contender, because Ada Nicolle blew me away with “Would You Let Me Finish” from Apple News+ on January 5th.

The grid is populated with longer entries that, when the last letters are removed, form the actual answers to the clues. So GOT THE ICK becomes GO-TH-IC, for example. It’s a great gimmick and a fun reveal when you get it.

WINNER: Untitled by Adam Wagner and Rebecca Goldstein

Rafael Musa, Ryan Fitzgerald, and Ben Gross then interrupted the proceedings for an interactive game with the audience. But first, they had a surprise award to hand out!

The Leviathan Award celebrates important contributions to the world of crosswords, so Ryan was blindsided by this award for creating the crossword software Ingrid. A video full of kind words from fellow constructors was played. It was heartwarming stuff.

Three instances of a puzzle game called Bracket City challenged the audience next. The goal was to unravel a series of crossword-style clues nested within each other, like so:

I doubt I was the first to solve this puzzle, but I was the first to post the solution in the chat: BLACK AND WHITE.

Work from the inside out with the brackets. [gun, as an engine] is REV, so you get [REVolving __] for DOOR, then [Friday with REVolving DOORbusters] for BLACK. [south of Spain] is SUR, so you get [flag raised in SURrender] for WHITE. BLACK AND WHITE is the final answer.

David and Ophira solved the first two puzzles live while the audience solved at home, and everyone was challenged to solve the third (and most complicated) bracket city puzzle in their free time. Can you unravel it?

David and Ophira continued the awards and presented the next category, BEST MIDI CROSSWORD.

As was the case with several categories, we were absolutely spoiled for choices when it came to midi crosswords. Crossword Gentleman Doug Peterson had a great one, we had ablaut reduplications from Alex Rossell Hayes, a tightly constructed foursome of BOOM-based entries from Amie Walker, and Peanuts grid art from franci dimitrovska.

But I had to go “By the Numbers” by Kaye Brown. The sheer ambition of a LOST-centric puzzle with character names reading across and aligning with the infamous numbers from the show. It’s a fantastic bit of constructing wizardry.

WINNER: Amie Walker for “Bangers”

Our next presenters were Brad Wilber and Mangesh Ghogre to handle the one-two punch of BEST CRYPTIC CROSSWORD and BEST VARIETY CRYPTIC CROSSWORD.

I have been on a quest to improve my cryptic crossword solving over the last few years, so the nominees in these two categories put me through my paces! The devious cluing was at its peak in the cryptics, and I think I spent more time on each cryptic than I did on any two or three of the puzzles in the other categories!

Amidst all the tough cluing and interesting vocabulary, it was Jamie Ding’s AVCX Cryptic and The Rackenfracker’s “High Definition” who got my votes this year.

WINNER, BEST CRYPTIC: PiGuyN for “pi guy cryptic 22”

WINNER, BEST VARIETY CRYPTIC: The Rackenfracker (JonMichael Rasmus & Sean Weitner) for “High Definition”

Our penultimate pair of guest presenters were Katie Grogg (looking glam!) and Jared Goudsmit. They presented the nominees and some great puns as well (and made a strong case for hosting next year’s awards).

The first award they presented was BEST CROSSWORD-RELATED MEDIA.

This is a new category for this year’s ORCAS, and as you can imagine, I was absolutely stoked to be included amidst a murderer’s row of excellent, insightful commentary on all things crosswords.

I quite selfishly voted for a PuzzCulture piece, as I was immensely proud of “The Curious Case of Richard Simon’s Aunt, Hedwig.” I didn’t expect to win, and was very content just for the opportunity for new eyes to find the blog.

WINNER: Adam Aaronson for “Square Theory”.

The chat was so chuffed for Adam, with several shouting out his post as eye-opening and game-changing. Congratulations Adam!

Katie and Jared then presented BEST CROSSWORD COMMENTARY.

