Every Sunday I solve your puzzle and read your commentary, and it makes a big difference hearing the behind-the-scenes story.

and I had to rely on too many deep-cut names and phrases for comfort — the inevitable result of frantically trying the year prior to start and finish a Sunday-size crossword in a few hours.

Good luck to everyone competing in the inaugural Westwords Crossword Tournament today! I’ll be receiving the set of puzzles to solve after it’s finished, so if you’re competing, don’t post ...

Politics and football: Two forms of modern blood sport that I combined into one crossword. Six football-related phrases have been redefined in a political context. When I started building the ...

Cryptic crossword solvers are accustomed to seeking out words in clues that might signal an anagram. In cryptic circles these ...

It’s Oscar night, so it’s time for a movie crossword. Twelve answers are clued as though they are remakes of certain films. What makes them “remakes”? They’re anagrams of the movie title ...

Let’s see if I can remember how this whole “writing crosswords” thing goes since ... 122A: [Elliot James Birnholz, e.g., whom Captain Obvious is addressing in this puzzle] is CHILD.