See the 6 answer words debuted by Brian Herrick.
T | R | A | N | S | A | G | E | D | O | D | D | S | A | L | B | U | S | |||
B | A | L | O | O | R | O | L | E | P | E | R | M | T | E | E | N | A | |||
S | H | E | R | Y | L | C | R | O | W | S | C | O | U | T | F | I | N | C | H | |
P | A | V | E | I | H | O | P | L | O | T | R | S | E | L | L | |||||
L | E | A | R | N | G | E | O | T | A | P | A | M | U | S | E | |||||
S | I | G | O | U | R | N | E | Y | W | E | A | V | E | R | ||||||
A | P | O | L | U | N | E | P | A | P | D | I | A | L | E | C | T | ||||
F | R | A | N | K | I | E | T | O | T | E | M | L | I | E | S | L | O | W | ||
R | U | M | E | N | D | A | T | S | E | A | I | L | E | A | N | A | ||||
A | B | E | T | E | A | S | Y | R | U | N | S | P | R | A | Y | |||||
T | A | L | I | B | Y | O | L | O | D | I | N | G | T | O | I | L | S | |||
A | M | E | S | T | O | R | E | R | O | S | M | E | L | C | ||||||
A | B | S | O | L | U | T | R | A | G | O | N | D | U | E | L | E | R | S | ||
Y | O | U | R | O | C | K | S | T | O | I | C | O | S | M | O | S | I | S | ||
E | N | E | W | H | O | S | W | E | D | R | U | N | K | S | T | A | N | |||
S | A | M | S | A | S | T | I | A | R | S | E | G | A | L | S | |||||
A | T | M | S | A | F | G | H | A | N | S | T | S | A | R | ||||||
B | A | R | R | E | A | R | T | M | U | S | E | U | M | T | Y | L | E | R | ||
R | I | T | A | D | O | V | E | A | S | P | L | A | D | Y | B | I | R | D | ||
I | D | I | T | A | R | O | D | I | K | E | A | T | A | L | A | N | T | A | ||
M | A | N | I | L | O | W | L | Y | N | E | M | E | R | G | E | S |
BRIAN: After a few years of constructing, I am thrilled to have my debut puzzle in the NYT! I started constructing in 2017, so this was a few years in the making.
The idea for this puzzle came after seeing the tremendous "Lady Bird." I thought a literal interpretation would make for a fun puzzle, and after some brainstorming/googling, I discovered there were a plethora of women with birds for last names that fit the bill.
Knowing my original 15x version needed something else but unsure what, I reached out to Erik Agard through the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory and asked him to connect me with a constructor to bounce ideas off. Thankfully, he connected me with Chris, who provided superb feedback on several puzzles, including this one. Our emails on this puzzle naturally turned into a collaboration I'm proud of. After a few months we finished it and sent it in.
Happy solving!
PS: Greta Gerwig—if you need some custom puzzles for any reason, feel free to reach out!
CHRIS: After being e-introduced, Brian floated some ideas by me; I particularly enjoyed this one, especially since Lady Bird was one of my favorite films that year.
I figured there'd be enough theme answers to warrant making this a 21x, but also thought that I'd seen something similar before. And after searching XWord Info and Crossword Fiend, I came across a Peter Gordon puzzle from 2018. Similar, to be sure, but with a different enough focus that we both felt OK proceeding with our idea.
For elegance, we decided to only use last names, and we strove to strike a balance between well-known real and fictional people (hence why Robin Wright and Jennie Finch, among others, didn't make the cut). Length was also considered in picking theme answers; thankfully, the lengths mostly matched up, and we could have gone with normal symmetry. But everything fit together very nicely in this layout, which gave us a lot of flexibility in filling. And after a few fits and starts, we figured out the grid and filled and clued it together (coincidentally, right around the Oscars).
And now, here we are. Definitely a fun collaboration, and if you are an aspiring constructor, I'd love to collaborate and/or help in any way possible; contact me via my personal puzzle site.