Introducing... Five by Five

Hey all! It's been a while. Not that you've been wanting for places to see my byline this past month, between assorted editorial work at AVCX and guest puzzles such as this Toto-themed one to close out Alex Boisvert's "Yacht Rock" series. Not to mention I have an all-new never-before-seen grid in the coolest crossword book of 2022, Inkubator Crosswords: 100 Audacious Puzzles by Women and Non-Binary Creators from Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Anyway, the monthly roundups for March and April are on tap for this week, as is another guest spot on a different blog. But I have a much more exciting feature for you all to check out, namely... the return of Mini Mondays! Or Monday Minis. Or whatever the hell I called them. Called, past tense, because as of today they're now called Five by Fives. You can remember the name because it's what Faith said all the time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and also because the grids are literally 5x5s. I have about eight of these queued up for the next two months, after which point I might get a tad more ambitious with the format. (E.g., I might do a vowelless... or a consonantless... or a squeeze phrase... etc etc.) Because they're so tiny I don't think it's really worth making a PDF or .puz for these.

Anyway, see you Thursday - or possibly before then. Applet ABOVE the cut, because I feel like being quirky and cool.