Tag Archives: constructing

It’s Follow-Up Friday: 2016 Countdown edition!

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It’s the final Follow-Up Friday of the year, so what do you say we revisit all of 2016 with a countdown of my ten favorite blog posts from the past year!

#10 Doomsday Prep

One of the big surprises for me this year was discovering that crosswords and puzzle books were hot-ticket items for doomsday preppers. The idea that crosswords belong next to necessities like food, water, shelter, and knowledge was a revealing one, something that gave me great hope for the future, whether we need those caches or not.

#9 Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide

Every year, one of my favorite activities is putting together our Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide. I get to include the best products sent to me for review by top puzzle and game companies, mix in some of my own favorites, and draw attention to terrific constructors, game designers, and friends of the blog, all in the hopes of introducing solvers (and families of solvers) to quality puzzles and games.

#8 A Puzzly Proposal

Our friends at Penny Dell Puzzles once again pulled off a heck of a puzzly coup when an intrepid fellow puzzler asked them for help proposing to his girlfriend with a special Simon Says puzzle.

I reached out to the lucky fiancé and got his permission to share the story with the PuzzleNation readership, and as I learned more about who was involved and how they’d managed to make it happen, I enjoyed the story more and more. Here’s hoping for many happy puzzly years ahead for the young couple!

#7 Puzzle Fort

For International Puzzle Day, I built a fort out of puzzle books.

It was awesome. Definitely one of my favorite puzzly moments of the year.

#6 The End of Sudoku?

The Sudoku boom may be over, but Sudoku remains one of the most popular puzzles in the world, and I got to thinking… when would we run out? I mean, eventually, statistically speaking, every single Sudoku puzzle permutation would get used at some point, so when would that happen?

So, I crunched the numbers, and it turns out, we’ve got centuries before that happens. Still, it was a fun mental puzzle to unravel.

#5 Murder Mystery

At some point this year, I let slip to my fellow puzzlers that I’d written and staged murder mystery dinners in the past, but it had been a while since I’d done anything like that. Naturally, they volunteered to be participants, urging me to stage something in the office.

Eventually, I accepted their challenge, pitting myself against a half-dozen or so of my fellow puzzlers, allowing some of them to investigate while others played a part in the mystery. It was an enormous undertaking and an absolute blast that lasted three days, and it was definitely a highlight of the year for me.

#4 Puzzle Plagiarism

There was probably no bigger story in crosswords all year than the accusations of plagiarism leveled against Timothy Parker. The editor of puzzles for USA Today and Universal UClick. After numerous examples of very suspicious repetitions between grids were discovered in a crossword database compiled by programmer Saul Pwanson and constructor Ben Tausig, Parker “temporarily stepped back from any editorial role” with their puzzles.

Eventually, Parker was removed from any editorial influence on USA Today’s puzzles, but it remains unknown if he’s still serving in a puzzle-related capacity for Universal Uclick. But the real story here was about integrity in puzzles, as many puzzle and game companies rallied to defend their rights as creators. That’s a cause we can all get behind.

#3 Interviewing the PuzzleNation Team

Our recurring interview feature 5 Questions returned this year, but what made it truly special to me was being able to turn the spotlight on some of my fellow puzzlers here at PuzzleNation as part of celebrating 4 years of PuzzleNation Blog. Introducing readers to our programmer Mike, our Director of Digital Games Fred, and yes, even myself, was a really fun way to celebrate this milestone.

#2 ACPT, CT FIG, and Other Puzzly Events

There are few things better than spending time with fellow puzzlers and gamers, and we got to do a lot of that this year. Whether it was supporting local creators at the Connecticut Festival of Indie Games or cheering on my fellow puzzlers at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, getting out and talking shop with other creators is invigorating and encouraging. It really helps solidify the spirit of community that comes with being puzzly.

