About Us

The AVCX has been sending out a weekly crossword puzzle for over fifteen years: a lively, current, polished product with vibes that mainstream publications cannot match. In 2022, we’ve expanded to a six-times-a-week word game delivered straight to your inbox or device.
AVCX Classic
A full-sized crossword puzzle every Wednesday, usually themed
Team:
Wyna Liu
Quiara Vasquez
Paolo Pasco
Francis Heaney
Byron Walden
Ben Tausig
AVCX+
Full-sized crossword puzzles on Fridays, usually themeless, from a roster of your favorite indie constructors
Team:
Sid Sivakumar
Quiara Vasquez
Max Carpenter
Christopher Adams
Ada Nicolle
Lil AVCX
Boundary-pushing, bite-sized puzzles on Mondays and Tuesdays
Team:
Enrique Henestroza Anguiano
Chris Piuma
Brooke Husic
AVCX Cryptic
Cryptic crossword puzzles on Thursdays
Team:
Stella Zawistowski
Francis Heaney
Claire Muscat
Trivia
Five(ish) trivia questions with a meta answer on Saturdays
Team:
Aimee Lucido
Staff
Authors
Ada Nicolle
AVCX+ editor

Ada (she/they) is a crossword constructor based in Toronto, Ontario. She runs the indie crossword venue Luckystreak Xwords+ on Patreon, and is a regular contributor to the USA Today Crossword and Redstone Crosswords. When she's not constructing puzzles, she can be found performing comedy around Toronto.

Aimee Lucido
AVCX Trivia editor and AVCX Classic constructor

Aimee (she/her/hers) is a long-time crossword maker with publications in most mainstream venues including the AV Classic and the New Yorker. She is a recent inductee into the cult of trivia and is very excited to apply her crossword experience to the trivia format. She writes books for kids and her first two publications, Emmy in the Key of Code and Recipe for Disaster, are available wherever books are sold. Her third book, Words Apart, will be out in winter of 2024.

Ben Tausig
AVCX Classic editor

Ben (he/him/his) has been an editor of the AVCX (now AV Classic) since 2006. He has two funny children, lives in Queens, NY, and likes to cook.

Brooke Husic
Lil AVC X editor

Brooke (she/her/hers) is a computational chemist who writes easy crosswords for the USA Today and very hard puzzles for her blog, xwords by a ladee. She also edits for the Inkubator and These Puzzles Fund Abortion, co-maintains Spread the Word(list), and co-hosts the Crossnerds podcast.

Byron Walden
AVCX Classic constructor
Chris Piuma
Lil AVC X editor
Christopher Adams
AVCX+ editor

Christopher (he/him/his) is a former grad student turned townie slash independent puzzlemaker. He recently took over as quizmaster for most of the (very robust) Iowa City quizzing scene.

Claire Muscat
AVCX Cryptic editor

Claire (she/her/hers) is a Software Engineer and puzzle enthusiast based in Chicago, IL. Her puzzles have appeared in a number of mainstream and indie outlets but her heart belongs to cryptics now.

Enrique Henestroza Anguiano
Lil AVC X editor

Enrique (he/him/his) is a computational linguist and data scientist based in Oakland, CA. His crosswords have appeared in most mainstream and indie crossword venues, and you can find more indie crosswords and data science thoughts on his site, Datalexic. He also co-maintains Spread the Word(list), a free data-driven resource for newer constructors.

Francis Heaney
AVCX Cryptic editor

Francis (he/they) is currently the Senior Editor for Union Square & Co.'s imprint Puzzlewright Press, and has had stints at "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ancillary writer) and Games magazine (editor-at-large). Their puzzles have appeared in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Wired, Time Out, the Wall Street Journal, Al-Jazeera, etc., and in books such as "Drunk Crosswords" (with Brendan Emmett Quigley), "Brain Games for Word Nerds," and "Sudoku in Space." Tweets: @fheaney; Insta: @heaneyf.

