Here's the solution grid to Part I of the contest:
If you want to watch me make this puzzle, the video is at https://tinyurl.com/TJOP-infernal.
The winning entry out of 6(!) in Part II of the contest is this beautiful one by Jason Boomer, with three theme entries and no extremely crappy fill (a little crosswordese, perhaps, but nothing too bad). Jason and test-solving assistant Joseph O'Donnell win the grand prize! You might want a PDF version of the puzzle to print and solve.
2 Energetic particle / Upon / Musical drama
3 One third of a half-gallon? / Superhero abilities
4 Onomatopoeic breakfast personality / Oolong and pekoe / Moistens
5 Imbibed / Pre-Easter season / Perceptive
6 Morose / Set typeface, in a way / Surface feel
7 Yet / Evergreen oak / Gospel writer
8 Employ / One third of a half-gallon? / Luchador headgear
9 Muck / Baroque composer / Entertain
10 Estuary / Beneath / Parasite
11 Scientific settings / More verdant / Hunter's home base
12 Slanders in print / Grandmother's garb / Daring and innovative
13 Detoxifying organ / One third of a half-gallon?
14 Prance / Word with Christmas or family / Ballerina's support
15 Lightweight watercraft / Conical dwellings / Sheltered
The other puzzles had interesting ideas in them, too. For those of you who like political things in your puzzles (and I know from a certain charity initiative's success that there are a lot of such people out there), one puzzle worked in DEPLORABLE/TRUMP in the top row, but etymological relatives CLOSETED/CLOSEST and AIRY/AIRWAY earned some frowns from me. One entry managed to work in DOUBLE-DECKER BUS, but it touched the hyper-obscure ROUBLE (alternate spelling of RUBLE); I filled in DOUBLOON (an etymological relative of DOUBLE), couldn't make any more headway, and passed on the puzzle. It also had the entry LESSER DOG (English for Canis Minor), which I felt was a weak entry. Another puzzle had ONE-EYED and EYELASH. One puzzle had a multitude of weird clues (how is ABBA a "palindromic opposite of NSYNC"?) and tagged ST. MARY as "2 wds." rather than as "2 wds., abbr." Cluing ERROR as "Detail which should be absent" ultimately meant I couldn't solve that puzzle without /dev/joe's hints. The final entry has SUITE/SUITOR in it, more etymological relatives. I didn't spot any weirdness or etymological relatives in the winning entry, and solved it on my own with some look-ups.
Congrats to the winners! And to all the people who constructed puzzles for this contest, keep practicing, and you might be able to get published in a magazine like Games World of Puzzles! :)
I hope to have future installments of The Joy of Puzzling. They'll probably be regular Wordy Wednesdays rather than contests so I don't have to judge entries, but I definitely have a few more things I want to teach. . . once I have a working headset again. :)