#1 Penny Dell Sudoku and Android Expansion

Those were our two biggest app releases this year, and I just couldn’t choose one over the other. This has been a terrific year for us as puzzle creators, because not only did we beef up our library of Android-available puzzle sets to match our terrific iOS library, but we launched our new Penny Dell Sudoku app across both platforms, broadening the scope of what sort of puzzle apps you can expect from PuzzleNation.

It may sound self-serving or schlocky to talk about our flagship products as #1 in the countdown, but it’s something that we’re all extremely proud of, something that we’re constantly working to improve, because we want to make our apps the absolute best they can be for the PuzzleNation audience. That’s what you deserve.

Thanks for spending 2016 with us, through puzzle scandals and proposals, through forts and festivities, through doomsday prepping and daily delights. We’ll see you in 2017.

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My Favorite Crosswords and Clues for 2016!

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Tomorrow is the anniversary of the crossword — the one hundred and third, to be precise — and I thought I would celebrate the day by sharing some of my favorite crossword puzzles and clues from this year.

I solved more crosswords this year than any other year I can remember. From The New York Times, The LA Times, and The Washington Post to Peter Gordon‘s Fireball Newsflash Crosswords and our own Free Daily Puzzle on the Penny Dell Crosswords app, I tried to sample as many constructors and outlets as I could.

I want to start with Ben Tausig’s “Gender-Fluid” quantum puzzle from The New York Times in September. In a year that saw the Times called out several times for tone-deaf and insensitive cluing, to have a puzzle dedicated to the increasing awareness of other gender options was great.

And it certainly didn’t hurt that Ben’s grid was tightly constructed and each of the variable M or F entries worked well. (You can check out my full post on the puzzle here.)

“Eliminating the Competition” by Barany and Friends was another strong crossword with clever letterplay involved. The puzzle paid tribute to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament by dropping the letters A, C, P, and T, respectively from the four theme entries in the grid.

Not only that, but there were no As, Cs, Ps, or Ts to be found anywhere else in the puzzle grid, which I thought was not only clever, but impressively challenging as a constructing gimmick. It was one of the most ambitious grids I saw all year. (You can check out my full post on the puzzle here.)

On the flip side — a puzzle that was more about the clues than the grid — there was the cryptic crossword from Neil Patrick Harris’s Choose Your Own Autobiography.

With clues like “Sounds like an assortment of taxis in which you were the MC (7)” (for CABARET) and “Costar a large, fake amount of money? (7)” (for FILLION), this puzzle not only rewarded attentive readers, but it severely taxed my (admittedly less-than-daunting) skills at unraveling cryptic clues. (You can check out my full post on the puzzle here.)

Oh, and on the topic of cryptic clues, I asked some constructors if there were any clues or puzzles that caught their eye this year, and David Kwong mentioned a doozy of a cryptic clue by master constructors Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon that he considered the most diabolical he’d ever seen.

The clue? “Emphatically, the key to making bozos boss? (9)”

The answer? SFORZANDO, which parses as “S for Z and O.”

That’s awesome. Doug Peterson did a variation on that in this year’s Lollapuzzoola tournament, “What Happened?”, which featured words or phrases where the letter H had been replaced with either a T or a Y. He revealed this with the entry “HISTORY” breaking down “H is T or Y.” I really dug this puzzle.

And speaking of Lollapuzzoola, I absolutely loved Francis Heaney‘s “Quote Boxes” puzzle from this year’s tournament. It was an 18×18 grid jam-packed with entries, and he used an interesting mechanic to fill the grid.

There were five 2×2 boxes shaded with different shapes, and each of the four cells in those 2×2 boxes contained a word from a famous four-word movie quote, allowing him to place longer entries in the grid. It was the highlight of Lollapuzzoola for me this year. Great stuff.

But before I get to the final crossword on my list, I’d like to run down some of my favorite crossword clues from this year.

