See the 6 answer words debuted by Peter L. Stein.
A | R | O | M | A | C | L | A | P | A | D | O | |||
B | E | L | O | W | R | O | M | E | P | R | O | P | ||
A | C | E | I | N | V | A | D | E | R | R | I | O | T | |
C | O | O | S | E | V | E | N | W | E | A | R | S | ||
I | N | S | T | O | N | E | C | H | A | |||||
R | I | N | G | C | H | I | C | K | E | N | ||||
D | E | M | U | R | R | O | U | G | H | A | G | E | ||
E | L | O | N | D | E | I | S | M | E | T | A | T | ||
M | A | S | S | L | E | S | S | P | R | O | D | S | ||
I | N | T | H | E | B | O | T | T | L | E | ||||
A | N | T | Y | E | S | D | E | A | R | |||||
S | H | I | V | A | F | I | D | O | I | N | R | E | ||
H | I | K | E | E | L | L | B | I | N | D | E | R | S | |
O | P | E | N | S | O | S | O | A | U | R | A | E | ||
T | S | A | P | E | A | L | S | P | O | U | T |
ACME: This puzzle was with longtime friend and college buddy Peter Stein, who is better than I am at everything we do...except maybe Scrabble! We decided to collaborate on a puzzle, his idea to riff off the one I had 10/27/08 a year and a half earlier with frequent collaborator Michael Blake.
The 08 puzzle had SPIN as the reveal, i.e. SP-IN (SPUTTERNONSENSE, SPRAYOFSUNSHINE, SPACEOFDIAMONDS) so we decided to try SP-OUT, where we took OUT the letters SP. As a result the phrases are shorter than the three 15 spanners of the original puzzle, but we made up for it by having four entries. It's harder to take out letters and still have a phrase that makes sense. There is more energy and fun in adding letters... I think that's what made this a Wednesday.
It's been over 5 years and we are itching to collaborate again!