For the folks who replied to my last post with “but I come here for hard puzzles!” — I have no plans to stop making hard themelesses and publishing them here every other week. The only thing that has changed is how I describe myself as a puzzlemaker.
As you may have noticed, the themelesses are offered free of charge. I do that because I like making them, and I know that the market for hard themelesses is not large enough that, were I to charge money for these puzzles, I would make enough to justify the extra work I’d have to put in for a paying audience (i.e., putting the puzzles through a test-solving and editing process).
But I now make a large part of my living making puzzles. In time, my goal is for puzzles and trivia to be the majority of my living, if not all of it. To do that, I need to sell easy puzzles. Which is something I’m good at making, and I enjoy making! Hence the rebrand.
So: Here is a hard puzzle that no longer bears the name “Tough as Nails.” Hope you enjoy it!
Crosswords and Trivia by Stella Zawistowski 
Hi Stella, Thanks for all the tough puzzles! Can you suggest any other sources of super hard crosswords? The Saturday Newsday puzzle books are great. The Friday and Saturday NYT and the Fireball puzzles are only occasionally challenging. Matt Gaffney’s metas are hard, but the grids are easy. I’m running out of crosswords that make me sweat!
Thanks again for all the puzzles, Denis Sullivan
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Club 72- Tim Croce is a lean mean word-crossing machine. Not infrequently I require multiple sittings to complete. He is the nearest comp to the gold found here, but with a bit more prolific output.
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I second Denis’s comment: thank you for all the wonderful puzzles. When I print my puzzles out every few days and put them all in a huge stack on my table, I make sure yours are near the top!
I’m also curious where to find more stumpers. Would love to hear your thoughts!
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https://club72.wordpress.com/
are a good level of difficulty. Also looking for more!
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Yes, they are!
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Just tried the first one. Nice and tough. And there’s a large backlog of puzzles. Just what I was looking for. Thanks for the tip!
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A downside of years of xword addiction is that puzzles are solved more quickly.
Wish I had more sources. The WSJ meta community is nice – zoom calls around the Thursday released meta.
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I still type in tough as nails, the url still says tough as nails, still plenty pleased, thanks for the joy.
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