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Crosswords

Introducing The Defector Crossword

Couples take to the floor in the 'Crossword Puzzle' dance at East Ham Palais de Dance.
Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

In our recent reader survey, some of you complained that you weren’t wasting enough company time on our website. We put our top business minds on the case, and they came up with a solution to your productivity woes: We're starting a Defector crossword. Enjoy this first puzzle, created by Paolo Pasco and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. 

You can expect Defector puzzles to be just like Defector blogs: stronger for their creators' voices, playful with language, and interested in more than Mel OTT, Bobby ORR and the ALOU brothers. We're launching this puzzle in collaboration with our friends at AVCX, the excellent independent subscription crossword outlet. (I’m proud to be one of their many brilliant, cool, satisfied subscribers, and highly recommend you become one too.) Special thanks to AVCX editor Ben Tausig for his guidance along the way.

We’re treating this as a pilot puzzle where we’ll test-and-learn, but we plan to publish regular puzzles starting later in the year, once we’ve ironed out some logistics and created a pipeline of submissions. If you’re a constructor interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read more HERE. If you want to share your thoughts on how we should approach puzzles, let us know—you can fill out the short survey below the puzzle. 

If you liked this blog, please share it! Your referrals help Defector reach new readers, and those new readers always get a few free blogs before encountering our paywall.

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