New York Times, Monday, April 7, 2014

I live in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, a bordertown to northern New York.

When I was a teenager, my friends and I went through a phase of trying to outdo each other by inserting big words at random into our conversation. To avoid embarrassment, I studied the dictionary in search of words I could impress people with and became interested in words and their origins. Around this time I started doing crossword puzzles and years later wondered how the puzzles were made (did the words go in first or the black squares...?).

I get by with a little help from my friends. I get lots of help from my friend Ray Bryant. Ray is from Oxford, England (his PhD stands for Posthole Digger) and is my go-to clue man. When someone told his wife that Ray seemed outspoken, her response was, "Not by anyone I know." Yet when I would come up with a clue having too many words, Ray would ask me, in typical British form, "How does this novel end?"

When constructing this puzzle, I thought the black squares would look nice arranged as a '2' in the centre of the grid. This added to the challenge of creating the four 'main highways' surrounding it with 2-related words (double, second, twin, two). I find the more words you put in a grid, the more it turns into cement, and becomes "as unyielding as the grave." (Song of Solomon 8:6, New World Translation 2013 Revision)

I would like to thank Will for the "second helping" suggestion for which Ray came up with a simple one-word clue, showing that less really can be more. Anyway, I'm at a "loss for words" to describe how thrilled I am to have this puzzle published.

What a cool pattern of black squares! It's not often that an early-week puzzle strays outside of typical grid constructions, so I perked up when I saw the highly unusual grid. It wasn't until I finished that I noticed the middle black squares are actually part of the theme — it forms a giant number two! Very cool.

The theme itself didn't wow me, as it's not hard to find phrases with DOUBLE, SECOND, TWO, and TWIN, but the layout I went back to review because of how unique it was. It's not often that we get intersecting answers, especially early in the week, and this puzzle goes one step further by intersecting all four themers. It's a pretty cool feat. Douglas is assisted by the fact that the key words can be moved around within the themers (only DOUBLE and SECOND actually intersect, while the other themers intersect at more flexible points) but it still produces a great visual effect.

To me, this puzzle was an interesting combination of early-week theme plus late-week fill. I found my solve a little unsettling I went so darn slow (for a Monday). It's not often on a Monday that you have to figure out that JANUS was a god with many FACES, for example. The overall effect for me was one of inconsistency — I enjoyed the puzzle, but I think I would have absolutely loved it with a high—five, bang-up POW! if it had either a more subtle theme or fill more accessible to early-week solvers.

Given how much is going on in the grid, with the theme answers and the central black squares effectively touching every part of the grid, it's pretty impressive that Douglas's fill is generally very nice (using later-week criteria). It's rare that I like to see AT NO any time of the week, and there are a few ROBT and SOO kind of things, but otherwise, I'd be happy to see AQABA and ALIF and even TORERO on a Wed or Thursday.

A very impressive debut; hoping to see more from Douglas. It's a rare constructor that can create a completely novel grid shape, even rarer to see one who can fill said grid with such goodness. I'm looking forward to Douglas trying his hand at a Thursday-level theme with an equally impressive Thursday-ish fill.