Two women, one kettle, and an invented village

An introduction to Mrs. Why & Mrs. Right — the real people behind the pen names.

Let’s begin with what’s true. We are two real friends. We live in Italy, where it is currently 34°C. We drink improbable amounts of tea for that climate, we argue about fonts, and we make puzzles — the kind with a secret hidden inside.

Mrs. Why asks the questions: the puzzles, the plots, and most of the sentences are hers. Mrs. Right knows the answers: the illustrations, the kettle, and the final word are hers. The names are pen names — in a small world everyone knows everyone’s business, and we’d rather they didn’t know ours. Everything else about us is real: the friendship, the deadlines, the heat.

What do we make? Our first world is Greywhistle — a cool English village we built because Italy in July required an exit. We hid a thirty-year-old secret in it and wrote eighty word searches around it. That became a book. There will be other worlds, other puzzles, other secrets. The village came first; it won’t be last.

This newsletter is our home, and it works like this: on Tuesdays we write you a letter — from the village, or from our real kitchen (names removed, heat included). On Saturdays we send a free hand-built word search. Whatever we make, one promise holds: there is always a hidden word. (P.S. Starting in August)

New here? Subscribers get a free prequel case, The Case of the Missing Marrow — six puzzles, twelve letters, one culprit.

Tell us in the comments where you’re reading from, and what the weather’s doing there. We collect weather reports the way other people collect stamps.