New York Times, Monday, November 16, 2015

This is my first puzzle for NYT. I am a graduate of Syracuse University with a major in English. I have been a crossword puzzle solver all my life, so it was only natural, I guess, that sooner or later I should try my hand at constructing as well.

My first puzzle was published some time ago in USA TODAY, and some of my other appearances have been in the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Simon & Schuster's MEGA 13 and 14. I am married with two children and four grandchildren, and some of my favorite recreations are golf, bowling, and cribbage, none of which I am particularly good at!

Answers starting with THREE IN A ROW letters, i.e. a run of ABC, KLM, and XYZ. Thomas Jefferson was one of my childhood heroes, so I've always been fascinated with the XYZ AFFAIR. Code named diplomats + a quasi-war between the US and France = why hasn't anyone made a movie about this? Big opportunity there!

KLM AIRLINES is a solid answer, albeit not as flashy as the XYZ AFFAIR. But ABC ANCHOR … that feels too arbitrary to me. NEWS ANCHOR, yes. ABC NEWS, yes. These both get Google hits in the millions (when entered in quotes). ABC ANCHOR gets less than 100K, and it opens up a Pandora's box to ABC CAMERAMAN, ABC STORY, etc. Granted, it's tough to find something to match length with XYZ AFFAIR, but ABC SPORTS might have been more in the language.

Not a lot of long fill in this puzzle, but I did appreciate the mid-length MANSION, SCONCES, UNTRUTH, and BAZAAR. No multi-word entries there, but all four are pretty interesting to me.

With only four themers and not much long fill, I would have liked the puzzle to be a little smoother. Starting with I GOT in the upper left isn't great. It does make for an easy fill-in-the-blank clue for the beginning solver, but partials in a grid feel so inelegant to me. There's a reason why editors specify that these gluey partials be kept to a minimum.

I don't mind IS TO as much, as it's almost a stand-alone phrase when used with respect to analogies (remember those X : Y :: ___ : Z SAT questions?).

Nice concept, but it would have been so cool to find another themer, as three examples of THREE IN A ROW felt a bit thin. Unfortunately, the only other one I could think of was the QRS COMPLEX, part of an electrocardiogram. Well-established medical term, but it sure would have pushed the puzzle into very late-week territory!