Puzzle Notes

Hello all!

It's always a treat to feature a puzzle from all-star cryptic setter Sara Goodchild, and today is no exception. She's made you all an ABC Jigsaw puzzle which, if you've never had the pleasure, is a cryptic in which the clues are listed alphabetically by answer, one beginning with each letter of the alphabet. It's up to you figure out where they go into the unnumbered grid.

It can be useful to start solving using entries of fairly unique lengths as footholds and trying to connect to other ones using crossing letters and process of elimination. Don't be too daunted ' even if things seem impossible early on, they'll all eventually fall into place.

From our constructor: Sara Goodchild (she/her) is an editor and cryptic crossword constructor based in Toronto, Ontario. She sets science-themed cryptics (as Rasa) for New Scientist, and her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Browser, and other venues. Sara says, 'I hope you'll enjoy this ABC Jigsaw! For maximum authenticity, please pronounce 'z' as 'zed' when solving."

We hope you enjoy the puzzle! We'll be back with more fun in two weeks.

Happy solving,
Steve + the AVCX Cryptics team