Happy 2026! Before we get to the puzzle, a huge thank you to everyone who responded to my call for donations last month. Your contributions are so helpful to the longevity of this project, and I appreciate enormously the show of support. I’ve removed the donation links from the Support ACL page for the time being, but I will almost certainly put out another call in the future, so stay tuned if you are potentially interested in donating at a later date.

Onto the contest! The first contest puzzle of the new year is “Are You Missing Something?” by Hannah Binney. The meta answer is a five-word book title which may describe how you find yourself after solving this puzzle’s grid.

You can find Hannah’s bio over on our Team Ariadne page, and she also constructed ACL’s June 2025 puzzle.

To submit to the contest, send an email with your answer in the subject line to damefoxwords@gmail.com. The contest deadline is 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday, January 5. The solution, as well as the name of the randomly chosen winner, will be published on Wednesday, January 7.

AcrossLite (puz) file can be downloaded here.

PDF for download is below.

A quick teaser, for those of you who made it this far in the post: I’m delighted to report that ACL is starting this year off with a string of puzzles by guest constructors. January’s is in fact the first of five currently lined up! If you are interested in increasing the length of the current lineup by constructing a puzzle for ACL yourself, please visit our Submit a Crossword page for guidelines on doing that.

Happy solving!

Ex libris Ariadne