New York Times, Monday, July 19, 2021

Yay! Today is my NYT crossword puzzle debut! As a new constructor, I learn a lot everyday — and enjoy every minute of it. I hope my love of words comes through and makes a lot of solvers smile.

This was the second puzzle that I submitted to the NYT. The first puzzle's theme wasn't mainstream enough, but Andy Kravis took the time to give me some great advice and links to excellent resources. Thank you, Andy! I'd also like to thank David Steinberg, Mathew Stock, Will Nediger, Patti Varol, Rich Norris, Peter Gordon, Joanne Sullivan, and Tracy Bennett — you've all been so wonderful, generous, and encouraging, and I'm very grateful.

When I first constructed this puzzle, I thought it came together beautifully, with lots of relevant fill, but I didn't know what I didn't know. When the NYT got back to me and asked me to remove 10 words to make the puzzle good for a Monday, I had a bit more experience and was happy to rebuild the puzzle. (I can't believe I actually had AMATI crossing ORIYA and even worse. Embarrassing.)

I hope people will enjoy solving my puzzles as much as I love creating them.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Momma! Thanks for sharing your love of language with me and doing every puzzle that I create! OXO

Quote puzzle on a Monday? I can barely remember the last quote puzzle, period, much less one on a Monday. They tend to be much tougher than an average puzzle since you're effectively solving using only the Down clues. (Speed solvers do this as an exercise to improve their times, much like doing pull-ups with a weight jacket.) Often, it's so tough to string the entire quip together that it doesn't click until the very end.

Humor is subjective. This one didn't make me laugh, but a certain XWord Info person who shall remain unnamed thought it was hilarious. Canadians! I mean, people of unnamed nationalities!

One aspect I appreciated: Stephanie took great care to separate her quip into logical chunks. TAKING A DOG / NAMED SHARK / TO THE BEACH is much easier to make sense of than TAKING A / DOG NAMED SHARK TO / THE BEACH, for example.

No long bonuses (8+ letters) in the fill, but for a debut, I'd much rather choose cleanliness over color, especially on a Monday. Finishing with some minor ALS TPS (Will Shortz used to have a thing about solvers not figuring out what TPS stood for; he didn't have the same hobbies I did as a kid) is solid.

Next time out, I'd push Stephanie to experiment with a 76-word grid, taking out black squares between MAKO and TASTE, EGO and FRESCA, and/or COAX and NADER. A puzzle with only four themers should have at least a few long bonuses, although I did enjoy mid-lengthers like DARESAY and CHEETAH.

Quote puzzles used to be pervasive back in the day. Eugene Maleska even created a subtype, the StepQuote. There's room for further experimentation in this genre, especially if it somehow addresses the problems of

1. how difficult a quote puzzle can be to solve, and
2. the high-risk / high-reward of putting all your humor/wittiness into a single joke.

What I (anonymously, apparently) told Jeff is that I appreciate jokes like this one where the humor isn't in the words themselves, but in the story you mentally construct afterwards. Chacun à son goût.