Tag Archives: constructing

Crossword News Roundup: ACPT and Puzzmo’s Open Submission Week

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We’ve got two quick updates for you today from the world of crosswords. And both of them involve opportunities for you to get out there and show off your cruciverbalist talents!

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The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is moving in 2027!

On Monday night’s Boswords broadcast, Will Shortz joined Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb to announce some changes for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

In 2026, the ACPT will be held at the Stamford Marriott, possibly for the last time.

No, worry not, the ACPT is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that it will be moving to Philadelphia for the 2027 tournament! The new space will be able to accommodate up to 1,250 solvers.

It’s a sad moment for Stamford, but not entirely unexpected. Attendance has been pushing the Marriott’s limits for years, and registration for this year’s tournament closed more than a month early because of high demand.

It’s also not the first time Stamford has said goodbye to the tournament. From 2008 until its return in 2015, the ACPT was held outside Stamford.

You can check out the full announcement here:

Overall, I think this is a great move for the tournament. There’s greater opportunity to attend the tournament, plus a ballroom space fit for voracious solvers of all ages.

I can’t wait to see what 2016 and 2017 bring for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Remember that registration opens on January 1st for former contestants and on January 8th for rookies!

Reminder: Puzzmo Open Submission Week is Fast Approaching!

From the mecca of in-person crossword solving to one of its most ambitious and welcoming online platforms, we move from one impactful puzzly institution to another that has very quickly made its mark on the world of puzzles.

Puzzmo is holding their next Crossword Open Submission Week from December 29th to January 5th, 2026, with new and established constructors all welcome to submit their puzzly creations.

Themed and themeless puzzles are welcome, as long as they fit Puzzmo’s specs, and the Puzzmo team has created an impressively thorough document to assist aspiring constructors with their efforts. Grid specs, examples of previously published puzzles, and more await anyone hoping to see their work pop up on Puzzmo.

It’s a very cool opportunity to test your puzzly mettle in a creative space known for strong crossword fundamentals as well as playfulness with language and themes (particularly their signature “apt pairs”).

I would highly recommend checking out Puzzmo, whether you’re planning to submit puzzles or not. The minis, midis, and big crosswords are all great fun to solve, and new constructors are bound to learn a thing or two from the terrific names on Puzzmo’s roster of puzzlesmiths.

Will you be attending next year’s ACPT or submitting to this year’s Puzzmo Open Submission Week? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Happy puzzling!

Constructors, What’s Your Salomon Number?

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I’m a nerd.

I know that probably comes as a huge shock to you, fellow puzzler. Positively astonishing that a guy who has spent over twenty years making puzzles — more than ten writing about them here — and even more years running D&D games, LARPs, escape rooms, and murder mystery dinners is a nerd.

But that’s the truth.

And as a nerd, I love watching people quantify things in strange ways. Weird units of measurement like smoots, or how FEMA uses whether local Waffle Houses are open to determine the severity of natural disasters, or the Muta Scale used by wrestling fans to determine how bloody a wrestling bout is.

So when a recent Puzzmo crossword namedropped the Salomon number, I immediately wanted to know more.

Created by crossword constructor and super cool website owner Quiara Vasquez, the Salomon Number is named in honor of Nancy Salomon, a prolific and influential crossword constructor whose generosity, mentorship, and creativity still shapes the world of crosswords today.

Akin to the Bacon Number (how many steps it takes to link someone to Kevin Bacon through shared performances) and the Erdos Number (how many steps it takes to link someone to Paul Erdos through co-authored papers), the Salomon Number represents how many steps it takes to link someone to Nancy Salomon through collaborative puzzling.

Nancy Salomon collaborated with over forty constructors over the years, so there’s a very healthy talent pool to build a Salomon Number through.

You’re welcome to play the game mentally, but if you need a helping hand, Alex Boisvert has created an automated system for generating Salomon Numbers!

A visual graph of the Salomon Number network.

I tested it by searching for several of my very favorite puzzle people.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Los Angeles Times crossword editor and puzzle badass Patti Varol had a Salomon Number of 2, thanks to a collaboration with Matt Skoczen.

Crossword gentleman Doug Peterson had a Salomon Number of 3, linked by Joon Pahk and Brendan Emmett Quigley.

