New York Times, Tuesday, August 16, 2022

I'm pretty sure I finished building this puzzle at 2 a.m., covered in eraser marks and pencil lead. Imagine if you had 15 children and had to remember the exact moment each was born — recalling the inspiration behind this puzzle is kind of like that even though it was CHOSEN for publication — my first. How was I to know THIS would be THE ONE?!!

I remember intending to make it visually fitting for the theme. I remember brainstorming room types, and I still have the page of all my scribbles. I was intently focused on the symmetry. When it all came together, I felt the thrill of satisfaction, but truly had no idea this one would make the cut.

I'm not sure how others construct their puzzles, but I print out blank grids and pencil everything in, erasing words that don't work, rearranging black squares as needed, consulting my phone or laptop for word lists, etc. When the grid is done, I punch it into the software for clue writing and submission formatting.

I love the act and the challenge of hand building the grid. I love erasing and writing in new words over the eraser marks. I wait to firmly color in the black squares until the puzzle is completely finished. It's like the final touch. In the end, it feels like a piece of art.

I hope you enjoy solving my puzzle!

I nailed "Name That Theme" today! Who doesn't want a CORNER ROOM, with its prestige, privacy, and—

Huh? That's a CORNER OFFICE?

Yes, but my office has been my room for the past two years.

Okay, fine. It must be ... ROOM DIVIDERS. Beautiful, these bent rooms look like individual folds of a room divider.

To the back room, I go.

Lovely revealer, ELBOW ROOM hinting at types of rooms making an L-shaped L-bow. And all the rooms are properly-proportioned Ls! Sue could easily have bent (ha) the rules and done something like RA(GU) / VISIONQ(UEST), but that would have been one squat-looking L. Sue's five Ls look L-egant as L.

Will Shortz has said he's not taking these types of puzzles as much anymore since having to fix so many circles into place forces so many challenging grid constraints. I wouldn't call it SUPERGLUE, but it's not a great trade-off when you need the outdated SSTS around a themer.

AGUE always gives me fevers, although Jim Horne (the learned half of the XWord Info duo) argues ague-tly that it's something he often sees in his bookshelves.

As fun as it was to have a themer run through ELBOW ROOM itself, I would have enjoyed simply the other four Ls without this one since ROMPER room feels like "which of these is not like the others," in that it has a strong association with a TV show.

Overall, Sue used excellent wordplay in her interpretation of ELBOW ROOM, and the resulting capital Ls left me capitally L-ated.