Puzzle Notes

Dear friends,

Amie Walker has her AVCX Classic debut this week with "Heavy Hitters," edited lovingly by Quiara Vasquez. It's 2.5/5 difficulty.

Amie is an attorney and crossword constructor living in Arizona. Her puzzles have run in the LA Times, Universal, Inkubator, USA Today, The Modern, Boswords, Apple News, and the New York Times. She's also a 2024 Lil AVC X editor. Amie's favorite gig is being a mom to her daughters ages 9, 6, and 3, and she's forever trying to put their names in crosswords (2 for 3 so far, after this one).

Meanwhile, a contest! We can think of at least one additional theme answer to Amie's puzzle. This answer is the name of someone doubly apt (with enumerations 5, 7) who in his career 14-Down from various bridges something like 40 times. Send this answer to heavyhitters@avxwords.com by midnight on Sunday, March 10 for a chance to win one of several copies of a groundbreaking new crossword memoir by Anna Shechtman. Anna, a past AVCX contributor, will publish "The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle" through HarperCollins in just a few days, and you can get your copy good and early. I've read most of it already, and it's one of the smartest and most informed books about crosswords, in many senses, that I've ever seen.
Yrs,
Ben and the expanded AVCX crew
avxwords.com // @avcxword // @lilavcx // @avcxplus // @avcxtrivia // @avcxcryptic