  • “Island country that becomes a geometric solid if you change its last letter to an E” for CUBA (from Patrick Blindauer‘s Piece of Cake Crosswords. A super-long clue, but very fun.)
  • “Struggle with hopelessness?” for LISP (from Brendan Emmett Quigley)
  • “The Sky, Sun, and Stars play in it” for WNBA (from Peter Gordon)
  • “Answers, on ‘Jeopardy!'” for ASKS (I don’t recall where I saw this one. Let me know if you know, so I can correct this!)
  • “Some people do it for kicks” for KARATE (Again, no idea where I saw this one. Let me know if you know, so I can correct this!)
  • “Characters often found to be up in arms?” for YMCA (from Sam Trabucco’s Indie 500 puzzle)

And cluing tied into my final choice for favorite crossword of the year with Erik Agard and Joanne Sullivan’s puzzle “Do I Hear a Waltz?” from the Indie 500 tournament.

In this puzzle, the words ONE, TWO, and THREE were missing from sequential clues, providing a hidden one-two-three count for the puzzle’s titular waltz. For instance, 36-Across clued TRUMP as “Up,” 37-Across clued BIKINI as “Piece, say,” and 38-Across clued TITLES as “Peat makeup.” As you’d expect, those clues make much more sense when you add the hidden one-two-three: One-up = TRUMP; Two-piece, say = BIKINI; Threepeat makeup = TITLES.

Hiding the beat within the cluing was absolutely brilliant, and one of the highlights in crosswords for me this year.

Now I’m sure there were great clues or puzzles that I missed, since I’m hardly a prolific solver. Let me know which puzzles and clues from 2016 were your favorites! I’d love to hear from you!

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5 Questions for Constructor Doug Peterson

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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 I’m excited to welcome Doug Peterson as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

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Crossword gentleman and constructor Doug Peterson is a regular in the Los Angeles Times and many other outlets, offering topnotch grids and brilliantly fun, pop-culture-savvy cluing. Doug was also one of the constructors in this year’s Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament and a winner at this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Anytime you encounter one of his puzzles, you’re guaranteed a great solve.

Doug 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 Doug Peterson

1. How did you get started with puzzles?

Like many others, I caught the puzzle bug from older family members, specifically my dad and maternal grandmother. I’d spend summers at my grandparents’ house, and my grandma always had a stack of Dell puzzle books on hand. My favorite thing was to tackle one of the huge 21×21 crosswords, which would literally take me days to finish. And that was great, because I had a lot of long, boring days to get through.

2. What, in your estimation, makes for a great puzzle? What do you most enjoy — or most commonly avoid — when constructing your own? What do you think is the most common pitfall of constructors just starting out?

I think the most important element in a puzzle is craftsmanship, meaning that significant effort has gone into making that puzzle as enjoyable as possible. I realize that’s a little vague, but it’s like the old line about pornography: “I know it when I see it.” Basically, the theme, fill, and clues should all demonstrate care and a personal touch.

I’m not the best at coming up with themes, so I strive to make my fill and clues pick up the slack, so to speak. There’s plenty I avoid in my grids, and I’m getting pickier all time. For the record, I’ve never used ÉTÉ in a grid. I don’t trust three-letter words with two accent marks. Also on my “banned list” are IDI, AMIN, and ULEE. I’m not going there. I hate brutal dictators, and bees kinda scare me.

The most common pitfall I’ve found among newbies is trying to do too much right out of the gate. My advice is to get a few 15×15’s under your belt before trying to construct that 21×21 triple rebus with five meta-answers and a tribute to your favorite band hidden diagonally. My first published puzzles are embarrassing to look at now. I used PATLY in my debut puzzle. PATLY? That barely resembles a word that a human would use. But I got better, and by the time I was ready to tackle something truly challenging, I had some constructing chops.

Teaser: I’ll give my best advice to newbies (and all constructors) in my answer to Question 5.

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[Two of Doug’s books currently available on Amazon: Sit & Solve© Brain-Straining Crosswords and Sit & Solve© Lickety-Split Crosswords.]

