Title: Step and Repeat
Prompt: The meta answer is a 19th century novelist.
Answer: GEORGE ELIOT
Explanation: five synonyms for the word “step” are hidden in the longest across answers: GHOSTRIDER, THEATREKIDS, LIGHTREADING, STROOPWAFEL, and SPACEOPERA. These words also appear in five clues elsewhere in the puzzle, and the first letters of the answers to those clues spell ELIOT. Like so:
10D EWELL clued as [Stride pianist Don]
28D LUC clued as [“Star Trek” captain Jean-___ Picard]
54D ICE clued as [Challenge for tires with low tread]
69D OWL clued as [Troop : monkey :: parliament : ___]
74D TEMPO clued as [Pianist’s pace]
So our answer is GEORGE ELIOT (aka Mary Ann Evans, which I also would have accepted), whose most famous novel is Middlemarch, hinted at throughout the puzzle by the title, the clue for LIGHT READING (which it is definitely not), and of course the mechanism of marching-related words found hidden in the middle of common phrases. Since the puzzle only gives you the last name, I did accept just ELIOT as correct. A huge pat on the back to the entire ACL solver base because not a single one of you submitted TS ELIOT (which my test solvers and Hannah can confirm I was very concerned about before this puzzle went out), and therefore I did not have to agonize over how correct that answer was and whether or not it was fair to accept just the last name.
There were 67 correct answers and 9 incorrect submissions this month (but importantly, 0 submissions of TS ELIOT, which I consider a major win). Kudos to Hannah for a lovely ACL debut!
Congratulations to this month’s randomly chosen winner: Tom Moosbrugger of Columbus, OH! The prize this month (as it is every month) is a copy of a thematically apt novel embossed with FROM THE LIBRARY OF ARIADNE. There was no consensus among the incorrect submissions this month, and I didn’t want to go with the obvious choice (although I admit I was surprised by a couple solvers who commented that they loved Middlemarch!), so this month we’re thinking outside the box and looking to one of the theme entries for inspiration, specifically 86A SPACEOPERA clued as [“Dune” or “The Expanse,” for example]. The prize this month is the first book in The Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Congratulations, Tom!
You can read Ben Chenoweth’s blog post about this month’s contest over at Crossword Fiend, where you can also leave a comment and rate the puzzle.
Dubious Honors
This month’s Tick-Tock Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received first, goes to Adam D., whose answer came in at 9:16 AM EDT on June 1. The White Rabbit Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received last, goes to Lindsey S., whose answer came in at 8:04 PM EDT on June 8. I have no actual prizes to hand out to these solvers, they just get the satisfaction of BOOKending this month’s contest. Well done!
Can you beat their times next month??
More to Explore
Now that June’s ACL contest is over, some other meta crosswords by women you might want to check out: Lydia Roth and Christina Bodensiek continue their spring 2025 series of weekly metas Sundays at noon on their Crosshare page, and you can chat about the puzzles (no spoilers until after the deadline) over on the XWord Muggles Forum. Spring is rapidly coming to an end, so the last puzzle in this series will be published this Sunday, June 15.
If you know of any other meta/contest crosswords constructed or co-constructed by women or woman-aligned constructors that I should shout-out, please send links to those puzzles to damefoxwords@gmail.com and I’ll mention them in next month’s solution write-up.
Thank you to everyone who solved this month’s contest, and a big thank you again to Hannah Binney for being ACL’s first featured constructor! If you are interested in constructing a puzzle for ACL, please visit our Submit a Crossword page. See you next month!
Ex libris Ariadne
Ariadne's Crossword Library 