Max Carpenter
AVCX+ editor

Max (he/him/his) is a film programmer, crossword constructor, and writer based mostly in New York. He sometimes uploads misfit puzzles to his site and is also terminally online.

Paolo Pasco
AVCX Classic constructor
Quiara Vasquez
AVCX Classic and AVCX+ editor

Quiara (pronounced key-AH-rah) (she/her/hers) was a journalist and is now a puzzlemaker (which, if you can believe it, pays better). The guy from The X-Files called her the best interviewer he’d ever talked to. She edits puzzles for AVCX+ and has done grids for Newsday, Boswords, The Atlantic, and (duh) AVCX; she posts weekly puzzles on her site QVXwordz.

Sid Sivakumar
AVCX+ editor

Sid (he/him/his) is an MD/PhD student and puzzlehead based in St. Louis, MO. He edits The Juggernaut Crossword and regularly contributes puzzles to The New York Times. Many of his indie crosswords can be found on his website, Sid’s Grids.

Stella Zawistowski
AVCX Cryptic editor

Stella (she/her/hers) is a top solver of vanilla crosswords, with multiple top-ten finishes at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and an evangelist for cryptic crosswords. Follow her on Twitter for a #crypticclueaday and weekly #crypticcluecontest, and visit her site, ToughAsNails.net, for a monthly cryptic mini, cryptic solving tips, and a semimonthly hard themeless vanilla puzzle.

Wyna Liu
AVCX Classic constructor

Wyna Liu (she/her/hers) is an associate puzzle editor at the New York Times and an assistant editor at AVCX Classic. Her puzzles have run in The New Yorker, NYT and AVCX. She makes jewelry and objects that can be found here. IG and Twitter @wynaliu

Shannon Rapp
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

Shannon (she/her/hers) is excited to be constructing for Lil AVC X! She makes puzzles for her blog under the name Norah Sharpe and contributes to Crossworld News and Notes. Shannon is a mom of one middle-schooler, servant to one cat, and loves coffee, knitting, and burritos. 🙂

Rafael Musa
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

Rafa (he/him/his) loves: crossword puzzles, Taylor Swift, matcha lattes, cats, browsing Zillow, reading investigative journalism. He has a crossword blog, and likes to hang out with other crossword people on Twitter. He grew up in Brazil and lives in San Francisco.

May Huang
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

May (she/her/hers) is a Chinese-English literary translator and also works in public relations. She runs Crossworthy, a puzzle blog and free crossword construction platform, with her husband Kevin. Talk to her about Taylor Swift, swing dancing, and Hong Kong!

Madeline Kaplan
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

Madeline (she/her/hers) is a Lil AVC X contributor. She is also a podcast producer and writer.

Kunal Nabar
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

Kunal (he/him/his) is an engineer who lives in the Bay Area. He started solving crosswords in 2017 and has loved it ever since. He began constructing in early 2020. You can find other puzzles he’s written on his blog. In his spare time Kunal enjoys cooking, running, and exploring California’s outdoor spaces.

Kelsey Dixon
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

A master thief who uses her skills for good, Kelsey (she/her/hers) travels the world foiling V.I.L.E.'s evil plans— with help from savvy sidekicks. Extremely intelligent, stylish, and fashionable, most of her crimes involve spectacular, and often improbable, cases of monument theft. Her other puzzles can be found at crosstina-aquafina.blogspot.com.

Brendan Emmett Quigley
AVCX Classic Constructor

BEQ (he/him/his) has written every puzzle you've ever done since 1996. When not crossing words, he can be seen making an unholy racket with the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.

Adrian Johnson
2022 Lil AVC X constructor

Adrian (he/him/his) is from Wyoming— a distortion of the space-time continuum that the inner echelons of the U.S. government are trying to convince you is a “state.” Do not trust anything he says, because everyone “from Wyoming” is, in reality, a robot filled with pre-programmed memories and propaganda; the name Wyoming, after all, comes from a Delaware word meaning “conspiracy.” You can try to reach Adrian through technology, which, as a humanoid, he is likely to understand. Click here or here.