Crossword blog for Rose Sloan aka acommonrose. Expect a mix of random trivia, queer nonsense, geeky references, and whatever else I like, as I try to make some crosswords.
I'm back with a hopefully relatively easy one this week. This puzzle has one of those themes that you may or may not be able to see depending on your background, which I think make for fun blog puzzles but are a little too niche to play anywhere else. Could I have come up with a version of this that has more than 3 themers? Probably, but I was traveling this week, and I struggle a lot with mirror symmetry as is, so I figured I'd keep this one simple.
It's a long weekend, so technically I am still keeping to my one puzzle per weekend schedule! I am also pleased to present the first collab of my summer puzzle project, with none other than Norah Sharpe. I'm always happy to collab with Norah, so I was delighted when she came to me with this grid. We clued it on the tough side--I expect this to play like a Boswords stormy.
Norah says:
“Four years or so ago I committed to a big blog project of my own and Rose was one of many people who stepped up to help me make it happen so donating this grid to this blog is a long overdue reciprocation. I seeded this grid with 13-A in Rose’s honor. Enjoy!”
Thanks to Will for test solving. (I'll probably be back to my test solver-less ways soon, but given the difficulty, it was really good to get another set of eyes on this one!)
As I mentioned last week, I'm trying to post a puzzle every week this summer! Here's the second one. This one's a themeless. I seeded it initially with 12A (which I'm participating in this year!) and secondarily 24D, which I think are a fun pair for a themeless. To make it, I did what all good constructors do: spent several days failing to come up with a good grid, gave up, and then stole and slightly modified a Robyn Weintraub grid that filled beautifully. I also found cluing in a few days really difficult, and I think I leaned heavier on trivia clues than usual, but the puzzle is done, and I think it is still solvable!
So those of you paying attention probably noticed that I didn't really make any crossword puzzles (here or anywhere else) in the past year. Those of you paying closer attention probably noticed I vaguely alluded to new puzzles coming. The backstory behind this all is that last August, I both moved to Boston and started a new job, which left me with relatively little time and energy for puzzle making. But, as is the way with academic jobs, I have minimal work commitments during the summer, so now is the time for me to get back into making puzzles. And the best way to get back into making puzzles is surely just to... make a bunch of puzzles.
So here's the plan: every weekend between now and Labor Day, I will post one new full-sized puzzle to this blog. That's it, that's the plan. I realize this is not a crazy large number of puzzles, but since I've spent literal years making some puzzles, I really want to see what I can do in one week! This plan does of course come with caveats:
Yes, it's another crossword! From me! Not even that long after the last one! Hoping to have some full sized puzzles up here soon too, but today I have a midi puzzle that I made with my sister. (This is the first puzzle she's made!) We got the idea for this puzzle last winter after doing another puzzle about local news that we didn't like very much. We then spent nearly 6 months failing to clue this puzzle, because she had to have the true A Crossword Rose constructing experience.
Title comes from this (spoiler-y) Tweet.
Today I have a puzzle for you. This puzzle is two very exciting things: a meta crossword and a collab with the wonderful Alex Boisvert of Crossword Nexus! I always love working with Alex, and I love that he brought me this theme. As for the meta side of things, this is in fact a contest puzzle! You can submit your meta answer on Crosshare (so no puz file this time), and if you put in your email with the answer, that should enter you into the contest. (Please let me know if there are technical issues here, I haven't done this before.)
For the long time followers of this blog, I know this is my first puzzle here in quite awhile--life got busy! As my semester winds down, I'm hoping to start posting here much more, so stay tuned!
So I have a confession to make: I haven't really made any crosswords in the last 3 months or so. It turns out that the combination of moving to a brand new city, starting a brand new job, and trying to find hobbies that will actually let me meet people pretty much leaves me with no time or creative energy, so you probably won't see my byline many places in the near future. I hope to be back at it at some point in the nebulous future, but until life settles a bit, I'm on a bit of a construction break.
(That said, if you like seeing my byline on things, I have one of my Puzzmo puzzles from this past summer running in an actual physical book! How cool is that!)
Anyways, what I always have is puzzles I made a bit ago and never clued. Today's puzzle is a midi I made over the summer. I was on a road trip when I came up with this theme. I thought of the first two themers almost instantly and then went through every other possible combination (with my friend in the driver's seat listening to all of them). This did not result in many possible themers (which means this is a tight theme set!), but it did result in a lot of things that sounded like drug names or obscure music genres.
This was test solved by Amy, who is an expert on the theme of this puzzle. Go do my Chicago-themed collab with her if you haven't done it yet!