Still working on my themeless skills, trying out different grid shapes and stacks and such. Here's a 70-worder with some fun stuff, I hope. In particular, I'm fond of the clues for 12-Down and 53-Across. In blog-related stuff, there are two new items in the sidebar menu: a "tip jar" of sorts to buy me a ☕, if you feel so inclined:  https://ko-fi.com/wordsxing   a blog roll of constructors and puzzle sites I recommend checking out and supporting (feel free to suggest more in the comments) And, in case you missed it, last week I mentioned that there's a pack of mini themeless puzzles of mine on the Redstone app, so check that out for a bunch of quick challenges. Enjoy the solve, and share if you do! Constructive feedback in the comments is always welcome. Download links:   [ puz ]   [ pdf ]   [ solution ]        Direct link: [ open in new tab ]

I've posted a lot of midi-sized themeless puzzles on this blog, and a handful of 15x ones (see here and here and here ), but this one feels like the first "proper themeless"  to me, for some reason. Maybe it's because I spent a little more time than usual on the fill and the clues. Maybe it's because, looking back at those other 15x puzzles, I realize I would do things differently now, even though they're not from all that long ago. Regardless, all of this is to say: I'm starting a new "Themeless" series right now with #1. I think this will be hard by my blog's standards because of some entries and clues, so I'll label it as such, but it might be much easier for you speed-solving whizzes out there, considering it has 74 words and not a ton of tricks. In other news: there's a few weeks left to support the Kickstarter campaign to expand the American Values Club Crossword (AVCX) . Even if you don't know what that is, just check ...

Happy Halloween! 🎃🎸👻🥁🦇🎵💀🎹 I thought it might be fun to celebrate with a concert, so this puzzle's theme entries are all appropriately-named bands who are putting on a Halloween show for you. I'm sure something like this has been done before, so rather than scouring lists of relevant band names, I stuck to whatever came to my mind from the bands that I know of. Sure, not all of them are widely known (and at least one of them is really obscure, although that one's my favorite of the bunch by far), but I think I put enough hints in the clues that you'll be able to suss everything out. You'll notice several other answers and clues pertaining to music, as well, to go along with the main theme. In other news, the most recent Sunday puzzle (10/24) over at The Atlantic is mine! Check it out on their site where it will be available for the next week only. (I believe it disappears two weeks after publication date, unless you have an Atlantic  subscription.) Although...

This puzzle was inspired by a Tweet that I caught on my feed a few months ago. When I saw it, I said, "BINGO, rhyme time puzzle right there!" I was happy to think of a third rhyme to round out the set and then this little puzzle fell into place. [SPOILER alert: here's that Tweet .] I typically aim for these rhyme time puzzles to be pretty easy, so I thought I'd change it up and make this one a little more challenging. I think the fill is pretty fair, but there are more tricks and misdirects in the clues than usual. So, I'm calling this one hard  but I think it's more of a fun, just past medium  and less of a mind-bending hard . Big thanks to all-star test solver Norah Sharpe for trying the puzzle and pointing me to a section that needed improving. I think this version is much better, thanks to her feedback. Speaking of Norah and midi puzzles, after solving this one, you should go to her site for Bricks , a series of fun 9x9s (which are also available on the R...

  Happy Pride! This puzzle's title is a descriptor but also a hint to the theme. It was impossible to find matching theme entry lengths so I had no hope for any kind of symmetry in the grid, but I tried to balance that with some fun long fill and easy-to-get short fill, plus some clues you'll learn from. Photo taken June 1, 2021 on Harvey St. near Alewife Station, Cambridge, MA Many, many thanks to Norah and Rasa for test-solving! This puzzle will be more enjoyable for you all, thanks to their helpful comments. Check out Norah's Puzzles , especially this recent one (a collaboration with David Ritterskamp ). And check out Rasa's 7xwords puzzle , as well as a collaboration with Brooke for the  USA Today puzzle . I hope you also try the USA Today  and Universal Daily  puzzles all this month as they feature themes and constructors that celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. And you can get more great puzzles, while supporting helpful charities, from the Queer Qrosswords ...

