Crosswords for Change
Puzzle solvers and constructors are building a new world for games.
Kaitlin Hsu (徐欣)
During The New York Times tech workers’ strike, which ended on Nov. 11, workers asked readers to forgo the paper’s digital offerings. Similarly, the coalition Puzzlers for Palestinian Liberation (myself included) began a Times boycott in June, explaining in an open letter that “over 2.7 million of the Times’ 10 million subscribers are only signed up for The Athletic, Cooking, Wirecutter or Games. … The ‘diversion’ offered by Times puzzles is structurally central to the paper’s business model; it directly funds the paper’s disgraceful coverage of Israel’s genocidal war.”
An array of alternatives to the Times crossword are available for puzzlers to play instead — from outlets like Defector, Puzzles for Palestine and These Puzzles Fund Abortion, to protest publications like The New York War Crimes, independent outfits such as Juliana Pache’s Black Crossword and, now, In These Times. Happy puzzling!
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Kaitlin Hsu is a poet, editor, and crossword constructor from the Bay Area. Her writing can be found in A Public Space, Poet Lore, and Peach Magazine, and her crosswords can be found in USA Today, Apple News+, and AVCX.
