Puzzle

Puzzle Notes

Dear friends,

It is always a thrill and an honor to publish someone's debut crossword. We are excited to bring you the first published puzzle from constructor Meconya Alford! Keep an eye out for more bylines from her. We think you'll find "City Women" to be lightly challenging -- and look out for a shout-out to her hometown!

Meconya has always had a lifelong curiosity to know the hows and whys of EVERYTHING, which would explain her newly found passion for crossword puzzle construction. She's a scientist by profession with a great sense of humor and a love of puns, wordplay, and memes. Music trivia is her JAM (see what I mean about the puns?), and she is well VERSED (see, did it again!) in popular music of a lot of different genres from the 70s thru the 90s and early 00s, but not so much the late 00s because the kids today just don't know anything about real music. You better believe that she is going to use a music reference whenever possible in her puzzling career. She is learning to play guitar and makes up her own song parodies and performs them for friends and family. She is an avid reader and loves to listen to podcasts. Her goal in the crosswording realm is to diversify the landscape so crossword puzzles that incorporate references to women of color are used more in mainstream publications.

When you're done solving, check out Diary of a Crossword Fiend for a write-up and discussion, every Friday after an Inkubator puzzle is published. For general updates, follow us on twitter at @InkubatorXWords, and visit our website. Thanks to all of our subscribers for your continuing support, feedback, and kindness!

Coming up next, on February 11: Layla Beckhardt puts us on.

All best,
Laura, Tracy, Juliana, and Stella