PUZZLE #73: "I Love It When You..." (by Brooke Husic!)

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SOLUTION to the last puzzle

Guest puzzle guest puzzle! Happy to be presenting a puzzle by Brooke Husic, whose work you might've seen at the USA Today, the New York Times, and any number of indie outlets. She does great stuff regularly, so many thanks to her for gracing this site with some of that greatness!

Notes from Brooke:

Thrilled to be here again with a puzzle that Had To Be Made after I noticed the relevant pattern. Many thanks to Paolo for hosting me; he's the best. His recent guest midi on Amanda's site is amazing (I for one support more (i) anniversary content and (ii) nonstandard symmetry, and this midi has both)!!! Also, I had the immense honor/pleasure of test solving Paolo's Expansion Pack and *highly* recommend it if you haven't checked it out already!!!

If you're a citizen, register to vote!! Deadlines here!!! Registration/absentee rules here!!! Online registration available in these 40 states!!!!

Follow her on her Twitters if you're not on that already—hope you enjoy the puzzle!

PUZZLE #61: Pair Programming (with Brooke Husic)

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SOLUTION to the last puzzle

lowercase post! feels right, since we got a chiller puzzle with a more freewheeling cluing vibe. very excited to run this puzzle, not in the least because this is a collab with brooke husic! you might know her from her excellent USA Today crosswords, or the equally-excellent work she's done on recent indie puzzle bangers. in either case, this puzzle came together within a twelve-hour period, from theme conception to clues. i'm honored to run it here—not only is brooke insanely talented at every stage of the crossword constructing process (if you like a clue, she wrote it), but she's dang fun to collaborate with too.

and, from brooke!
paolo asked me what time zone i was in, presumably to give me the benefit of the doubt because my messages were arriving at odd hours. turns out they're still odd hours even with the europe correction. this came together after PP found the circled words in 11-across following an appropriately topical exam. building this together felt like speed chess during filling and was the most fun i've had on a google doc, possibly ever, during cluing. stay tuned for more from this byline.

hope you enjoy!

p.s. follow brooke on twitter (@brookehus @xandraladee)