New York Times, Thursday, July 28, 2022

BILL: Hello from my corner of the universe in Chicago! The gimmick for this puzzle landed in my brain after loving Caitlin Reid's truly kickin' puzzle from April 2020. After trying to figure out how to do this myself, I quickly realized I needed to team up with an expert and contacted Jeff. Thank goodness I did. He's not only an excellent constructor and fun to work with, but a great crossword mentor.

Ok, back to the puzzle-making. While intrigued by the idea, Jeff suggested tightening up the theme by spelling out something in circled letters and encouraged us to think through how to provide a great solving experience before diving in too deep. 70+ emails (and one initial rejection) later, you have the puzzle you see today. We hope you enjoy it!

A bit about me, I am an in-house attorney for a Chicago-based tech company called SpotHero and a proud double-Illini. I currently live in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood with my wonderful wife and our rescue dog, who have both been very supportive of this new hobby I picked up during the early days of the pandemic. I was initially introduced to crossword construction by my sister-in-law, Alie, who I was lucky enough to share a byline with yesterday in her crossword puzzle debut in the Universal Crossword!

In addition to Jeff, a special thanks to Robyn Weintraub, who was the first person I reached out to in the crossword community after starting to make puzzles and who has been incredibly generous with her time and advice.

JEFF: Hopefully, solvers didn't think we were CUTting corners today by giving them blank circles. Back when Bill and I were ideating this in 2019, it seemed obvious that each circle could be filled with a letter that formed two valid words. For example, ANTI-AGING turns into ANTI(C) / (C)AGING.

When I test-solved this a week before publication, though, I wondered, why am I adding in a C when that corner was supposed to be CUT?

Sometimes it's best not to ask questions.

Crosswords are usually built around a set of three to six long theme phrases, taking up a ton of the grid's real estate. Once you thread a few long bonuses through them, then fill the rest of the puzzle with shorter answers, you hardly have to think about the maximum word count of 78. Most of the time, it just naturally happens.

It's anything but natural to work in reverse, starting with short theme answers. It took Bill and me ages to come up with any sort of layout that would place the theme pairs so that the letters C O R N E R S would appear in order. After that, the 78-word limit openly mocked us. Derided us TO HEEL.

ASS SWELL is right.

It would have been a piece of cake to fill an 80-word grid solidly, and we might have appealed to Will Shortz for an exception, but we decided to work to the letter of the law. And oh, those letters were unlawful.

For example, RHAPSODIC was our last-ditch effort to make this darn thing work. Any reasonable entry broke the north or the northeast sections (or both) because it had to thread through not just one pair of intersecting themers but two.

I had all but given up when on a whim, I asked XWI's resident virtuoso musician Jim Horne about the word RHAPSODIC, expecting him to UNRIG and BESTIR me. Thankfully, Jim is full of surprises, saying that it's much more than just an acceptable word, and went on to rhapsodize on its beauty.