As I explored the database, it quickly became apparent how small a world crosswords can be — despite all the wonderful new voices entering the field over the last few years — so I started to wonder…

What’s the largest Salomon Number in the system?

I started with the celebrity constructors during the 75th anniversary celebration of The New York Times a few years ago.

Weird Al Yankovic’s number was 4. A good start. But this quickly petered out, as many of those celebrities were paired with veteran constructors with strong Salomon Numbers.

I pored over the list for familiar names to see their scores. Gaby Weidling’s number was 5, which was the highest I’d seen so far.

But I was surprised to find some prolific cruciverbalists in the database with no Salomon Number at all. With so many indie crossword outlets, there’s a chance there are collaborations that aren’t included in the current database, so there’s always the possibility of a successful search later.

(I also couldn’t resist doing a little sleuthing myself to see if I could uncover connections that weren’t in the database. Nothing yet, but I definitely can’t resist more digging later.)

But as constructors collaborate and innovate going forward, it’s going to be fascinating to watch this network continue to expand and complicate.

Make sure to check out Quiara’s post, which dives deeper into Salomon Numbers and even ponders Bacon-Erdos-Salomon Numbers!

Happy puzzling, everyone!

A Chance to Construct for BosWords!

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Hello fellow puzzlers!

Last week, I mentioned that the BosWords Winter Wondersolve was on the way. But I also discussed other marvelous puzzly events handled by the BosWords team, one of which is their Spring Themeless League.

And BosWords director John Lieb announced yesterday that they’re holding Open Submissions for one of the themeless puzzles in this year’s Spring Themeless League!

It’s only open to constructors who HAVEN’T had a themeless crossword published in The New York Times and also HAVEN’T constructed for a previous BosWords event.

Yes, it’s an opportunity for new faces and fresh talent to show what they can do!

You can find the full submission details on the BosWords website, including parameters for grid design, fill content, and words to avoid.

I think this is such a cool way to encourage interest in both the construction side of puzzles and the great fun to be had with themeless crosswords.

The submission deadline in February 15th, so if you’re feeling inspired, get to puzzling!

And if you haven’t already, please strongly consider checking out the Spring Themeless League. It’s a blast and really shows off the creativity and constructing skill it takes to make an enjoyable, compelling themeless crossword.

Good luck to all the potential cruciverbalists out there!

A Cracking Collection of Crossword Clues

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Someone recently asked me about my favorite crossword clue, and after mentioning four or five off the top of my head, I cut myself off and tried to explain that it’s impossible for me to pick one.

So many clues are out there that surprised me, or outwitted me, or made me laugh, or made me think in an unexpected way. I could never narrow it down..

Regular readers who have seen my reviews of various crossword tournament puzzles will recall I like to highlight favorite clues.

I actually keep track of clues from constructors as I solve various crosswords. Not only are they often witty, hilarious, and/or impressive, but they inspire me as a puzzler to always try to find entertaining, engaging new angles for these crucial crossword elements.

So today, I’d like to pull some favorites from my personal clue vault and give them some time in the spotlight.

(I’m crediting the constructor listed on the byline for each clue. These clues may have been created elsewhere and reused, created by the constructor, or changed by an editor, I have no way of knowing. So I’m just doing my best to give credit where credit is due.)

Misdirection

I love a good misdirection clue, because it not only has a straightforward meaning that sends you one way, but it has a true secondary meaning that usually only emerges once you’ve considered the clue for a bit.

Constructor Amanda Rafkin has a knack for these sorts of clues, delivering terrific examples with “Decline a raise?” for FOLD and “One who’s pro con?” for NERD.

It’s particularly great when a constructor can use a misdirection clue to put a new spin on a word you’ve seen dozens of times before. Peter Gordon did just that with both TYPO (“Character flaw?”) and AHS (“Sounds made with depressed tongues”), and even manages to be topical whilst doing so, as he did with the clue “Page with lines of dialogue” for ELLIOT.

Yacob Yonas took an awkward RE- word — all too common in crossword grids — and made it shine when he clued REHEM as “Take up again, say.” Priyanka Sethy did the same with a multi-word answer when she clued IGOTIT with the delightful “Catch phrase?”

