This week's puzzle was constructed by Evan Mulvihill and Rafael Musa, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Evan is a cruciverbalist living in San Francisco, Calif. His crosswords have been published by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. He mainly creates fun, modern, highly homoseggsual themeless puzzles that attempt to cast a gimlet eye on the zeitgeist (but often fail). When he's not working as a pharmacist at San Francisco General Hospital, he enjoys attending gay ski weeks, "doing it live," and creating Spotify playlists with titles like "Extra Chill Vibes ✨ONLY✨." He publishes indie puzzles and crossword reviews on his blog, BossWords. Rafa lives in San Francisco with his cat Georgia.
Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. Note that we're pausing open submissions until Dec. 1. The AVCX, an independent puzzles and games outlet, is running a subscription drive this fall: We'd love for you to subscribe, or to sample the good with a two-month free trial. With an AVCX subscription, you get access to weekly themed and themeless crosswords, minis, cryptics, and trivia, by email or in your favorite app. We have no corporate overlord, and we publish top-flight stuff only. We also pay our people fairly, always. Check us out.
