This puzzle has an interesting (to me, anyway) history. Perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s been a while since I had a freestyle puzzle published anywhere other than this website. It’s only somewhat for lack of trying. I find that my idea of what makes an interesting puzzle doesn’t always line up with what the current crop of editors likes: The number one critique I get is that my 8s to 10s weren’t sparkly enough, and that they want to see more lively multi-word phrases. (IMO applying this metric consistently leads to things like I AM SO DEAD and OREO PIE being the Lake ERIE and ELIA Kazan of themeless puzzles, and that’s not my cup of tea.)
Anyway, I was determined to shove as many multi-word entries into this puzzle as I could, with the intent of submitting it somewhere. But when I was finished cluing it, I didn’t think the puzzle felt like me any more! So I set it aside and started over, and the market I had planned to submit this puzzle to got something different.
Fast-forward a month, and it’s time to upload this week’s website puzzle. I looked this one over again and realized that, with the cluing, I made it more “me” than I had thought. I did a couple more tweaks to Stella-fy it even more, and here she is. Enjoy!
Crosswords and Trivia by Stella Zawistowski 
Can’t download solution. Only puzzle opens no solution.
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