Andrea Yañes author page
1 puzzle by Andrea Yañes
with Constructor comments
See the 5 answer words debuted by Andrea Yañes.
| B | I | G | A | P | E | C | N | N | A | P | P | T | ||
| C | R | A | N | I | A | A | C | A | T | E | R | I | ||
| C | O | P | T | E | R | P | A | R | T | H | R | E | E | |
| N | Y | E | T | E | N | A | C | I | O | U | S | D | ||
| O | M | E | K | A | T | A | S | S | A | Y | ||||
| D | A | A | L | I | G | S | H | O | W | A | L | E | ||
| E | N | R | O | N | A | R | M | H | O | L | E | S | ||
| S | T | E | E | L | Y | D | A | N | ||||||
| C | A | S | S | E | T | T | E | S | T | A | B | S | ||
| O | R | E | D | A | R | N | T | O | O | T | I | N | ||
| M | E | A | T | S | M | I | N | E | R | L | ||||
| B | O | B | B | Y | D | A | R | I | N | I | C | Y | ||
| A | L | L | A | L | O | N | E | G | O | G | R | A | Y | |
| T | A | U | R | J | O | N | O | N | E | O | N | E | ||
| S | E | E | S | O | N | O | D | A | R | W | I | N |
ANDREA: As I'm sure is true of many constructors, I'm thrilled to have a puzzle published in the Times for the first time. It'll be a bit surreal to see a puzzle I already know the answer to! As a biology teacher, I'm particularly excited that my first puzzle has an evolution theme and uses Charles Darwin as a reveal. John was really fun to work with, and his deep experience in these matters paired well with my instinct to push the envelope. I think we've come up with a fun and interesting challenge.
JOHN: Andrea teaches a course on evolution, so we started brainstorming themes related to that and the building up to DARWIN emerged as a fun possibility. There was not a lot of flexibility in theme entries (D, DA, and DARIN did not have many choices) so we were fortunate to be able to get symmetric theme entries. It was great fun making this puzzle with Andrea, going through the various grid layouts and discussing why this theme ultimately did not give us too many options to choose from.
My mom recently started doing the NYT crossword, so I am more aware than ever of the different generations doing the puzzle. TENACIOUS D will, I'm sure, be unknown to her, and to many (we worked hard to make the crosses fair!) but hopefully having a nostalgic BOBBY DARIN at the end will balance things out.