SUMMER CROSSWORDS HOW TO
SUMMER CROSSWORDS SOFTWARE

There is a burgeoning indie scene of crosswords that embraces more provocative content than mainstream publishers will allow. The New York Times crossword is famously known for needing to pass “the breakfast test.” In other words, would the content of the puzzle be acceptable for discussion over the family breakfast table? That can be limiting. That idea became my first New York Times crossword acceptance. For example, as I became more and more consumed with constructing crosswords, I remarked to my wife that it felt like I had CREATED A MONSTER, which I immediately recognized as a perfect revealer for a theme set with entries containing hidden monsters, like LIN(T ROLL)ER and PRI(DE MON)TH. I will then set out to find matching entries. I’m mostly inspired by phrases I come across in the wild - in conversation, in television dialogue, and even in solving crossword puzzles - that seem like potential revealers or theme entries. The themes are often tied together by a final entry known as a revealer. She holds a doctorate in pharmacology and now leads a small group supporting immuno-oncology drug discovery efforts at Merck.Īlmost all the puzzles I write are themed, meaning that the longest entries in the puzzle are unified by a common idea or element of wordplay. Rebecca Goldstein lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife, Ariela. It makes your brain really work, and that’s kind of yummy. It’s a super-focused space that has a finite ending. What is the perfect setting to enjoy crossword puzzles?Īirplane, for sure. But I think my last puzzle for Barnard Magazine, I kind of went off the deep end with Rage Against the Machine. Hopefully there’s enough material in there that people relate to - that’s how you do community. I put stuff in my puzzles that not everyone will get. They are trying to appeal to millions of people, and that’s great, but niche puzzles are great too. Then there are deeply general puzzles, like USA Today puzzles. We shouldn’t have to know everything that’s happening in the world all at once, but if we’re a part of the community, it’s really nice to know that we can understand what’s going on through puzzles. If you weren’t reading that week’s New York Times, you would be lost. The first crosswords were really focused on current events.

SUMMER CROSSWORDS SOFTWARE

Now I use this free, very bare-bones software called Phil. I felt like I learned some rules, and I began to experiment with themes, like female protagonists of books, such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Daphne du Maurier’s gothic novel Rebecca - which was funny because it’s my name.

SUMMER CROSSWORDS HOW TO

It’s deliciously nerdy, but within that movie it shows how to make a puzzle. I watched this documentary from 2006 called Wordplay.

Summer crosswords