I love the behind-the-curtain glimpses offered in columns like Rex Parker’s, Wordplay, and the LA Times Crossword Corner, many of whom have been commenting crosswords longer than some of the attendees have been making crosswords or solving them!

All of these nods are well-deserved — Deb and Malaika are brilliant, distinct voices in the crossworld — but it was “Malaika Handa and Stephen Lurie” by Renee Thomason that got my vote.

WINNER: Sally Hoelscher for “Terrors of the Deep”

Our final two awards were presented by Christina Iverson and the very dapper Andy Kravis. First up was BEST THEMELESS CROSSWORD.

This one was a three-horse race for me, with killer efforts by Paolo Pasco, guest host Christina, and Erik Agard, all chock-full of great vocabulary and ambitious crossings. I finally managed to narrow it to Erik’s August 18th New Yorker puzzle when it came to my vote, but really, any of these three would be worthy winners.

WINNER: Erik Agard’s August 18th New Yorker puzzle

Finally, it was time for CONSTRUCTOR OF THE YEAR.

I genuinely have no idea how you even narrow down nominations for this category, because there are SO MANY talented constructors. My shortlist would be 30 people deep, easy!

Each of the puzzles included in the Trevor Project Puzzle Pack represented the nominees well, but it was Rafael Musa and Adam Wagner’s puzzles that stuck with me the most. I loved the gimmick in Adam’s “Endless Loop,” but in the end, I went with Rafael Musa. Each time I saw that name in the byline, I knew I was guaranteed a terrific solve.

WINNER: Adam Wagner

Adam was there to accept and gave a very sweet speech, celebrating the welcoming crossword community and the support of his wife and family. Amazingly, he only started constructing in 2019!

You can’t complain about an award show that only takes up an hour of your time, especially when Oscar and Emmy broadcasts can last into the wee hours. And the crossword community is full of quirky, likable folks, so anytime you can get a bunch of them in a room (virtual or otherwise) together, you’re guaranteed a good time.

I thought it was a little weird that the games got more time than some of the categories, but this was my first ORCAS. Maybe that’s how the show usually goes!

Congratulations to all the winners! There were so many amazing puzzles published last year, and it was a pleasure to get to solve so many mind-bending, entertaining, and lovingly crafted cruciverbalist creations.

It was cool to see 5 out of my 15 selections get the nod (and a few other winners in my honorable mentions). And I’m already taking notes to contribute nominees to next year’s ORCAS!

What did you think of the ORCAS, fellow puzzler? Did your favorites win? Was there a puzzle you loved that you wish had gotten more of a spotlight?

Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you!

Delving into the 2026 Boswords Winter Wondersolve Puzzles!

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Tuesday night was my first chance to sit down and try my hand at the puzzles from this year’s Winter Wondersolve event. Given the talent involved amongst the organizers and constructors — as well as the always-reliable puzzles featured in previous Boswords-hosted events — I had high expectations, and I was not disappointed.

So let’s put those puzzles under the microscope and see what’s what!

Warm-Up: Opening Kickoff by John Lieb

Perennial Boswords warm-up puzzle master Mr. Lieb delivers a terrific puzzle to knock any ring rust off of solvers with this 16×11 football-shaped grid.

With both teams competing in this year’s Super Bowl (as well as one team’s coach) in the grid, the theme is on point and the smart construction makes this puzzle so accessible. It’s a first-class starter for a day of solving.

My favorite clue was the double use of “Like a haunted house” for both SCARY and EERIE, especially since they were in mirrored spots in the grid.

Puzzle #1: French Twist by Pao Roy

The tournament proper launched with this 15x grid that relied on pronunciation as much as wordplay, adding an “eh” sound to established phrases, like PURE NONSENSE becoming PUREE NONSENSE or SNAIL MAIL becoming SNAIL MELEE.

I appreciate a puzzle that takes you out of the traditional solving experience, so the fact that I had to say each theme entry aloud to get the most out of the solve was great fun. Add in the tight construction and you’ve got a strong opener on your hands.

