Welcome to the 13th ORCAS! To capture the evolution of the medium, this year sports a new, medium-sized category: Best Midi Puzzle. If you’d like to attempt to solve a few of the nominated puzzles before diving into the ballot, you can find links here. (Thanks for the suggestion, Robyn!) For other puzzles, we’ve included links to commentary when available on the ballot below. To vote, make a selection from each category (refreshing the page will clear your selections) and click “finish” to submit. Voting closes at midnight ET on Monday, February 17 (President’s Day).
We timed the drop of the ORCAS ballot to sync up with the release of the OSCARS ballot, which has been repeatedly delayed due to the LA fires. One of our presenters from last year, Nate Cardin, is among those who have lost their homes (go fund Nate).
We’re spinning up the Streaker Sweepstakes again to recognize one super solver – you have a chance to win for each day of your streak. To enter, submit a screenshot of your streak with your mailing address to theorcaawards@gmail.com. The streak can be from any outlet (e.g., New York Times, USA Today, etc.) If you paused your streak to support workers at the NYT, we’ll add your pre-paused streak count into your total count. In the subject line of your email, include only the number of days of your streak (e.g., “117”).
The ORCAS winners will be announced during a 40-minute-ish livestream on Monday, February 24 at 9pm ET/6pm PT.
The livestream will be hosted by Ben Bass and Ben Zimmer. There will be games and prizes! Awkward OSCARS puns! Maybe even a bow tie or two! Presenters include Katja Brinck, Will Nediger, Matt Gritzmacher, Wyna Liu, Adam Wagner, Rafael Musa, Deb Amlen, Michael Blake, Rebecca Goldstein, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and other special guests.
This sparse collection of nominations cannot do justice to all the beautiful ways that language was stretched over a black-and-white loom and playfully woven into tangles that blissfully absorbed solvers. While we had more nominations than ever this year, we most certainly still omitted some excellent puzzles. If one of your favorites was snubbed, we invite you to submit nominations so we don’t miss any of your favorites next year.
And the nominees are…