Brendan Emmett Quigley covered up an ugly abbreviation answer — ECG — with a banger of a clue: “Ticker tape?”

As you can tell, misdirection clues are absolutely a favorite of mine.

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[Image courtesy of XKCD.]

I also can’t resist clues that get a little meta, playing with the format of cluing itself.

TYPO appears for a second time in today’s post, but the cluing is totally different, as Andrea Carla Michaels offered this meta treat: “Something annnoying about this clue but hopefully no others!”

And Francis Heaney went out of his way to word to clue the word AUTOMOBILES in a manner you’ll never forget: “‘Humorous People in ____ Acquiring Caffeinated Drinks’ (Jerry Seinfeld series whose name I might be remembering incorrectly)”

Using multiple examples in a clue not only shows off the variety of definitions some words have, but allows constructors to juxtapose these meanings in entertaining fashion.

Janie Smulyan deftly shows off this technique by cluing SPELLS “Some are dry, some are magic.” Concise and clever.

“Beehive part, or beehive parter” for COMB was Sid Sivakumar’s tricky way to use multiple meanings twice!

And although this Hannah Slovut offering isn’t as concise as the others in this clue for SEE, it’s still a terrific example of employing multiple uses of a word: “Different tense of ‘saw’ that may precede ‘saw'”

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[Image courtesy of David Louis Ghilchip.]

I know some crossword outlets aren’t fans of using clues that specifically reference each other — “With 21-Across, name of Charlie Chaplin film,” for instance — but other publishers are completely fine with this style of cluing.

Naturally, that allows constructors to have some fun making connections and using clues to reference each other.

Hannah Slovut utilized this technique in a recent puzzle, cluing STYE as “Ailment that might be seen near 63-Across.” (63-Across was the exclamation MYEYE.)

There are all sorts of cluing styles we didn’t cover in this post — trivia clues, fill-in-the-blank, clues that use capitalization or pronunciation to mislead the solver — but hopefully we’ll get to them in a future blog post.

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In the meantime, how about a few more misdirection clues for the road?

Brooke Husic made readers take a second look at a familiar word — “Surroundings?” — when she used it to clue SIEGES.

Catherine Cetta’s “Spot early on?” definitely sends you down the wrong path before you double-back and find the correct answer: PUP.

And we happily conclude with a clue from puzzle master Mike Shenk, who clearly had some fun with this one, cluing ANKLES with “They’re just over two feet.” Absolutely shameless.

Gotta love it.

What are some of your favorite crossword clues, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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5 Questions for Author and Crucinova Editor Lisa Bunker

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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!

It’s all about exploring the vast and intriguing puzzle community by talking to those who make puzzles and those who enjoy them! (Click here to check out previous editions of 5 Questions!)

And we’re excited to welcome Lisa Bunker as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

Lisa Bunker is a lifelong puzzle fan and a constructor whose work has appeared in Games Magazine, The New York Times, and Simon & Schuster publications. Of course, this is in addition to her work as an author, an activist, and a representative for the state of New Hampshire.

But now having returned to the world of puzzles, Lisa is probably best known these days as the creator and editor of Crucinova, one of the most ambitious and innovative puzzle outlets on the rise in the puzzleworld today. (You might have seen them included in the Boswords puzzle packet, on r/crossword, or on Twitter!)

Lisa 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 Lisa Bunker

1. How did you get started with puzzles? Where did the idea for Crucinova originate?

Since infancy I’ve been fascinated by words, numbers, and the beautiful patterns that can be made with them. My childhood collection, still with me, was mechanical puzzles. My earliest memory of crosswords in particular is of becoming aware that my parents were interested in them, and then trying to make one for my father. I think this would have been when I was about eight.

It was a free-form vocabulary-style puzzle, and I recall my young brain delighting in discovering how you could cross two words at a shared letter, and then add more words and build something. By high school I had a hand-drawn grid in the back of a notebook that I would work on when I was bored in class, so by then I was figuring out how interlocking fill worked. I erased some squares so many times that I wore holes in the paper.

Crucinova arose out of several factors. One was my frustration at being unable to place unconventional puzzle ideas with any of the mainstream outlets. Also, on the solving side, my wife and I started doing the New York Times puzzle every day, and while we enjoyed it and still do, they did all seem to fall within narrow conventions with regard to themes, grid design, and cluing – the same conventions I remembered from twenty years ago.