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

We’re living in a golden age of crosswords, and there are so many superb themes and clues out there, and of course I can’t think of anything specific off the top of my head right now… I solve a crapload of puzzles, more than 20 per week, so honestly it’s hard to single out themes or clues that made me say “Oooh!”

Constructors whose themes I admire include Brendan Emmett Quigley, Andrew Ries, and Erik Agard. They’re at the top of my “why the hell didn’t I think of that?” list. BEQ publishes two free high-quality puzzles a week, which boggles my mind. And he used to do three a week! Just recently, he posted puzzle #900. I would have burned out years ago. BEQ’s puzzles are a blast to solve, and they’re hip without being eye-rolly.

Andrew Ries publishes a weekly crossword (www.ariesxword.com) that’ll run you $12 bucks a year (a steal!) and consistently features fresh themes and clues. It’s often my favorite puzzle of the week. And then there’s Erik Agard over at gluttonforpun. Mind-bending, multi-level themes and clues that make me laugh out loud. This dude is the next wave of crossword puzzles.

The best venue for stand-out themes by a variety of constructors is Fireball Crosswords, edited and sometimes constructed by Peter Gordon. Shameless plug: I constructed the first Fireball puzzle of 2017, which will hit solvers’ in-boxes in January. It’s a theme that’d been bouncing around in my brain for over two years, and I finally got off my lazy butt and made the puzzle.

Cool entries do tend to stick in my head, and a couple recent entries I loved (and wish I’d thought to use myself) were BEER O’CLOCK and DC UNIVERSE. Both were in puzzles by another of my favorite constructors, C.C. Burnikel. She turns out quality puzzles on a regular basis. In fact, on a more-than-regular basis. C.C. is remarkably prolific. Nary a week goes by that I don’t solve a well-crafted Burnikel puzzle in one of the major outlets.

4. What’s next for Doug Peterson?

On the constructing front, I’d like to branch out a little and create more non-American style crossword puzzles. I love constructing cryptic crosswords. I had a couple published in the New York Times ages ago, and then I drifted away from them. I got my start writing cryptic clues back in the Dark Ages in the rec.puzzles.crosswords Usenet group. (Psst, constructors. No one remembers USENET anymore, so stop putting it in your grids. SYSOP, too.) And maybe I’ll try my hand at constructing a Rows Garden or a Marching Bands puzzle. Something outside my comfort zone.

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[A. A familiar Sudoku grid; B. A Kakuro (or Cross Sums) grid; C. A Nurikabe
grid, a variation on Minesweeper-style solving; D. A Hashiwokakero grid,
which readers might remember from this year’s UK Puzzle Championship.]

Speaking of comfort zones, on the solving front, I want to get much better at solving logic puzzles. And by “get much better at,” I mean “actually be able to solve.” I’m talking about Sudoku, Kakuro, Nurikabe, Hashiwokakero (yes, that’s an actual puzzle type I just found on Google), all the puzzles with Japanese names and little lines and boxes and circles. I’ve solved maybe ten Sudoku puzzles in my life, and it would be cool to stretch my brain in another direction or many other directions.

And hey, it will open up a whole new world of puzzles that I can print out and never quite get around to solving!

5. If you could give the readers, writers, aspiring constructors, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

To aspiring constructors, my best advice is: Solve puzzles! I cringe when I hear a constructor say that they don’t solve puzzles or “can’t” solve puzzles. Just looking at answer grids or reading reviews of puzzles isn’t enough. To me, solving is the only way to figure out what sorts of things make a puzzle enjoyable. There’s a reason I don’t use ULEE in my grids, aside from my slight apiphobia. It’s because it bugs me when I see it in a puzzle I’m solving.

Create the kinds of puzzles that you enjoy solving, and you can’t go wrong. (Unless you like solving really crappy puzzles for some reason.) And if you’re interested in being published and getting paid a few bucks for your hard work, it’s essential to solve puzzles from the venue you’re submitting to.

