It's no secret that I hope to get a puzzle published in a major publication soon. It's also no secret that most outlets keep their published crosswords to a specific set of sizes; for the most part, "weekday" puzzles are 15x15 in size, and "weekend/Sunday" puzzles are a more imposing 21x21. It's not a rule of the universe that a crossword puzzle must be one of those sizes, though -- and as I start making efforts towards submitting newspaper-size puzzles for publication, it's good to use this personal website as a platform for puzzles of non-traditional shapes and sizes. Because why not? Free your mind, and the grids will follow.

To that end, here's a puzzle at the non-standard size of 17x17. A little bigger than usual, so you can savor it more on your journey to wherever you're celebrating Thanksgiving (or at home, if you aren't going out of town or aren't celebrating). Enjoy!

Download as .pdf
Download as .puz (for solving in Across Lite)

Hello again, all! A few updates:

• Sorry for the delay in getting a new puzzle up; for a lot of reasons, last week has been kind of A Week. I'm currently looking at a schedule of putting new puzzles up on Sunday evenings, though the exact time will vary, and it may vary whether it's 1 week or 2 weeks (or, possibly but hopefully not, longer than that) between puzzles. 
  
  
• Did you figure out Puzzle 3, including the puzzle's quasi-theme and the entries related to it? If not, fear not -- all is now revealed! Click below:
  Puzzle 3 - Solution
  
  
• Also, did you watch this most recent Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions? An outstanding performance for so many of the contestants. Congratulations to James Holzhauer on taking the win, and shout-out to Emma Boettcher for fighting it out to the very last clue on her way to a 2nd place finish.

And now for what you're actually all here for: Puzzle 4, "Making the Cut," is now available! As of now (edit: at the time of original posting), this puzzle DOES NOT have a solve-in-browser applet. I can't really talk about why, so I'll just say I am looking into fixing this in the coming weeks, and you can expect it back for future puzzles. (Edit: Now fixed!) For the time being:
Download as .pdf
Download as .puz (for solving in Across Lite)

​Happy solving!

UPDATE: this puzzle now DOES have a solve-in-browser applet. Thanks to Sudheendra Hangal of AmuseLabs for working through the tech issue with me. Enjoy!

Download as pdf
Download as .puz (for solving in Across Lite)

It's been a week since the launch of thisismattjackson.com, and I'm enthused by the enthusiastic response so far! So enthused, in fact, that I'm uploading a new puzzle to mark our 1-week anniversary. Odds are good that I'll have another next Sunday to mark our 2-week anniversary too. Consistency!

I'm trying something new with this one. This puzzle isn't quite a standard theme puzzle, but it's not quite themeless either, so for lack of a better term, I'm calling it "quasi-themed." The puzzle was inspired by something, and is constructed as an homage of sorts to that thing.

To wit: Several entries in this puzzle allude to a pop culture franchise. Which one? How many references can you find?

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