I’ve always been interested in reinventing things, so I started thinking, surely there are other constructors with creative ideas they’re having trouble placing, and surely there are other solvers who would enjoy exciting new solving experiences. And when I found out that there was now a platform available that empowered anyone to offer online solving – PuzzleMe, from AmuseLabs – the last piece fell into place.

2. You have recently returned to constructing after a hiatus. How has the puzzle world changed over time? As you start to interact with the puzzle community at large again, what have you learned along the way?

I hesitate to set myself up as an expert on the Crossworld of yore, but obviously the Internet has changed everything. Back in 2006, the last time I was active nationally, most puzzles were still printed in daily publications rather than posted online, and submissions to the Times were still by snail mail. If there was online community around solving, I was not aware of it.

Now we have not only online solving from all the major outlets (including new ones like the Atlantic and the New Yorker), but also several indie subscription services and dozens of free personal constructor blogs, a thriving solver’s blog scene, indie tournaments, and abundant spaces on social media platforms for both constructors and fans to gather and share their enthusiasm. There are even Twitch TV channels where you can watch live solving, which I love. As an editor I find it so valuable to be able to witness someone solving a grid I edited.

What I’ve learned along the way is that the denizens of the Crossworld are truly lovely humans, generous, smart, funny, and kind. I’ve learned that there is a wonderful tribe to which I didn’t even know I belonged. What a delightful discovery!

3. Over the last few years, there has been a push for greater representation in crosswords for women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. And there has been some movement forward, particularly for women in constructing and in editorial positions. How do we keep this momentum going? What are some useful things that allies can do to assist?

One way, obviously, to keep the momentum going is by supporting and celebrating diverse creators. As a Rainbow Human myself (I identify as trans, non-binary, and queer), I took inspiration from The Inkubator‘s mission to feature the work of female-identified constructors and to include more diverse content in fill and clues.

I’m also impressed with Sid Sivakumar’s new Juggernaut puzzles, which specifically foreground South Asian culture and content, and by the Queer Qrosswords project, which has sought to raise money for LGBTQ+ causes. I think there’s a ton of room for more culture-specific work like this, created by people from the cultures in question.

Another thing we can all do to help is to continue to encourage more new diverse folk to get involved in constructing. I would estimate that three quarters of submissions to Crucinova still come from straight white men. All submissions are welcome…but what can we do to empower everyone else? How do we continue to deconstruct unspoken assumptions about who is and isn’t allowed to do this work? It’s an endless project in which we are all involved.

[The diabolical grid from Michael Buerke’s Quadripoint puzzle,
one of the free sample puzzles on the Crucinova website.]

4. What’s next for Lisa Bunker? What’s next for Crucinova?

Crosswords are actually not my main gig. I’m a writer first and foremost. At the moment I have two books out on submission, one a Young Adult fantasy with gender-revolutionary elements, the other a pointed political novel for adults about what we all went through together in the year 2020.

I also have an exciting new collaboration in the works about which I’m not yet at liberty to say anything specific, and I have ideas for three or four more books in the pipeline. So, my plan for the foreseeable future is to just keep writing, while also keeping Crucinova humming along, turning out an excellent puzzle each week.

As for Crucinova, it is still in its early stages, so for now the plan is to keep trying to grow the business. I’ve committed to paying my constructors, so I need a certain number of subscribers to break even, and so far we are some hundreds of memberships away from that goal.

Long term, if we manage to become self-sustaining, I can imagine putting out books of Crucinova grids, and possibly some special projects – spearheading the effort to get a crossword emoji, for example. Crucinova is a business, and I think it’s crucial for businesses to find a way to give back, so as soon as we have any profits to share, I’ll be wanting to find a way to share them.

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

To solvers I would say, please consider paying for your puzzles. I know that many excellent constructors are offering their work for free, which is their right and which benefits us all, but at the same time, constructing is an art, and I think artists should be paid for their work.

My advice to constructors comes from what I’ve learned transitioning from constructor to editor. When you’re making puzzles, you are free to imagine all kinds of wild and amazing things. Coolness of concept can become an end in itself, and I totally get that. But when you are selecting and editing puzzles, you have to think about giving solvers a satisfying puzzle experience. I get so many submissions to which my response has to be, I’m amazed by what you’ve made here, but I can’t see how to turn it into something fun and fair for my subscribers. So the advice is, think of the solver.

