Puzzle Notes

Dear friends,

Classic's first puzzle of 2024 is constructed by Brandon Koppy, with editing by Karen Lurie and Byron Walden. It's 21x, 4.5/5 difficulty, and called "Nonstop Flights." Enjoy the journey there.

Brandon has a blog, see17across.com, which Brandon says "has more of my puzzles + construction tutorials."

Meanwhile, in happy puzzle community news, the brand new Midwest Crossword Tournament, which debuts this fall (October 5, 2024) in Chicago, has launched their new website. The MWXWT is run by the legends Sally Hoelscher and Shannon Rapp, so you can and should expect it to be incredible. Check out the site for details, and register if you're around!

Lastly, Classic would simply like to wish a fond farewell to Inkubator Crosswords, which closed its doors as a subscription service as of the end of 2023. The Inkubator during their five-year run was a hugely important force in puzzledom, creating a space for women and non-binary constructors that had not existed before in any form. Moreover, they focused on mentorship in a committed way, and put out consistently good shit. So many great constructors cut their teeth there, and Ink's legacy lives on with all the great talents they helped develop. The AVCX is very much humbled to have been connected with them for a time. There are lots of people to shout out, but above all it was Laura Braunstein who made the magic happen, and with whom we worked most closely. Laura is an awesome person. Thanks to her, to Tracy Bennett, to Brooke Husic, to Stella Zawistowski, to Alex Briñas, to Juliana Tringali Golden, and everyone else who was a part of that beautiful thing.

Yrs,
Ben and the expanded AVCX crew
avxwords.com // @avcxword // @lilavcx // @avcxplus // @avcxtrivia // @avcxcryptic