Interesting grid entries included THE FONZ, HARISSA, TUMBLR, and DEEP CUTS, and my favorite clue was “Only Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee to win a National Book Award (for her memoir “Just Kids”)” for PATTI SMITH. I learned something in this puzzle!

Puzzle #2: Pandora’s Box by Wendy L. Brandes

Puzzle #2 was only a half-step or so tougher than Puzzle #1, remaining very solver friendly while still peppered with some great vocabulary.

This 16×17 grid had a marvelous visual element, with some of the bad things contained in Pandora’s Box literally escaping from their rows and longer entries, so CIVIC ENGAGEMENT only read CIVNGAGEMENT, as the rest of VICE was spelled out in the circled letters above.

With HOPE remaining in the box in the final themed entry, this puzzle’s beautifully visual style nicely encapsulated the classic myth. My favorite puzzle of the day!

Interesting grid entries included STRIATED, ENRON, USER FEES, and AMATEURISH, and my favorite clue was “Name contained in a wedding registry?” for GREG.

Puzzle #3: Skipping a Grade by Adam Aaronson (or dm ronson, perhaps?)

The most devious puzzle of the day belongs to Adam Aaronson, as this 16×17 grid featured theme entries where all of the As have been removed from phrases, turning BLACKSABBATH into BLCKSBBTH. With six theme entries plus the revealer STRAIGHT A’S, this grid was packed!

And it’s hard to deny the absolute insanity of writing FLLLLLLLL for “Refrain in a Christmas carol.” An unforgettable puzzly moment, to be sure.

Interesting grid entries included BEAN BAG CHAIR, RIZZLER, I’LL SUE, and CULT HIT, and my favorite clue was “India is in its alphabet, but not in it” for NATO.

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Puzzle #4: Themeless by Amanda Rafkin and Amie Walker

The tournament concludes with the toughest puzzle of the day, a 15x themeless grid with an S-shaped grid pattern that created a genuine flow while solving.

Two sets of clues were offered for the final puzzle — FLURRY clues on the easier side (approximately a NYT Wednesday level) and BLIZZARD clues on the tougher side of the spectrum (approximately a NYT weekend level) — but both offered their fair share of challenges for solvers of all skill levels.

I have gained a new appreciation for themeless puzzles over the last few years (in no small part thanks to Boswords’s seasonal themeless leagues), and this one was a highlight, for sure. Great long entries, fun fill, and really smart construction made the final challenge of the day a very satisfying solve.

Interesting grid entries included WHITE LIE, STRAY CAT, SCRAP PAPER, TARGETED AD, and THERE THERE. Both the easier and tougher sets of clues had some gems, so I’ll list them separately below:

FLURRY clues:

  • “Brass fastener, as in a kid’s model skeleton” for BRAD (love the specificity!)
  • “Ball culture affirmative” for YAS
  • ‘”You can totally pull off a Mariah Carey song at karaoke tonight,’ probably” for WHITE LIE
  • “Wool whose name becomes a country if you change one letter” for ANGORA

BLIZZARD clues:

  • “Draft pick?” for SCRAP PAPER
  • “Twosome in ‘Waiting for Godot'” for ACTS
  • “Whopper Jr.?” for WHITE LIE
  • “It might be right up your alley” for STRAY CAT

This year’s tournament felt like the perfect introduction to tournament-style solving and puzzles for a newbie competitor, and the wide array of themes, cluing, and grid entry vocabulary kept me engaged throughout the entire solve.

The cluing this year was topnotch, and I laughed out loud several times at the clever linguistic trickery on display.

Boswords events aren’t about difficulty, they’re about the joy of crossword solving and wordplay and all the delights that come with filling in these black-and-white grids, and this year’s Winter Wondersolve was no exception.

It’s the right mix of challenge and creativity for solvers accustomed to NYT-style solving, and I think the constructors and organizers did one heck of a job putting together the event. A hearty tip-of-the-hat to the hardworking puzzlers for pulling this all off!

