When Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon announced their retirement from NYT Acrostic construction, I started thinking about why their work was so outstanding, and what the inevitable new voices might bring to the table. So, I created three acrostics myself, each with the idea that it would feature a quote C&R would be unlikely to use, and might be a direction for the future evolution of the art. I sent all three to Will Shortz, assuming he’d reject them but might get a kick out of the ideas. To my delight, he accepted two for publication.
Acrostics, like crosswords, don’t come with instructions, so you have to play for a while before you get the gist of them, but that requires taking that first step. And that requires overcoming some preconceptions.
Acrostic 1: the famous quote
I often hear from solvers that, “I don’t do acrostics because I’m not good at quotes.” They assume that the emerging answer will be some famous quote from fiction and they’re going to feel dumb because they don’t know it.
That’s wrong on two levels: most quotes historically come from non-fiction, and there’s never an assumption that you have encountered the quote before. Will Shortz prefers non-fiction because you don’t need the context of the story, but of course, lots of quotable sequences from fiction stand alone.
Anyway, I decided to throw a bone to those who assume it’s a famous quote by providing one by a famous author. It’s from the opening paragraph, so nobody has any context yet!
This one was published on April 23. If you have an XWord Info account, you can solve it here or, if you prefer, print out the PDF.
Acrostic 2: the unexpected source
It’s no surprise that Will Shortz rejected this one. It doesn’t quite follow the rules, and the answer words I came up with were less than scintillating. Still, it’s my favorite of the three. The source is a historical document that amuses me.
No XWord Info account is required to solve this one here.
Acrostic 3: the inside joke
I knew for sure Will would reject this one, but I pitched it as a quote from an author I know he loves. He didn’t gush over the idea, but I think I snuck in at just the right moment. C&R had retired, and no obvious replacement had been signed up, so there was a window of opportunity. (My understanding is that Will has a new regular acrostic constructor starting mid-June. I don’t know who that is.)
My final acrostic appears in the June 4 Sunday Magazine, but you can solve it here or print it from here if you have an XWord Info account.
No spoilers on this one. Ok, one. It’s a homage to a great man whose work I have loved for many years.
The latest acrostic crossword doesn’t seem to be available online, at least not yet. Hope the variety puzzles continue to be made available on the site.