Emma Craven-Matthews author page
1 puzzle by Emma Craven-Matthews
with Constructor comments
| H | A | T | H | B | A | H | O | T | T | A | W | A | ||
| E | R | O | O | A | R | T | S | A | U | N | A | S | ||
| M | A | R | C | T | I | M | H | O | R | T | O | N | S | |
| B | A | K | E | S | A | L | E | D | D | E | ||||
| S | H | E | L | B | O | X | S | E | A | T | ||||
| Y | E | A | T | S | C | I | A | |||||||
| S | C | E | N | A | R | I | O | A | N | Y | O | N | E | |
| H | O | P | I | C | O | L | A | S | I | V | A | N | ||
| E | N | I | G | M | A | A | L | I | E | N | A | T | E | |
| H | E | N | R | E | O | R | G | |||||||
| S | T | U | T | T | E | R | I | S | S | A | ||||
| U | R | N | A | P | R | I | C | O | T | S | ||||
| M | A | P | L | E | S | Y | R | U | P | R | E | P | O | |
| A | L | I | G | N | S | E | T | A | R | A | I | N | ||
| C | A | N | A | D | A | P | H | D | Y | M | C | A |
I should make one thing clear up front: I'm half-Canadian (a dual citizen, in fact), my dad is from Montréal, and we have a lot of family living in the Greater Toronto Area. I'm teasing Canada with my puzzle, yes, but playfully and affectionately! I'm sorry if I offended anyone (see, I'm one of you).
This was maybe the third or fourth puzzle I constructed and there's a lot I like here. I'm happy with my theme answers, none of which feel forced the way theme answers sometimes can. I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of timely political references, which all came about accidentally: RUTH was originally RUPI (as in Rupi Kaur, of Milk and Honey fame), but Will suggested that that was too obscure for a Monday, I wanted OCTOPUS instead of OCASIO because that seemed more whimsical, but I needed vowels, and as for Biden's STUTTER, well, I don't love that corner, and I tried desperately to change STUTTER/TRALA to the vastly more interesting SPUTTER/PRADA or, frankly, anything else, but this was the only fill I could find. Now I know not to cram two theme answers into a corner together.
My other regret is what seems like an inordinate amount of Cs and Hs in my theme answers. What a challenging and chaotic chore I caused (not really — I had a great time).