I can’t wait to see what they cook up for us next.

And speaking of, the Boswords 2026 Spring Themeless League is coming soon! A weekly tournament that happens every Monday night from 9-10 pm Eastern in March and April (with a bonus livestream hangout!), the Spring Themeless League is the kind of community puzzly joy that is always welcome.

Registration for the event opens Saturday, February 15th, and they’ve already announced a killer’s row of constructors (in addition to the spot for the winner of their open submission contest).

This year’s line-up includes Kareem Ayas, Michael Berg, Malaika Handa, Katie Hoody, Rafael Musa, Jess Shulman, Byron Walden, and Stella Zawistowski.

Check out the Boswords website for full details!

Thanks for solving with me today. Did you tackle the challenge of the Winter Wondersolve, or will you be participating in this year’s Spring Themeless League? Let me know in the comments section below, I’d love to hear from you!

The 2021 Boswords Fall Themeless League: Looking Back

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After two months of challenging, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable weekly solving, the Boswords 2021 Fall Themeless League came to a close last week.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Boswords 2021 Fall Themeless League spreads out a tournament-style solving experience over nine weeks, one themeless crossword per week. Each puzzle is scored based on your answer accuracy (incorrect letters, empty squares, etc.) and how quickly you complete the grid.

While each week’s puzzle only had one solution, there were three sets of clues, each representing a different difficulty level for solvers. Smooth was the least challenging, Choppy was the middle ground, and Stormy was the most challenging. (When solvers registered to participate, they chose the difficulty level that suited them best.)

Hundreds of solvers signed up for the challenge of two months of themeless puzzle solving and a bit of friendly competition, and now that it’s over, I’d like to share a few thoughts about my experience in the League.

With the previous two Themeless League events under my belt, I had a good sense of what to expect both from the puzzles and from myself.

Although I rarely solve online — and I solve themed crosswords far more often than themeless crosswords — I now have a good base to build on.

Unfortunately, I accidentally signed up for the wrong difficulty level this time around. The previous two seasons, I’d opted for the middle ground, Choppy. I signed up for Stormy by mistake, and didn’t realize my error until I logged in and prepared to solve the season’s first puzzle.

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As you might expect, being freed from the shackles of themed puzzle building allows constructors to really flex their creative muscle, indulging all sorts of curious and unexpected vocabulary as they cross long entries and employ fewer black squares in these impressive grids.

And since I’d mistakenly opted for the toughest level of cluing, I also saw the decidedly clever and devious side of each constructor as I navigated tricky wordplay and more challenging clue content.

The first puzzle of the season immediately showed me what I’d gotten myself into. I didn’t know the number of operas Beethoven had written, or who spoke what ended up being a Madonna quote, or what Mohsin Hamid’s “Exit West” was about.

I hit nearly half an hour with my solving time, which I think was a ten-minute increase from my performance in the previous League’s debut puzzle.

Although I would have better performances later in the season — my time averaged out to 24:48 across eight puzzles — that was definitely a shot right across the bow of my confidence.

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I could have contacted the organizers and asked to be moved over to Choppy. I’m sure they would have accommodated me; the Boswords team is terrific.

But instead, I decided to throw myself into the deep end and stick with Stormy and see how it went.

As I expected, it was quite a challenge. But I trusted my instincts more — filling in more guesses at the start, rather than letting them sit empty until crossing words offered confirmation — and overall, I enjoyed the experience. Sure, I was a little disheartened at how my season started, but knowing that I was competing — however slowly — at the steepest level available pushed me to keep going.

I’ve never been the fastest solver to begin with — doesn’t matter if it’s pencil and paper or on a computer — and I rarely time myself when I solve in my free time. But I kept setting different goals each week. If I had half the grid filled by a certain time, I’d set a time to beat based on that. I didn’t always succeed, but more often than not, I kept my time below whatever goals I’d set.

