Cahoots! (with Will Eisenberg)

Over on Will’s puzzle blog Half-Baked Puzzles we’ve got a freshly baked treat for you. (Well, actually, it’s been in the oven for months, but sometimes you want to cook for a long time at low heat. Anyway.) A fun puzzle with a wild grid. We each constructed half the grid, and then clued the other person’s side—see if you can guess who did what!

More puzzles soon, including some Pride puzzles. For whatever reason (pandemic exhaustion? things are still locked up here in Ontario…) I’ve been very slow to construct puzzles lately, which doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on them! But hey, shout out to the outlets (like Universal and USA Today and Inkubator and… am I forgetting anyone?) who have been highlighting queer constructors this month. Rah! (Oh, and of course go do more of Will’s puzzles, if you aren’t already.)

Stream themeless (Adam Nicolle, Brooke Husic, and friends)

Hi friends! Yes, it’s been a month since I’ve posted a puzzle. No, I have not stopped working on puzzles. But sometimes it’s good to take a break and reflect. And also, there are so many excellent puzzles and puzzle-makers these days! Like Adam Nicolle and Brooke Husic, two of my favourite constructors, who made this grid and then… well, I’ll let them explain:

Remember that thing we did in the 13th month of March 2020 when we got on Twitch and livestreamed our clue writing? Here it is ready to solve, for both people who don’t know what we’re talking about, people who do know what we’re talking about but didn’t attend the stream, and people who attended but totally forgot what went down (and, I guess, people who remember everything but want to ~relive the experience~)!

A big thank you is in order to everyone who participated in the livestream, especially the incomparable Chris Piuma for moderating on somewhat last minute notice and Will Eisenberg for test solving. About half the clues were written by the following constructors whose work you should check out:

Adam: 6D, 8D, 50D
Antinermal: 39D
Avram: 55D
Brendan: 32D
Brian: 11D, 33D
Jac: 21D, 54D
Kormad: 51D
Lyle: 38A 
Malaika: 9D, 22D, 35D, 36D
Max: 28D
Norah: 7D, 26D
Paolo: 53A, 59A
Quiara: 4D, 10D
Rachel: 46A
Ria: 5D
Ricky: 13D, 25D, 43D, 48D
Saswat: 3D, 12D

Yeah, I agree, you should check all those cool people out. Anyhoo, the puzzle came out great. Thanks to Adam and Brooke for inviting me to moderate the event, and for letting me share the puzzle with you all. Enjoy!

When lions cross (ft. Brooke Husic)

I was in the studio laying down the tracks for this new puzzle and it was tight, but I knew it needed that something something to push it over the edge, so I called up Brooke and was like “wanna do a guest verse?” and she was like “I’m in” and before I know it she’s rolling up in this limo with her usual entourage and she glides into the booth and starts dropping her smooth fill and her funky clues, BAM BAM BAM, all in one take, and when she’s done I’m like “daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang” but before I get the word out she’s already back in the limo heading off to her next gig. LEGEND.

Severe phenomenon

Hello hello! I hope you enjoy the puzzle. This one is not pretending to be an easy one. Thanks to Brooke Husic and Christopher Adams for test driving this one; both gave excellent feedback, and the puzzle is a little less obnoxious thanks to them — well, and a little more obnoxious — OK, let’s say it’s more obnoxious in good ways, you know? Let’s hope so. Enjoy!

Baskerville

Lately I’ve been thinking about what makes a puzzle hard, but still fun. This puzzle is… probably hard. Hopefully it’s still fun.

Anyway the size and symmetry is an homage to Brooke, for obvious reasons.