Crossworld News and Notes
News from the tournament circuit, solving tools, and more
Congratulations to David Steinberg, winner of the in-person Boswords 2022 Summer Tournament, and to second- and third-place finishers Steve Mossberg and Mollie Cowger. Congrats also to Will Nediger, winner of the online division and to Peter and Claire Rimkus, winners of the in-person pairs division.
Lollapuzzoola is August 27 in New York with live and virtual options. Registration is open now.
The Tenth Annual Finger Lakes Crossword Competition is September 24. Puzzles are solved offline after a livestreamed kick-off event. Registration is open now.
Boswords 2022 Fall Themeless League is Monday nights in October and November with puzzles from Derek Allen, Kate Chin Park & Chandi Deitmer, Malaika Handa, Natan Last, Barbara Lin, Portia Lundie, Brendan Emmett Quigley, Brad Wilber and one to-be-named constructor selected from an open submission process (submission guidelines here).
The 45th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament has been scheduled for March 31-April 2, 2023. Save the date!
Ducktiles is a super-slick and adorable anagrammer developed by Ryan Fitzgerald. It was originally developed as a helper for writing cryptic clues, but it has also caught on among cryptic puzzlers as a solving tool. Ryan is also working on a new crossword construction program that is currently in early testing. We’ve heard good things and look forward to sharing details with you soon.
Taylor Johnson of Taylor Made Crosswords is a Minneapolis-based crossword constructor who also works for a local food co-op. Taylor has published in Universal, Crosswords Club, and Los Angeles Times.
Lemonade Disco is a project Taylor began as a way to offer a platform for aspiring constructors to showcase their talent, voice, and creativity in an inclusive, supportive space. The inspiration for how the project is structured is based on “The Moth”, a nationwide monthly story-telling series, in which storytellers respond to a prompt.
Taylor’s version is a monthly crossword suite in which a new prompt is announced on the 17th of each month. The suite of puzzles chosen will be released one month later. Puzzles can be Midi, 15x, or any size in between. Folks from underrepresented groups and/or budding constructors are especially encouraged to participate. The current prompt is “Cocktail Mixer”. Submission closes Aug. 17 @11:59pm CST.
The Gameplay team at The New York Times is soliciting “Solver Stories,” personal essays “exploring how puzzles, games and language connect us to each other.” More details and submission guidelines here.
In the ever-changing landscape of crossword formats, publishers, and ongoing security issues, we want to share a few ideas to help with online and offline solving.
Crossword Scraper can “scrape” data into .puz or .jpz format from many web pages with embedded crosswords. Here’s where you can download Scraper for the Chrome or Firefox browser, and here’s more information about using Scraper.
Xword, by Michael Richards with input from Jeff Davidson is an Across Lite alternative that can handle and display the more flexible .jpz and .ipuz file formats, allowing for not only more formatting options in standard grids, but also computer solving of variety puzzles like Rows Gardens. Xword also includes a built-in downloader for several puzzle sources. Find the latest version here.
squares.io and Nexus Solver are web-based tools that can handle a variety of file formats.
Ben Zimmer and Nicole Holliday are co-hosting a short linguistics webseries with WIRED. The first episode covers trends in slang throughout history, including discussions of “YOLO”, “cheugy”, and “on fleek”.
Since the last News & Notes, Greg Slovacek (7/17), Phoebe Gordon (7/18), Josh Kindler (7/20), Michael T. Buerke (7/25), and Lillian Simpson (7/26) made their NYT debuts. Congrats to everyone!