Boston Globe mini crossword

Sunday is a different grid

Most newspaper minis stay 5×5 all week. The Boston Globe page says weekdays are 5×5 and Sunday jumps to 7×7. That single schedule is why this puzzle is not interchangeable with the Los Angeles Times mini or with our own daily 5×5. If you open it on Sunday expecting the same little square, you will get a larger one. The page also says you can play online or print the current puzzle. Print is not a footnote here. It is part of the offer.

The byline belongs to Boswords. John Lieb and Andrew Kingsley, the founders of that tournament crowd, write the Globe mini. A secondary note names John Lieb on the 2 October 2026 puzzle. I treat the Globe’s own “Lieb and Kingsley” line as the standing credit, and the October byline as one day’s signature, not a change of authorship.

Free today, not free forever

The current puzzle is free. The archive is not. The Globe says older puzzles are for subscribers. A secondary games roundup that simply says “free” is only half the story, and I am not letting it erase the subscriber archive. If your goal is to catch up on a month of Globe minis, you need their subscription, not this page.

Midnight Eastern shows up on a secondary write-up, not as a sentence I could quote from the Globe template itself, so that clock stays one source. Clue counts, the player vendor, and a phone app were not in the sources I kept, so those fields are blank on purpose.

Our home grid stays 5×5 seven days a week, including Sunday, and every past date we have published stays open. That is a different product from a Sunday 7×7 with a locked archive.

Is the Boston Globe mini free?

Today’s puzzle is free to play or print. The archive is for subscribers.

Why is Sunday bigger?

The Globe page says Sunday is 7×7 and the other days are 5×5.

Who writes it?

John Lieb and Andrew Kingsley of Boswords, according to the Globe’s puzzle page.