(Still, I dare not look at the times of the top performers, lest I despair once more. Heh.)

In the end, my individual rank was 220 (out of 303 Stormy solvers), and my overall rank was 251 (out of the 871 individual solvers). Not too shabby. A staggering 1253 people participated in this season’s event,

As for the puzzles themselves, they were solid. The vocabulary — particularly the longer entries — was incredibly creative and unexpected. And the constructors were fantastic.

Each brought their own style and flavor to the competition, and it was great to see well-established names like Byron Walden, Evan Birnholz, Kameron Austin Collins, and the dynamite duo of Doug Peterson and Angela Olson Halsted mixed with newer names to the field like Mollie Cowger and Quiara Vasquez.

All in all, I enjoyed the Fall Themeless League. (Although I was more comfortable with the solving interface and I had a better handle on themeless solving, given that this was my third go-around, I still felt like a rookie tackling the Stormy-level clues.)

I think when the Spring Themeless League rolls around, I’ll try Stormy again. Now that I have a baseline to compare it to, I’d like to see how I can improve.

And with the promise of future Boswords-hosted events in 2022 like the Winter Wondersolve event on February 6th and the Spring Themeless League, it’s nice to have exciting puzzle events to look forward to in the near future.

They’ve already announced the teams for each! The Winter Wondersolve will be constructed by Kate Chin Park, Christina Iverson, Adesina Koiki, and Matthew Stock.

The Spring Themeless League will be handled by Adam Aaronson, Wendy L. Brandes, Katja Brinck, Julian Lim, Frank Longo, the team of Sophia Maymudes & Kyra Wilson, Ada Nicolle, Robyn Weintraub, and one constructor to be named later.

(Yup, a mystery constructor. They’re actually selecting them based on an open submission process, the details of which will be announced tomorrow, Wednesday 12/8! How cool is that?)

Kudos to everyone who helped bring this marvelous project together, and kudos to everyone who participated. It was tough, but also a great deal of fun.

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5 Questions for Crossword Constructor Malaika Handa!

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Welcome to 5 Questions, our recurring interview series where we reach out to puzzle constructors, game designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life!

This feature is all about exploring the vast and intriguing puzzle community by talking to those who make puzzles and those who enjoy them.

And this marks the sixth edition of our series of interviews where we turn our eyes to the future of crosswords. Instead of interviewing established talents in the field, I’ve been reaching out to new and up-and-coming constructors and asking them to share their experiences as a nascent cruciverbalist.

And we’re excited to welcome Malaika Handa as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

You have to be fairly ambitious to get into constructing crosswords, but Malaika Handa is setting the bar pretty high.

Less than a year into her cruciverbalism career, she’s already been published in outlets like Grids These Days, Matthew Stock’s Happy Little Puzzles, and the American Values Club Crossword.

But she’s best known as the creator and curator of 7xwords, an attempt to create a puzzle for every possible 7×7 crossword grid in a single year. If that’s not impressive enough, she launched 7xwords after having only constructed crosswords for a few months!

Malaika was gracious enough to take some time out to talk to us, so without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

5 Questions for Malaika Handa

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

I started solving the New York Times puzzle about two years ago, when I got a job that had a commute. Eventually, we switched to working from home, but I still would solve the puzzle every morning. I didn’t realize regular people could make puzzles (“crossword constructor” felt akin to “astronaut” in terms of attainability) until a crossword blogger I liked refilled a corner as an example of how to make it better. That blew my mind! I started making mini puzzles in Excel, and then finally bought Crossfire around October 2020. Hand gridding is not for me, I’ve learned!

2. What, in your estimation, makes for a great puzzle?

I really don’t think there’s such a thing as a canonical great puzzle– or if there is, I am frankly uninterested. Appealing to every single solver seems like an impossible task, and a good way to end up with a puzzle that’s a little flat and lifeless. I like to solve puzzles that are fun for me, Malaika Handa, to solve! (I hope that framing doesn’t seem selfish.) Puzzles with pop culture references that I know, computer / math stuff, make-up / fashion stuff, Twitter slang.

