New York Times, Tuesday, August 18, 2020

I'm so proud to bring you this puzzle today. I created it while sick at home with COVID-19 in late March (so the entire process is a bit of a blur!). I was inspired to try to bring a female-centric puzzle to the New York Times after reading Natan Last's article entitled The Hidden Bigotry of Crosswords that explores some of the biggest issues in the crossword industry today. So when I realized this momentous anniversary was coming up, I knew that I wanted to make a crossword about it.

I was pleased to see that most of my clues made it through the editing process. I'm especially happy with the clues for ARIA, ART, IRONIC, and the canine trifecta, MEME, SALT, and BARK. And a special thanks to the editing team for keeping my clue for DRAG... I've been obsessively rewatching Rupaul's Drag Race this summer! I highly recommend it.

Finally, here's a bit of an Easter egg: I'm a proud VASSAR ALUM! While I studied there, I always felt that you could sense in the walls (in the policies, approaches, and culture) that unlike most other colleges, it began as a school for women, not a school for men. I am incredibly grateful for my experience there, and I love that I was able to give them a shoutout in this particular grid.

I hope you all enjoyed this puzzle, which celebrates the anniversary of something so important and so often taken for granted. So please, please VOTE this November.

One hundredth anniversary of the 19^th Amendment! That's truly an occasion to commemorate. It's hard to believe that only a century ago, more than half the country had no voice in choosing their government representatives.

Neat to see the feminine flourishes, too. Starting with RAMONA, ending with ANNE of Green Gables, and filled in between with VASSAR, OLAN of "The Good Earth," LUNA, Lucy LIU. Great bonuses for this theme.

I didn't love the choppiness of the presentation, though. Starting with CONSTITUTION felt odd. When you automatically have to begin by referencing the last themer, why not place the subject front and center? Boldly lead off with AMENDMENT XIX!

It was also a bit odd to see it as AMENDMENT XIX rather than the more common 19TH AMENDMENT. It's rare to have numbers in an early-week grid, risking confusing solvers, but I think this would have been a better approach.

And as neat as it was to see ALICE PAUL in the grid, what about LUCY BURNS? She got burned today!

Stacking themers — AMENDMENT XIX over TENNESSEE — usually creates problems, too. See ADEE and MNOP. Short letter runs are undesirable fill, and four-letter ones are even worse.

Although there were grid execution issues, I enjoyed getting the reminder that it's only been 100 years since women got the right to vote. I also appreciated being spurred on to think about voting in general, knowing that our country still has a long way to go before we can truly say that every citizen has an equal opportunity to vote.