Puzzle Notes

Hi friends: 

This week's puzzle, "Remixed Singers," is by Francis Heaney, and is once again a 4/5 difficulty puzzle.

Like a baseball player who's up next to bat after making a spectacular defensive play, Francis brings us this puzzle on the heels of a spectacular showing at this year's annual Orca Awards. His "Flight Path," which ran right here in the AVCX, won Best Meta/Contest puzzle, and was nominated for Puzzle of the Year. If you weren't a subscriber when "Flight Path" ran, it's available here.

Meanwhile, our own Brendan Emmett Quigley was also nominated for Best Gimmick Puzzle for his AVCX offering "Draw Swords," and BEQ also took home the Margaret Farrar Prize for Constructor of the Year! (Francis received an honorable mention in that category as well). "Draw Swords" is available here if you didn't get to it.

Your own editor, Ben Tausig, who hung up the spikes on his weekly Ink Well puzzle in the middle of last year, received two nominations, one for "Click Language" (Best Gimmick) and one for the final Ink Well puzzle, "Bugs in the Program" (Puzzle of the Year). Those two are free and available here (PDF/puz) and here (PDF/puz), respectively.

Finally, AVCX wunderkind Caleb Madison received a Best Gimmick Puzzle nomination for his Halloween puzzle, "Spirituals," which is here. Congratulations to all our constructors, and to those at lesser puzzle outlets who were acknowledged as well!

We always strive to bring you the best puzzles anywhere, and it was an honor to receive all of these nominations and prizes. You can peruse all the Orca Awards over at the blog Crossword Fiend. Have a great week!

Yours always,

Ben and the AVCX crew [avxwords.com, @AVCXWord]