Adam Aaronson had a puzzle with SYNTACTIC SUGAR in it, and I plunked it in with no crossings. I solved the rest of the puzzle floating on a cloud. I love that term so much– when I was a teaching assistant in college (one of my favorite jobs I’ve had) I taught it to my students, and I think it is a lovely and evocative phrase. I bet a lot of people had never heard of SYNTACTIC SUGAR before, so maybe that was really tough for them, but that’s okay. We don’t have to have the same opinion on everything.

What do you most enjoy — or try hardest to avoid — when constructing your own? 

When I write puzzles, I like to use fill and clues that make me really excited, even if it’s things other people might not have heard of. (I think that’s called “voice,” by the way.) Once I clued ISLA as [Stephanie Perkins’ heroine] and all my test solvers said they had never heard of that reference. I kept it in the puzzle anyway.

Then my older sister solved it and when she got to that clue, she texted me with a zillion exclamation points and we freaked out over how good Stephanie Perkins’ books are. My number one advice to other constructors is: If a particular entry doesn’t make you excited, what is it doing in your puzzle? (By the way, sometimes the answer is “it’s holding in place three other entries that make me excited” and I think that’s fine.)

Do you have any favorite crossword themes or clues, either your own or those crafted by others?

I love hearing people’s favorite clues. Mine are Robyn Weintraub’s [Batting equipment?] for FAKE EYELASHES, and Mollie Cowger’s [“Thank God it’s Friday”?] for SHABBAT SHALOM, both of which I, no exaggeration, think about probably once a week. My favorite clues that I’ve written are always clues from my most recent puzzles. So right now there’s 50-Across from this puzzle ((Editor’s note: Great clue, but NSFW)), or [Wireless device] from this puzzle.

3. Your 7xwords puzzle blog has become something of a sensation in the puzzle world, shouted out by fellow constructors like Erica Wojcik, Kevin Trickey and May Huang. Where did the concept for 7xwords come from? What have you learned from the project so far? Will 7xwords reach its ambitious goal by week 52?

The site started with the discovery that there are 312 legal 7×7 crossword grids, which works out to a six-days-a-week midi puzzle. (I talk more about the 7xwords origin story and the math behind it in this episode of Fill Me In, at around 24:30. And if you’re curious about the code I used to build the grids, feel free to message me on Twitter!)

I’ve learned so much from this project, I don’t even know where to start. Stuff like “How to make an html page exist on the Internet instead of just locally on my computer” and “Having a separate email address for a project like this will make your life one hundred times easier.” I’ve also gotten a lot better at articulating why a particular clue or crossing feels like it needs improvement. That’s a skill that has come from copy editing *checks notes* about 150 midi puzzles. Back in January, I was operating mostly under vibes (“this feels like it could be better”) but now I can usually identify what needs fixing, and how to fix it.

As for whether we’ll reach the goal… I do have a constructor locked down for every single grid. So it feels very promising. I have also seen that final grid, with no black squares, and it exists. So, even more promising!

4. What’s next for Malaika Handa?

The most concrete thing coming up is my puzzle in the Boswords summer tournament! Registration will open on July 1. Join us!! It’s going to be a super fun time.

5. What’s one piece of advice you would offer fellow solvers, aspiring constructors/setters, and puzzle enthusiasts?

I would love for solvers to remember that just because they personally didn’t like a puzzle doesn’t (necessarily) mean the puzzle should not have been published. (Sometimes it does, of course. Like Woody Allen tribute puzzles– we can just stop with those.)

Also, when you’re solving, look up entries that you don’t know! It’s a game, not a test.

A huge thank you to Malaika for her time. You can follow her on Twitter for all of her crossword endeavors, and be sure to check out her 7xwords puzzle site for both the 7×7 puzzles and her other crosswords! Whatever she does next, I’m sure it will be brilliant!

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