OK, I’ve rambled on long enough. Look for my été-free puzzles in all the usual places. Thanks for reading. Peterson out.

A huge thank you to Doug for his time. Be sure to follow him on Twitter for the latest updates on all his puzzly creations!

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You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

It’s Follow-Up Friday: Funding and Fright edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’ve got some updates and answers for you!

First off, I want to say congratulations to Patrick Blindauer, whose Piece of Cake Crosswords Kickstarter campaign was funded by solvers hungry for quality puzzles without the obscurities and crosswordese!

It was down to the wire, but the campaign raised the final $10,000 in just seven days to pass the funding goal and ensure that 52 terrific puzzles will be wending their way to solvers all over the world!

In fact, the first one has already arrived in solvers’ inboxes! I can’t wait to see what Patrick has up his sleeve for the next 51 weeks!

And now, on to the answers!

On Monday, I posted a video by musician, comedian, and pun-enthusiast Ali Spagnola where she assembled twenty Halloween themed (or just generally spooky) songs and challenged you to name them all.

How did you do?

1. “Thriller” — Michael Jackson
2. Ghostbusters theme — Ray Parker Jr.
3. “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” — Eurythmics
4. “Time Warp” — The Rocky Horror Picture Show
5. “The Monster” — Eminem ft. Rihanna
6. “Monster Mash” — Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers
7. “The Phantom of the Opera” — Andrew Lloyd Webber
8. The Addams Family theme
9. “This Is Halloween” — The Nightmare Before Christmas
10. The Twilight Zone theme
11. Little Shop of Horrors theme
12. “Crazy Train” — Ozzy Osbourne
13. Scooby Doo, Where Are You? theme
14. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” — Backstreet Boys
15. “Enter Sandman” — Metallica
16. “Somebody’s Watching Me” — Rockwell
17. “Disturbia” — Rihanna
18. “Heads Will Roll” — Yeah Yeah Yeahs
19. “Hungry Like the Wolf” — Duran Duran
20. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” — The Charlie Daniels Band

Admittedly, I didn’t get all of them — the Ghostbusters theme eluded me, and I don’t think I’d ever heard Rihanna’s “Disturbia” — but I got all of the others! Not too shabby!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

Piece of Cake Crosswords!

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Crosswords are great. Here at PuzzleNation, we know that better than most.

But they can be daunting. All those interlocking words, crissing and crossing in a tight grid, and it always seems like there’s some obscure vocabulary, some archaic terms, some words that appear in crosswords and nowhere else.

What is a newcomer, or a casual solver, to do? How can they get into crosswords?

Well, guess what? Constructor Patrick Blindauer has got you covered.

He’s running a Kickstarter campaign called Piece of Cake Crosswords, and he’s turning his puzzle-making expertise toward making crosswords that will be accessible to new solvers! No tricky cluing, no out-of-date pop culture references, just great puzzles designed to be both easy and fair.

We’re talking one 15×15 crossword per week for an entire year! 52 crosswords, all designed and clued by a top-flight puzzler. And the pledge tiers for a one-year subscription start at only $29! That’s almost 50 cents a puzzle! What a deal.

Higher pledges include extras like puzzlefests (themed puzzle sets created by Blindauer), video lectures on crossword creation, and even custom puzzles made especially for you!

You can check out all the details on Kickstarter here!

(Sorry, though — there’s no actual cake.)

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!

5 Questions for Acrostics Constructor Cynthia Morris

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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 I’m excited to welcome Cynthia Morris as our latest 5 Questions interviewee!

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An author, editor, and puzzler, Cynthia is the mastermind behind Acrostics by Cyn, her online acrostic puzzle empire. Her brand is soon expanding to eight puzzle-book titles that mix crossword-esque cluing with intriguing themes and quotation-style content.

Cynthia 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 Cynthia Morris

1. How did you get started with puzzles? What drew you to acrostic puzzles more than other styles, like crosswords, word seeks, or encrypted puzzles?

