You may only see a few faces in front of the show, but it takes a village to bring Lollapuzzoola to life. Our village is full of superstars — come join us for an adventurous ride, and learn more about these amazing people below.
Brian Cimmet
tournament director, co-host
Brian Cimmet (he/him) co-created Lollapuzzoola in 2008 and is beyond grateful to all of the contestants, constructors, contributors, colleagues, and especially to tournament editor and co-host Brooke for helping to bring another year of this tournament to life. Elsewhere in puzzles, Brian co-hosts the weekly podcast “Fill Me In” with Ryan Hecht, on which he rants about everything from sandwiches to lawn mowers, and even occasionally crosswords. In real life, Brian lives in central New York with his wife Toni and son Oscar, and teaches Musical Theater at Syracuse University. Approximately 24 hours after Lollapuzzoola ends, Brian will be taking his family on a vacation, but they don’t yet know where.
Brooke Husic
tournament editor, co-host
Brooke Husic (she/her) is editing Lollapuzzoola for the sixth year! She has edited for the tournament since Lolla 14 and constructed for Lollas 13 (puzzle 1), 14 (puzzle 4), 15 (finals), and 18 (puzzle 4) and. Brooke is the crossword (and sometimes other puzzle) editor at Puzzmo. She lived in Berlin, Germany, for several years and misses having a balcony from which she could hear techno music blasting at all hours.
Trenton Charlson
constructor
Trenton Charlson (he/him) has been creating word puzzles since childhood, but first began constructing crosswords in 2016. His first crossword puzzle was published in the New York Times in 2017. Since then, Trenton’s crosswords have appeared in multiple venues, including the Times, Universal and Apple News, and he also created hundreds of daily Fliptogram puzzles for Andrews McMeel’s online platforms. This is his first Lollapuzzoola puzzle. On a cruise to Puerto Rico in 2016, Trenton frequently participated in events at a karaoke bar. One night he was chosen as a contestant on a Who Wants to be a Millionaire style game show; he answered all of the questions correctly to win the grand prize, a backpack. A lifelong fan of board games, Trenton is an avid Scrabble player— he has competed in twenty-five Scrabble tournaments since 2018, with seven first-place finishes.
Carina da Rosa
constructor
Carina da Rosa (she/her) is a Toronto-based crossword constructor, writer, editor, and Lil AVCX alum. This is her first time constructing for Lolla, yay! And while she’s navigated a pack of wild dogs in Chile and been weighed on a cheese scale in Parma, she sadly doesn’t have any pics to prove it. Oh, and did she marry a Brit so she can find any excuse to head to London for Fortitude Bakehouse? She’ll never tell.
Will Nediger
constructor
Will Nediger (he/him) is a puzzlemaker from London, Ontario, whose independent puzzles can be found at blog.bewilderinglypuzzles.com. He contributed a Sunday-sized puzzle to Lolla in 2022 and a meta suite in 2024, and won the tournament in 2021 and 2023. He was once stranded overnight in the 3000-person town of Paw Paw, Michigan, when his friend’s car broke down on a road trip.
Ada Nicolle
constructor
Ada Nicolle (she/her) is a crossword writer and comedian based in Toronto, Canada. Ada is usually on a plane for one of two reasons: visiting family in Iceland, or attending a crossword tournament in the US (yay!). Her puzzles can be found under the name “luckystreak xwords,” and her jokes and music can be found on Instagram/TikTok @adanicklmao.
Adam Wagner
constructor
Adam Wagner (he/him), originally of Long Island, NY, is a game designer, backyard beekeeper, and proud e-bike dad living in Oakland, California. In addition to constructing extremely themed crossword puzzles for many of the major venues, Adam is also the creator of the games Anigrams and Order Up, which are now The New Yorker’s Shuffalo and Catalogues. Despite his deep fear of flying, Adam loves to travel, and often even puts himself in white-knuckle situations like the one in the accompanying photo. If it’s ok with the editors, he’s gonna switch out of the third person now to say: I’m so excited to be making my Lolla constructing debut!
Amie Walker
constructor
Amie Walker (she/her) is a crossword constructor and editor living in the Greater Phoenix area. Her favorite thing about traveling is getting to see much-loved places through her kids’ eyes (here they are in Norway last year). They’ve been to many countries together and are experts at finding good playgrounds and pizza wherever they go.
Laura Braunstein
tiebreaker constructor
Laura Braunstein (she/her) is a digital librarian in New Hampshire who has been making crosswords for over ten years. In 2018, she and Tracy Bennett founded The Inkubator, which published crosswords by women and non-binary people. Her puzzles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, the AV Club, and Jesse Lansner’s blog. You may also know her puzzles from such tournaments as Boswords, the Indie 500, Crossword Tournament from Your Couch, and as co-director, with Kate Hawkins, of the Howe Library Tournament in Hanover, NH. She was a top-ten rookie at Lollapuzzoola 10 in 2017, and contributed to the metasuite for Lollapuzzoola 16 in 2023. She is planning to circumnavigate Iceland (on a boat) for her 60th birthday, whenever that might be.
Doug Peterson
crossword meta suite constructor
Doug Peterson (he/him) has been making crosswords since the early 2000s, and he’s been a proud Lollapuzzoola contributor since the days when the tournament didn’t even have a subtitle. Nowadays, you’ll mainly find his puzzles in the Los Angeles Times, on Puzzmo, and on the Crosswords With Friends app. Doug grew up in the most beautiful state, Montana, and was back there recently for hiking and camping with friends and family. A trip to Glacier National Park should be on everyone’s travel bucket list!
Scott Weiss
variety meta suite constructor
Scott Weiss (he/him) is a computer science professor at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD. In puzzling, he’s known for his audio escape rooms and award-show Anti Match Quizzes. Find out more at www.squonkland.net. His favorite travel destination is wherever the National Puzzlers’ League convention is (Philadelphia in 2027!).