To puzzle enthusiasts everywhere, of whatever stripe, I would simply say, I feel you. I share your geeky joy. Let’s keep doing what we love, and keep lifting each other up.

A huge thank you to Lisa for her time. You can follow her on Twitter for updates on all of her various projects, and be sure to check out Crucinova for some very cool, experimental, and outside-the-box puzzles. Whatever she and the Crucinova constructors cook up next, you know it’s going to be great.

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Too Topical? Too Safe? Too Family Friendly? — What Belongs in Crosswords?

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Building a great crossword is a balancing act.

Your grid entries need to be interesting, yet accessible. You need to navigate long crossings and tight corners without resorting to too many abbreviations, too much crosswordese, or creating the dreaded Natick, a crossing of two obscure entries. Some solvers don’t like partial phrases, others don’t like proper names or brand names.

Your cluing has to be clever but not impenetrable. How much wordplay is too much? How many fill-in-the-blank clues before your clue section resembles your grid? The cluing must be fresh and vibrant yet timeless and not too of-its-era to make the cut for reprint and collection later.

No matter how you clue it, older solvers may decry newer names, slang, terminology, or pop culture references, while younger solvers will bemoan not just older references they consider passe, but long-established crossword-friendly words they quickly tire of seeing.

And that’s all without considering the difficulty in creating engaging, interesting themes or gimmicks for the puzzle.

Man, it’s amazing crosswords get made at all.

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[Image courtesy of Mike Peters and The Comic Strips.]

That question of fresh entries and cluing vs. older/more familiar fare is a curious one. It raises further questions.

For instance, how much can you talk about what’s going on in the world?

By referring to unpleasant topics, however topical, will you alienate solvers who use the crossword as an escape? Or do you risk the puzzle feeling too sanitized and safe by NOT acknowledging the circumstances of the world at the time of the puzzle’s publication?

There are arguments for both sides. I mean, who wants to see ADOLF in a grid? (But then again, it’s not like IDI AMIN has a hard time finding his way into grid fill.)

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Margaret Farrar believed that crosswords should avoid “death, disease, war and taxes.” Purposely avoiding unpleasant fill and cluing is informally known as the “Sunday Morning Breakfast Test.” (Our friends at Penny Press know plenty about this, as they shy away from unpleasant entries with diligence.)

But on the flip side, to ignore the unpleasantness of the world potentially ignores the people that unpleasantness affects.

As we continue to push for greater representation in crosswords in both editorial staff and constructors, you cannot deny that including the experiences of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community somewhat necessitates facing those unpleasant aspects of our history and our society.

To exclude them is to exclude potentially thought-provoking and important fill and cluing. (One could easily argue that the vast majority of our own Eyes Open crosswords would not pass the Sunday Morning Breakfast Test.)

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[Image courtesy of Charmy’s Army.]

Not everyone greets adding new cultural fill with open arms, of course. A few years ago, an LA Times crossword solver complained to us (on our holiday gift guide post, of all places) about “ignorant ghetto language” in the crossword. He referred specifically to innocuous entries like “sup,” “did,” and “street cred.”

Thankfully, he is an outlier.

But on the topic of excluding words from crosswords, when Will Shortz was asked about it, he had an interesting response:

If a word or term is used in the columns of The Times, or in cultured society in general, I think it’s probably O.K. for a crossword, even if it’s touchy or slightly unpleasant. I strive to have crosswords reflect real life as much as possible. … I don’t believe in banning words, except for the very worst. And I’d be happy to abolish the term ‘breakfast test’ completely.

breafkast

I think this is a topic I’m going to ask crossword solvers about more often. I’d be curious to see where they stand on crossword content and topicality.

I suspect opinions will vary, but I also suspect that most solvers welcome new fill, new entries, and new references in clues. Every crossword is an opportunity to learn and expand one’s knowledge, and add to the mental lexicon of crossword knowledge we each build as we solve.

So where do you stand, fellow puzzlers? Do you prefer your crosswords as an escape or as a puzzly reflection of the world around us? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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