Should you beat the August heat with a crossword puzzle or a card game today? Good news, you can do both! This month’s contest puzzle is “If You Play Your Cards Right” by Faren Roth. The meta answer is a literary antagonist.

You can find Faren’s bio over on our Team Ariadne page. She also constructed ACL’s May 2026 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 Daylight Time on Wednesday, August 5. The solution, as well as the name of the randomly chosen winner, will be published on Friday, August 7.

AcrossLite (puz) file can be downloaded here.

PDF for download is below.

Happy solving!

Ex libris Ariadne