I’m so excited to be part of the amazing team bringing crosswords to Autostraddle! As someone who has been accused by an anonymous commenter of planting “LGBTQ propaganda” in my mainstream puzzles, I think this is the right place for me. If you want to check out some of my other work, you can find my favorites at my free puzzle blog, the New Yorker, and the USA Today. Connect with me on Twitter here!
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Brooke is a queer crossword constructor and scientist based in Brooklyn. You can find her favorite other crossword work on her free blog, at the New Yorker, and at the USA Today. When she's not making crosswords, she enjoys long distance running, yoga, and assembling Spotify playlists. Connect with her on twitter at @xandraladee!
brooke has written 49 articles for us.
This was so fun! I play the NYT Mini most days and it was so much better to have a queer version :)
love 2 hear thisss ⭐️
I’m slow at crosswords, so I’m sure that 2:45 is a slow time but I’m really excited and proud! How fun!!
58 seconds! for some reason 5 down gave me trouble lol
same
5-D is, at least in my (actually pretty limited!) experience, straight up crosswordese and every time i encounter it i’m like “ah so we meet again”
53 seconds!
36 seconds, but I only had the first horizontal clue—needed the vertical clues for the rest. Love this new addition to AS!
44 secs!
1 minute 11 seconds!
oh thank god i could actually do this one, the full one made me feel like a full dummy
wait no don’t let let them make you feel like a dummy! if you ever get stumped you can just google the subject of the clue and learn something new! only YOU can decide what counts as ‘cheating’ and what counts as simply ‘expanding one’s knowledge base’ and PERSONALLY i’m always simply expanding my knowledge base 👼🏻
32 seconds! These are so fun! I’m curious about what the scores mean!
33 seconds and a score of 310! are the scores related to wrong letters/skipped clues, or just time, or?
I was 26 seconds and also 310, so I guess it is not time-based as I had assumed…
I think it’s based on how maybe any letters you revealed (and maybe if you used the check grid function?). I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take into account your time.
Check the help section under the hamburger menu (top left) for scoring rules.
Forgive my ignorance: when/in what did Cynthia Nixon portray Emily Dickinson?
2016’s “a quiet passion” :) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2392830/
1 minute 4 seconds! Heavily relied on the downs to help me get the acrosses!
280, and 2:54! this was so much fun! I love that they’re bite size so i could just do this waiting for the bus
Lol one down stumped me because I know nothing about musicals
2 minutes 35 seconds bruh 5 down stumped me
41 seconds!! Love these!!
A note/question – is there a way to zoom out the interface? The puzzle + keyboard is a liiiiittle too small for my iPhone SE, so i can’t always see where I’m typing.
i’ll pass this along to the platform and see if there are any solutions, thank you!
Hero! Thank uuuu!
3:21, I’m getting worse ;_;
Took me too long to realize some of them, I guess ‘Mooni’ isn’t a Wiccan symbol!
Very excited about this!!
Can’t believe I guessed TITTY across and down and was wrong on both counts!
32 seconds! Loved this puzzle 💜
18 seconds!
Loved this one! 1:21
I am THRILLED that these exist now!!!! I’m a total crossword nerd (and obvs v v queer), so this content is fulfilling all of my self actualisation needs
1:02 !
Shouldn’t the clue for 2D say “caramelized”?
unless carmelized is a thing…
nope, you’re right, just a typo!
14 seconds!
41 seconds! Loving these puzzles