The first thing to notice is that six of the entries have enumerations that don't match the actual answer. For example, 1-Across is clued as [Wrote illegibly (5 5)]. The answer is SCRWLD, representing SCRAWLED, so it should be enumerated (8). But the second thing to notice is that, with the given enumerations, each of those entries could also represent the name of an author - in this case, OSCAR WILDE. The authors are as follows:
Oscar Wilde (SCRWLD, scrawled)
Jane Austen (JNSTN, Jan Steen)
Anita Loos (NTLS, entails)
Dante (DNT, donate)
Euripides (RPDS, rapids)
Celeste Ng (CLSTNG, closeting)
The first letters of their last names (or the single names they're commonly known by, in the case of Dante and Euripides), spell out WALDEN, the title of a book by Henry David Thoreau. And Thoreau's last name has the same consonants as author (THR).
26 solvers submitted correct answers, and the randomly chosen winner is Ken Crowell, who receives a copy of Peter Broda's vowelless collection Made Without AEIOU. Congrats, Ken! If you didn't win, you should get yourself a copy of Made Without AEIOU anyway. At a price of "pay what you want," it's a bargain.
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