I got started at a really early age, thanks to my mom. She was a former schoolteacher who knew how important it is to exercise our brains every day, so one year during summer break from school — I think I was 8 years old — she offered to pay me $10 for every book of puzzles I completed, cover-to-cover, without peeking at the answers in the back.

I chose variety puzzle books — I’m pretty sure they were the Dell puzzle magazines that were sold at the grocery stores. I thought they looked like the most fun. I had never even heard of acrostic puzzles at the time, but as soon as I discovered them, I was hooked. 

I had always loved books and also loved to write, so the combination of quotations from books and crossword-style clues was completely irresistible to me. Plus I loved that acrostic puzzles are a bit like solving a mystery, because the clues lead you to a fun or funny quote at the end, instead of just a grid filled with words.

I remember that I would solve the acrostic puzzles in the variety books first, and then race through the rest of the puzzles as quickly as possible so my mom would buy me another volume and I’d have more acrostic puzzles to solve.

We ended the $10-per-book deal when summer was over, but I was totally addicted to acrostics by then, and kept solving. It turned out to be a lifelong addiction.

cyn-acrostics

2. What, in your estimation, makes for a great puzzle? What do you most enjoy — or try hardest to avoid — when constructing your own?

I love themed puzzles — and I especially love when a puzzle is “slyly themed,” so that when you finish the puzzle, you realize that far more clues/answers pertain to the quotation solution than you knew when you were solving it. I love learning something new, whether it’s from the clues and answers, or from the quotation solution.

I love clever or funny clues, as well as those that have a bit of misdirection thrown in.  I love a good quotation solution. And I love punny, groan-worthy puzzle titles — which is something I’ve picked up from my husband, Bryan. I write all of my puzzle titles with him in mind, and if I get a chuckle out of him I know I’m on the right track.

My favorite part of constructing? I don’t think I can answer that one, because I enjoy every aspect of it. I love selecting the quotations, although this often takes way longer than it should because I’ll open a book with the intention of skimming it for a good quote, and end up reading the whole thing! I love deconstructing the quotation solution into a word list, which is just as much fun as solving a puzzle. And I love writing the clues, especially trying to come up with clever clues that will make my solvers laugh.

I avoid dictionary definition clues as much as possible. I include a few in each puzzle as “gimmes,” because otherwise it can be difficult to get a toehold on a puzzle, but they’re not my favorites — I like to be more creative than that when it comes to clues. And I make a conscious effort not to copy any other constructor’s style — I’ve worked hard to develop my own signature style.

3. You have acrostic books for younger solvers and older solvers. What’s more challenging: creating an engaging puzzle for a younger solver or creating a truly difficult but fair puzzle for an established solver?

You’d think my AnimaCrostics series, which are easy, animal-themed puzzles for kids and new acrostic solvers, would be the easiest to construct, but this isn’t the case. They’re just as difficult to create as my challenging puzzles for adults.

Technically, I’m much more limited when it comes to which words I can use as answers, because I have to be sure they’re words that are in children’s vocabularies. Then again, one of my goals is to help kids expand their vocabularies, so I like to include a few words in each puzzle that may be a bit of a stretch for them at first. It’s a difficult balancing act, so I put a great deal of effort into every one of those short, easy puzzles.

Creatively speaking, AnimaCrostics are also a bit of a challenge, but a fun one. When I was first constructing them I had about 75 kids at a local elementary school for testers, and one thing was clear: Kids like gross stuff. They love learning about things like vulture vomit and hippo poop and fish farts. The puzzles with these types of quotation solutions were the biggest hits, and the puzzles that kept the kids coming back for more. So I try to include as many of them as I can in each book, along with other fun animal facts.

I originally called this series Kids’ Krostics, but it turned out that many adults who were new to acrostic puzzles were enjoying them as well, and even snagging the books from their kids when they weren’t in use. So I renamed this series AnimaCrostics to make it clear that these puzzles are fun for everyone, not just kids.