  This puzzle is inspired by two events that happened yesterday!  One of them is referenced in the central answer in this grid, which then ties into a couple of other answers, as well as the puzzle's title (which, by the way, is almost but not quite  the same as my first entry in this "Grid 'n Play" series where I experiment with themeless grids). The other was Brian Thomas's crossword construction Twitch stream yesterday afternoon that taught me a lot about how to approach themeless grids and inspired me to try for a low word count puzzle. What you see above is the grid I ended up with: it has 62 words (yay), 46 black squares (meh), and an average word length of 5.77.  It has standard rotational symmetry, but it almost  looks like it has diagonal symmetry. In fact, if you just slide one pair of those pyramids over one step, then you get a grid that is symmetric across both  diagonals . Be sure to check out Brian's Twitch ( link here ) and his blog ( link...

  I started off wanting to make a nice, medium puzzle, or at least one for which I could write both easy and hard clues. But I was also feeling inspired by some recent themeless puzzles I've solved* that feature wide open grids with lots of white space, especially around the middle. I'm thinking of Ryan McCarty's "Chasm" McGrids , some of Brooke Husic's demi themeless grids , and Will Nediger's Freeform Freestyles , among others. * well, I admired the grids and filled in a few squares, but "solved" is generous This puzzle is my humble attempt at those kind of grids, but on a much more manageable (for this mere mortal) 10x10 scale. In the process of keeping the middle of this grid open, I ended up with some challenging but gettable fill. And then I kept coming up with pretty hard (I think) clues, so I gave up on the easy/medium possibilities and just tried to make this really tough but hopefully still fair. If it proves too tough, check back this ...

  This themeless puzzle is an ol' 68er , which is not as low as tons of amazing puzzles out there (including Paolo Pasco's recent ol' 62er ) but is the lowest I've managed to pull off decently enough that I'm willing to share here. I'm categorizing this in the Grid 'n Play  series because I took this grid from the xwordinfo database and modified it ever so slightly, then filled it in, as opposed to starting with some entries and building the grid from there. Specifically, the grid for this Caleb Madison puzzle in the NYT on Friday, April 19, 2019  really caught my eye! I find the 3-blocks jutting in from the side and situated in the center rather pleasing, especially when paired with the short diagonal segments and tetromino pieces in the four corners. If you look carefully, you'll see that my grid here is only different in where those 3-blocks are placed. Caleb's grid staggers them so they're not all along the central row, creating stacks of 6...

In my previous puzzle post ( BWS Puzzle #12: Network Programming ), I mentioned that the final grid there was "pretty heavy on the 3 letter entries". In fact, out of 54 total words in that puzzle, 22 of them were 3s; that's just over 40%. Yikes! Consequently, I set myself a challenge for this next puzzle:  no 3s whatsoever!   I thought that might be difficult in a big grid, so I'm starting small with a 10x10 themeless. You can see the histogram of word lengths in the image below. There's an abundance of 4s and 5s this time, along with a handful of 7s and 10s. You may also notice some pleasing symmetry in the grid: each corner is a 4x5 or 5x4, and the four central squares are each crossed by exactly two 7s. As usual with these midi themeless puzzles, I picked a few of the 10s based on stuff that's on my mind or happening recently. In particular, 4-Down and 14-Across come from a recent dinnertime conversation, and I was delighted to notice that they could cross...

Have you seen the awesome 7xwords website yet? Check it out! The index page shows you all 312 possible 7x7 crossword grids (subject to a few standard rules as described on the "why?" page ). That amounts to a new puzzle six days a week for all 52 weeks of the year and constructors could claim a grid for a certain day in advance. When I first heard about this project on Twitter toward the beginning of the year, I was really intrigued and hoped to take part. I looked for a date that was not imminent (so I could worry about making a puzzle later) but also not too far off in the future (so I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting until the last minute). I picked April 3 because it was soon-ish and also not within a day of a holiday. I didn't even think to look at what the grid would be, so I'm glad it ended up being something manageable (the image at the top of this post). A few weeks later, when I started working on the puzzle, I looked for interesting people bor...

This puzzle is inspired by some awesome work that other constructors have done lately in experimenting with grid shapes and symmetry. I want to shout out a few examples before introducing my puzzle: Matthew Stock ( Happy Little Puzzles ) has a recent themeless puzzle with translational symmetry , meaning the black squares consist of a few shapes that have been slid across/down the grid. (In mathematics, these are called "translations" , in contrast to "reflections" and "rotations" .) Check it out here in this link . Brian Thomas ( Puzzles That Need a Home ) has a recent themeless puzzle with diagonal symmetry , meaning the black squares are symmetric across the "main diagonal" of the grid (top-left to bottom-right). Check it out here in this link . (Side note: I actually have a puzzle with diagonal symmetry set for publication later this year! I'll say more about that here on the blog when the time comes...) Brooke Husic ( xwords by a ladee ...