A+ Crossword for Forward-Thinking, Nostalgia

Editor’s Note: It’s your first A+ crossword puzzle! You can look forward to a new 10×10 (or larger) crossword each Saturday morning. Share your thoughts about this puzzle in the comments, and if you’ve got something to say about the games vertical in general, head on over to your A+ Priority Contact Box!

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brooke

brooke has written 48 articles for us.

37 Comments

    • The beauty of the longer crossword is that it’s not a race—it’s about relaxing on a Saturday morning with some gay wordplay :)

    • I’m not about posting my time because I’m not about optimizing it when I’m playing. I want to read all the clues and make sure I understand them. I love how all these puzzles reward you with a pile of links.

    • I’ve never been really into puzzles and I didn’t think I cared about whether Autostraddle had them, but now I LOVE THIS and I wish I had 1,000 more puzzles to do!!!

    • I got crushed haha thank you to my brilliant girlfriend who helped me out. So fun. Thanks for making these!

  3. I love clues like 25 down where we’re all on the same page here. I’m not compartmentalising myself, trying to work out what a setter’s assuming of a ~general audience, I’m just… doing a crossword? What a concept!

    • Yeah it has really illuminated for me how much I have to think about “ok what would the mainstream answer to this be” when I’m doing a regular crossword.

  4. The struggle continues, but I WILL sharpen my brain! Also I didn’t know the Indigo Girls song, so I’m straight now I guess :D

  5. I love the puzzles and the circle wordplay. My favorite part may be the links at the end—I’d missed the Beyoncé post originally and it was a great post-puzzle read 💜

  6. 8:05! I love these because, unlike with other crosswords, I actually know some of the pop culture references :)

  8. 6:40 – misspelled one early, which caused me some problems. Really enjoying the puzzles and crosswords!

  10. 6:33. So fun! I loved waking up this Saturday morning and realizing I had a new AS puzzle to do before i get out of bed!

  18. 2:34! I do the NYTimes crossword most days and it’s always hit or miss whether I get the pop culture references. But I got the Indigo Girls song right away!

  19. 3:57! But then, I did just take a short break from my NYT Sunday puzzles book to knock this one out. XD

    Maybe Autostraddle will finally get me to compose my first crossword……?!

  20. Um Drew’s girlfriend is in this puzzle??

    Loved this one! I was a bit worried about how hard the other large one was for me, but this one was just the right amount of challenging.

  27. Okay, so I clicked on the crossword and then plugged in my phone and walked away to get ready for work. So it says 32 minutes but I’m pretty sure I did the whole thing pretty fast on the train just now. But I don’t care because my mind is being blown by how many lesbian icons were on the coming out episode of Ellen’s sitcom and I am ready for the rabbit hole of reliving it all!!!!! Somewhere I have an archived copy of the first lesbians on the covers of two national magazines. Every coming out and media mention of lesbians was a major big deal back then! Oh, and I was born in 1970. I came out in 1988 and the world was not ready for us. We sure got the world ready, though! And it’s still not quite ready…

  28. Ok, I didn’t realize that the 90’s lesbian trivia quiz was conducted like two years before the pandemic, and I commented that we need a lesbian trivia quiz for ppl born in 1912 and then we can answer questions about Boston Marriage and Willa Cather. Oooh! I think a good lesbian costume would be Willa Catheter and it would be a period costume with rubber tubing emerging from under the petticoat. I own a petticoat, so…

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