New York Times, Thursday, November 19, 2020

It is a tremendous honor to contribute to the New York Times crossword. I have done the puzzle regularly for a quarter-century — at the breakfast table in high school, in the back of the class in college, on my laptop in law school, and now every morning on the app. I had no idea puzzle submissions were open to the public until reading Wordplay.

I tried my hand at construction during the doldrums of lockdown and was instantly hooked. My first few efforts were rather bad in hindsight and rightly rejected. The idea for this one came from my paralegal Nicole, who suggested a Jeopardy theme (RIP, Mr. Trebek). Jeopardy ran right after Wheel of Fortune when I grew up, and the theme for this puzzle immediately popped into my head.

Three months later, I nearly fell out of my chair when Sam Ezersky delivered a tentative yes. The team asked if I could clean up some unsightly fill, and I went to work. Given that I was on the cusp of acceptance, I splurged on Jeff Chen's mind-blowing wordlist and entirely reworked the grid. That did it.

Sam said I could expect publication in around six months. My mother, who encouraged me to "graduate" from simpler puzzles to the crossword so long ago, is battling cancer. She still does the paper puzzle every day in ink. Sam and Will awesomely moved my puzzle up in the queue so that she will have the joy of seeing her son's name on the byline. My parents have no idea that I have been constructing, so I cannot wait for their reactions on Thursday.

As we appropriately enter the Thanksgiving season, I send my gratitude to Sam and Will, Jeff for his list and comments during my rework, my wife Andie for tolerating my crossword ramblings all year, and, of course, my mother. Thanks for getting me started on this hobby and for everything else, Mom. This one's for you.

I stay away from Vowelless puzzles (VWLLSS, as they're known to fans) because I have a hard time making sense of them. I'm sure they're like crosswords — the more you do, the better you get. Still, it's hard to overcome inertia and jump in.

Thankfully, today gave me a great reason to dip my toe in the water again, CAN I BUY A VOWEL an apt revealer. Linking it to WHLFFRTN — that's WHEEL OF FORTUNE — is so much fun! I appreciated that Derek found so many iconic Wheel phrases that fit symmetrically.

Best was RSTLNE. I know those letters by heart, so not having enough room for the sextet was infuriating at first. Great a-ha, realizing that, of course, the E shouldn't be included, given the theme.

Solid fill, given the extreme constraints. Some solvers might feel like they have to slog through too much ISU, NNE, OSH, PSA, and the crosswordy SST, but consider:

• Seven themers. Even though many are on the short side, seven is always tough to work with.
• Long central revealer, intersected by two themers. Filling around crossing regions is usually difficult.
• So many consonants. A mix of vowels and consonants facilitates construction, while a big imbalance either way makes things maddeningly difficult. Zero vowels in (almost) all the themers is an extreme.

Given these issues, I'd expect about twice as much crossword glue. Fitting in a couple of ON STILTS, PET FISH, ART BOOKS = icing on the cake! Excellent work from a new constructor.

I also liked the grid art. If you squint (really hard), you can (kind of) see a wheel of black squares in the middle of the grid. Okay, maybe if you're Dali. Hey, I still enjoyed the subtle hint toward Wheel.

Entertaining debut that made me rethink my aversion to VWLLSS pzzls!