Litzstarter Update

This will be a short post since I'm out of town for a few days—in fact, I just spent a couple of hours today talking about the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project to congressional staffers in Washington and to other Davidson Fellows!  It's been very interesting and a lot of fun explaining the project to people who aren't familiar with crossword history.

My absence certainly didn't slow down the litzing—as I write this, we're now at 11,850 on the litzing thermometer!  The week started off with Ed Sessa sending in 7 puzzles on Saturday morning.  That afternoon, Nancy Kavanaugh sent in 18 more, putting her contest total at more than 100!  And Saturday night, Jeffrey Krasnick sent in an additional 6.  Sunday morning, Jeffrey sent 5 more, putting us over 11,700 on the litzing thermometer!  Then half an hour later, Denny Baker sent in an additional 7, putting his regular total at more than 600 litzed puzzles!  A few hours later, Todd McClary sent in 7, putting his regular total at 200 litzed puzzles!  Sunday evening, Jeffrey sent in 1 more puzzle.  A few hours later, Ralph Bunker sent in 23 more puzzles; an hour later, Mark Diehl sent 35 more, and about an hour and a half after that, Mike Buckley sent in 7 more!  That came to 85 puzzles in just one day!  Monday night, Jeffrey sent in 6 puzzles, then less than an hour later, Vic Fleming sent in 7 more, putting us over 11,800 on the litzing thermometer!  A few hours later, Todd Gross sent in 10 more proofread puzzles.  Wednesday morning, Denny sent in 7 more puzzles; that afternoon, Nancy sent in an additional 21 puzzles.  Thursday evening, Vic sent 14 more puzzles.  Very early Friday morning, Todd sent in 10 proofread puzzles.  And then this afternoon, new litzer Brian Kulman sent in his first 7 puzzles.  Awesome week, everyone—thanks so much!  I look forward to seeing another deluge of puzzles this week!