New York Times, Friday, November 20, 2015

This is one of the first themeless grids I attempted. Lynn Lempel used the same grid design for a NYT puzzle, so I think I borrowed from her. However Joel noted in the acceptance email, "One thing that almost made this a no, despite the good fill, was the grid shape. Will really doesn't like when the black squares segment the grid into thirds like this. It highly increases the chance of the solver to get stuck in one particular area." I mention this for other budding constructors as a word of caution.

I was pleased to fit GABRIELLE GIFFORDS in the grid along with Zooey DESCHANEL and Nancy PELOSI. I've admired Ms. Gifford's comeback after the devastating injury she suffered in an assassination attempt in 2011. She and her husband, former astronaut and Space Shuttle Commander, Mark E. Kelly, campaign tirelessly for common sense gun control legislation.

I'd like to thank Will and Joel for accepting and editing this puzzle. They've improved on many of my clues and it is a better puzzle for it. I laughed when I read the clue "Going places?" for THRONES. They made a slight change in the grid. I had ALII for 5-Across with ISS for 8-Down, and GUAM for 26-Down with GIDDY at 26-Across, UTES at 31-Across and ASS at 34-Across.

I hope you enjoyed your Friday solving experience. I will keep trying to up the percentage of crosswords constructed by women. I encourage other women who have the inclination and time to do the same. Both Jeff Chen and Kameron Austin Collins have offered to mentor women. Editors such as Ben Tausig are encouraging women as well. In a recent solicitation for a new constructor for The American Values Club he noted: "In the interest of equal representation and also of producing a more welcoming vibe in the universe of publishing/intellectual life, we strongly encourage submissions from women and/or people of color. Though all applicants will be seriously considered, these will be given priority consideration." The deadline for that position has passed but I applaud him for reaching out and encourage all editors to do the same as the statistics show a VERY discouraging drop in female constructors.

I co-construct with ML a lot, and one of the things I appreciate about her is that she introduces me to people and things I'm only vaguely familiar with. Sometimes she proposes an entry that makes me question if enough people will appreciate it, but often times it's pure gold. I don't know that I would personally think to put in Zooey DESCHANEL in a puzzle, but she's famous enough to not be an (unsatisfying) either-you-know-it-or-you-don't entry. Plus, she has a cool-looking last name and is a great actress. This is the kind of proper name I like seeing featured in a grid.

Interesting layout. The NW and SE corners look so gigantic, with four long entries stacked atop each other. But the central staircase is pretty easy to fill, with hardly any long answers in it. It's like ML purposefully chose to concentrate all her efforts on the two super-challenging corners.

Some good work in those two corners. I especially liked the SE, with PAT RILEY (ever hear the stories about how he would dunk his head into cold water to supposedly motivate his team?), MEDIA CLIP, and GO IN PEACE stacked. Even RAMPART is an interesting word. With only MUS and REICE holding the area together, that's strong work. Those two minor blights are the only things that keep the corner from being Berryesque.

I liked the NW too, although CADILLACS isn't as snazzy and colorful as, say, CROWN VICS. OLD FOGIES isn't bad, but I personally prefer my crosswords to be inspiring and/or uplifting — along with USE FORCE, the corner was a bit of a downer. The outdated REN and the odd plural, LAICS aren't great, but I don't mind ALIA, since it's common in Et ALIA, and ALIA Shawkat played a memorable Maeby Funke in "Arrested Development."

I liked getting GABRIELLE / GIFFORDS in the grid, but I couldn't remember who she was. Not nearly the smile I got from DESCHANEL, plus I don't value an entry split across two slots very highly.

So, a good number of long assets, but also some offsetting liabilities in the aforementioned, plus the weirdly spelled AMEBA (amoeba is the only way I knew it before crosswords), another RE- in RELAP, etc.