New York Times, Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Hi to everyone. It's great to have a crossword in the Times again. I built this puzzle back in the fall of 2016. The published version looks very similar to what I originally submitted, but with some clues simplified for a Tuesday-level solve. (Clue that survived: "Rear admiral's rear" for STERN. Clue that did not survive: "TX separatists, loosely speaking?" for UVW.)

I remember reworking the bottom of this grid just barely pre-submission, once it occurred to me that I could not only have the SPREAD revealer but could reuse its "E" to unfold a BEDSPREAD in the bottom row. Somehow, that "aha" moment made the puzzle an extra-fun one for me to have constructed.

Hopefully, the slowly appearing circled answers will result in spreading some fun "aha" moments among the solvers, somewhere around mid-solve.

Everyone, SPREAD out! At first, I was turned off by the visually jarring shotgun spray of circles strewn across the grid, but I ended up liking the general effect after figuring out what was going on. The longer ones — MAGAZINE and MIDDLE AGE spreads — were particularly nice.

I've seen this concept with various letters SPREAD through a single entry many times, most recently a few months ago, but never spread across a full row. Nice way to get the longer SPREADs worked in.

Being able to spread letters across an entire row gives a ton of flexibility. Look at how many spots the letters W I N G can go. Shift them all around to heaven and back!

Using six theme rows — plus the SPREAD revealer! — takes most of that flexibility away, and then some. It's particularly difficult in the middle of the puzzle, where you have so many MAGAZINE and MIDDLE AGE letters that get crammed into those two close rows. Not a surprise to get some A MEMO SEM OBOLI there.

And UVW, oof! These types of crutch entries are so inelegant that I would have restarted the entire puzzle if it ever came to something like this. Will has his own "puzzle-killers" that DQ a grid just by themselves, and this would have been one of mine.

There's way too much crossword glue needed to pull this audacious grid off. Given how much more impressed I was with MIDDLE AGE (compared to WING), I think sticking to just the four long SPREADs would have resulted in a better puzzle. Might have also allowed for a snazzier long entry than WHERESOEVER — something like CHECK PLEASE or HEATED SEATS or HORSE SENSE.

I like the twist on the SPREAD idea though, using entire rows to accomplish the goal. Great way to pull off the longer SPREADs that other constructors using this concept haven't been able to use.