Training Montage (with Amy Giacomucci)

Hello, friends! It's been a bit since I've posted a puzzle here (or... anywhere else), because in the past two months, I have both moved to Boston and started a new job, which has left me with very little crossword time. But even when I am not doing crossword stuff, the rest of the world is. In particular, the Midwest Crossword Tournament is happening this weekend in the beautiful city of Chicago, a city that is near and dear to my heart. I won't be there in person on account of not living in Chicago and having a busy job, but I will be playing along online, and I believe sign ups are still open for the online tournament.

In honor of the tournament, I figured this would be a good time to release a Chicago-themed puzzle. And to make this more legitimate, I enlisted the help of my friend and current Chicago resident Amy! We started with a pretty straightforward theme, but as is the way when Amy and I make a blog puzzle, we got a little silly with it, especially on the cluing end. I've tried to check everything for standard crossword grammar stuff, but this puzzle is very much a "no test solvers, we die like men" situation, so please let me know if you spot any obvious typos or such.

Amy would like to add that she really liked when I rejected a clue of hers (that will NOT be appearing in this puzzle) because the wording "felt bad on a visceral level" and that she's actually only middle of the road when it comes to spice tolerance.

Puz and Crosshare are linked below, but as a heads up, there is one clue with an emoji that is broken in the puz file. The clue (and puzzle) should still be completely solvable with the emoji missing, but the puzzle will lose some (or, in this case, exactly one) character.

Puz | Crosshare

Mini 4 (hurry up, it's time for slumber)

Yum, bubble wrap!

Happy summer! It's been a crazy one over here: been traveling a ton, somehow won a trophy at Westwords, and now frantically apartment hunting before school starts. (If anyone knows anything useful about Boston, hit me up.) As for this puzzle, it's just a 7x mini, based on an "apt pair" theme that I thought was cute. (Honestly, I love these types of minithemes, I just have trouble coming up with them!)

As for other crossword stuff, I had last Monday's Puzzmo (so go do it if you're a subscriber and haven't yet!), and last month, I had a fun collab with Will Eisenberg on his blog. Other than that, not much going on with me crossword-wise. I'd love to have more puzzles here, but my life never does seem to calm down.

Thank you to my friend Amy for test solving and also for the very good title! No puz file this time because there's one (1) emoji in the clues, but you should be able to download a puz directly from the Crosshare applet.

choked up, burnt out, face down

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm finishing out my semester (which is not relevant to the puzzle, just good life news), and I'm here with a midi for you today. This started out as a pretty standard themeless but at some point while trying out different fill options, it became to clear that this was going to be a blog puzzle. The final puzzle is still mostly a themeless, just with a minitheme/light tribute puzzle elements. Other than that, it's definitely a good old A Crossword Rose blog puzzle with probably too many fill in the blank clues, a semi-deep cut Dropout reference, and (for a slight change) one or two NSFW clues.

This has not been test solved, so let me know if you spot any typos or if you like the puzzle. If you have any non-typo complaints, feel free to keep them to yourself.

Puz | Crosshare

Anime-niacs (with Amy Giacomucci)

 What's up, Internet? I am absolutely delighted to share a puzzle I made with my friend Amy. This is her first ever puzzle, and she is imo already very good at making them. This theme came about when we were complaining that trivia games ask too much about The Simpsons and not enough about anime. We started with a more general pun theme but then narrowed in on a few themers that fit a specific pattern (some of which were GREAT but sadly did not make it into the puzzle for length reasons). As for the rest of the puzzle, we did the grid together, but Amy wrote the majority of the clues, so if you like them, tell her to make more puzzles! Also tell her songs where the singer is so obsessed with someone that it just sounds gay. (She's making a playlist.)

Amy says:

"Hello visitors of Rose’s crossword blog! Did you know that it’s fun to solve and create crossword puzzles? Has anyone heard about this?

I had a blast making this puzzle with Rose, and I hope it comes through. I got to engage with new ways to frame familiar concepts, bend over backwards to rearrange the grid to include the too-on-the-nose-to-not-use answers, and get hit with aha! moments for clues at work/the grocery store - it was like I was constantly thinking, okay, I had this epiphany, so now let’s make the epiphany viable for the general conventions of the humble crossword. Rose helped me indulge my beginners’ whims in many of the clues, including letting me use a character from a Nintendo DS game that you can only buy on iOS/apps at this time in a clue, and then making that clue solvable for people who don’t have my specific interests. It’s a real skill to indulge silliness without sacrificing practicality, imo. Try something new with your friends! And for real, feel empowered to add to the playlist. Please."

Many thanks to evieshmeeps and akatookey for test solving!

Puz | Crosshare

Epic Highs and Lows

 Oh look, it's another blog puzzle! I know I have not been making a ton of puzzles in the past few months due to life stuff, but I made this one to ease back into things, and I'm hoping to keep the momentum going. As for this puzzle, it's just a meme-y puzzle I made that wound up with a surprising number of math-related clues (not sure how that happened), and I hope you enjoy solving it.

Crosshare | Puz

Get With the Program

 Can you believe it's been over three months since my last puzzle here? Honestly, I can, because I've been very busy and will continue to be very busy for awhile, but I'm here today with a new puzzle, hot off the rejection pile. This is a theme that's definitely been done before, and this is a pretty straightforward puzzle, but I quite like this theme set, and I hope you do too.

As for other crossword things, I've had a few puzzles come out in the past three months like my first AVCX Classic with Shannon Rapp and this midi for Gin & Grapefruit. It's entirely possible I've had other puzzles and forgotten about them, but those two are definitely good, and you should go solve them.

Puz file | Direct link

Do You Like Scary Movies? (with Norah Sharpe)

Happy spooky season everyone! Today, I have a seasonally appropriate collaboration with friend of the blog and frequent collaborator Norah Sharpe. Norah had the idea for this one last winter, and we agreed that October would be the perfect time to post this.

In other puzzle news, yesterday Puzzmo (a site offering a digital puzzle page) opened to the public, and they'll be running a midi crossword everyday: a mix of Lil AVC X reruns and (starting in a week and a half) brand new puzzles edited by the Lil team. As you all probably know, I've been a part of the Lil team for the past year, so I'm very excited for you all to check out all the new puzzles we have for you! One of my own Lil AVC X puzzles will also be running on Puzzmo in the next few weeks, so if you're not an AVCX subscriber, this is a chance for you to solve a new Rose puzzle! And for those of you who are AVCX subscribers, keep your eye on your inbox over the next few weeks...

From Norah:

"Happy spooky season! It's always a pleasure to share a byline with Rose and I hope you find this timely offering fun and breezy, just like fall should be. If you like this puzzle, you might also like the one I wrote with Will Eisenberg for Fill Me In. It's a contest puzzle open to October 29 - solve and enter here: https://bemoresmarter.libsyn.com/fill-me-in-413-irreversible-binomials"

Puz | Crosshare