My two other series, American Acrostics and CynAcrostics, are equally difficult to construct, but for different reasons. 

am-acrostics

Each volume of American Acrostics tells a story — the history of the United States (Volume 1), the story of American inventors (Volume 2), tales about our presidents and first ladies (Volume 3), and fun facts about each state (Volume 4, forthcoming). Finding the specific quotations I need for these volumes can be challenging. But I love that sort of challenge, which involves bringing about 80 library books home at a time, because I get to read so many wonderful books while searching for quotations. 

Choosing quotations for CynAcrostics is a bit easier, because I keep a running file of quotes I come across in books I’m reading. For example, I already have all my quotations for CynAcrostics Volume 3: You Don’t Say? selected, and I haven’t even started constructing those puzzles yet! I’m a rabid reader, and I have very eclectic tastes, so the CynAcrostics are a fun way to share quotations from the wide range of books I read. 

Both my American Acrostics and CynAcrostics series include themed puzzles — some volumes more than others. Themed puzzles are more challenging to construct than your average acrostic puzzle, because the goal is to include as many clues/answers related to the theme of the quotation solution as possible, but to clue them in such a way that the theme isn’t too obvious, which would make the puzzle too easy.

Overall, I think finding the right difficulty level — whether the puzzles are geared for adults or kids — is one of the hardest parts of the construction process. I try to include a mix of easy, medium, and difficult puzzles in each volume, but of course a puzzle that’s easy for one person may be difficult for another. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that it’s impossible to please all of the solvers all of the time, so I just focus on constructing the best puzzles I can, and hope my solvers enjoy them.

4. What’s next for Cynthia Morris?

On the puzzle front, I’m finishing up my eighth volume of puzzles, American Acrostics Volume 4: The Puzzling States of the Union. This may be my favorite volume yet.  I’ve managed to find really great, quirky quotation solutions, and because the puzzles are themed, I’ve learned a lot of fun trivia about each state. I’m really looking forward to sharing this volume, and hope to have it available in time for the holidays.

As an author/editor of nonfiction books, I also have exciting news. My book, Micronesian Blues (co-authored with my husband, Bryan Vila) is in development with actor Patrick Dempsey’s production company (Shifting Gears) and Cinemax. A Cinemax original TV series based on the book is in the works, and I hope to have more information about this project to share soon.

micronesian-blues

We’re working with an absolutely fabulous team of folks — in addition to Patrick Dempsey, Emmy-winning director Greg Yaitanes and New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Tropper are on board — so we couldn’t be happier with this project. (Of course, as soon as we signed on with Patrick’s production company, I couldn’t resist constructing a celebratory puzzle based on a quote from his Grey’s Anatomy character, Derek Shepherd. I ended up using it in CynAcrostics Volume 2: Reel-y?)

I also continue to work as an editor, and I have several other books in progress, so I certainly can’t say I’m ever bored.

5. If you could give the readers, writers, aspiring constructors, and puzzle fans in the audience one piece of advice, what would it be?

Just one? Yikes!  I’m not known for my brevity. OK, here goes:

I view acrostic puzzle construction as an art, and my goal with each puzzle I construct is to hone my craft. For readers, this may provide some insight into how much of ourselves we constructors put into each acrostic puzzle. For my fellow puzzle writers, I’m sure you can relate to this. For puzzle fans, this means that your feedback is invaluable to me. And for aspiring constructors, this means that no matter how many acrostic puzzles you’ve solved, it takes more time than you might imagine to become good at constructing, so be prepared for that. I’ve been constructing for 11 years now and I’m still learning to be a better constructor all the time, as both my skills and my understanding of what constitutes a good puzzle evolve.

A huge thank you to Cynthia for her time. You can check out all the acrostic offerings from her on her website here, and be sure to follow her on Twitter for the latest updates and puzzles!

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