Ellen Leuschner author page

ELLEN: Ohhh this puzzle was a bear! It started off last July with the phrase JUMP THE GUN. I wondered if we could somehow make an entry "jump" over another entry. We tried several variations from shaded squares to stair-steps to vertical entries. Nothing seemed to work. In order to fit everything in cleanly, we needed a much larger grid. I think we even tried to toss the whole idea in the trash a time or two along the way. Jeff ultimately came up with this iteration. It's a variation on puzzles with stacked theme entries, but I like the clever way these entries relate to each other.

In the end, it took us almost 100 emails and 40 versions of the grid before we had something to submit. I appreciate Jeff's approach to puzzle creation. Good ideas take time. Have a great Sunday!

JEFF: Tough grid to create. I swore off themes with stacked entries after my last one. What with each pair taking away so much flexibility, they're just irritatingly difficult to build a smooth, interesting grid around.

(Apparently I have a short memory. Or I'm not very smart. Probably both.)

As a solver, vivid bonus fill can help keep my attention through an entire Sunday puzzle. I do like some of the longer stuff we incorporated: DAD-BLASTED OPERACOATS, O CANADA, David/Amy SEDARIS, even TWOFER and GABFEST, but I aim to have at least ten really nice bonus entries strewn about a Sunday grid, so this didn't quite hit the mark. It's so tough to do when you have so much more theme material to incorporate than usual.

Answers like CATBOATS, SUSTAINS, STOREOWNER are fine, but they don't excite me much. There were (many) other options we looked at for every part of the grid, but this final product felt overall like the best trade-off between sparkly long fill and relatively smooth short stuff.

ELLEN:

It's always fun to work with Jeff. The seed for the puzzle was contranyms, which are words that have two or more opposite meanings. For example, BUCKLE can mean both "fasten" and "come undone". That's hardly where we ended up with our theme, but that's what brainstorming is about.

I love some of Will's new clues. "Mass distribution?" for WAFER or "Current events?" for TIDES. That's good stuff!

JEFF:

Ellen and I have been collaborating for a few years now. We've brainstormed dozens — probably hundreds — of ideas by now, but we've been so selective about what we pursue, only producing six puzzles to date. But Will has taken four of them; a much higher success rate than mine alone.

Says something about Ellen!

I had forgotten how far "off-track" we went from our original discussion about contranyms. That's such a cool part about our process — we almost always land at a much more interesting place, miles away from where we started.

After a year-long hiatus from constructing crossword puzzles, I decided I was ready to try again. I had an idea, but I was not confident enough to proceed on my own. I introduced myself to Jeff in July 2013 and asked him to help. Thankfully, he was up to the challenge.

I remember riding a roller coaster at Silver Dollar City a long (long) time ago. At one point in the ride, everyone yells "Fire in the hole!" before taking a plunge. That *has* to be where the idea came from. Otherwise, I don't know where my brain got it.

One of Jeff's best suggestions was to have the "holes" segregated from the rest of the black squares in the grid. I think it makes for a better representation. Jeff did a lot of the heavy lifting on this one, and I couldn't find any reason to change what he created.

The clues received their usual editor's touch, and my favorite (new) clue is for 19-Across: [Response that has a nice ring to it?] IDO! It's so hard to come up with new ways to clue entries that appear so frequently.

Thanks again, Jeff, for the collaboration. And thanks, Will, for publishing our puzzle.

ELLEN:

I enjoy working with Jeff Chen immensely. It is always fun to brainstorm ideas, and I appreciate Jeff's willingness to help other constructors. Sometimes it's hard to know what "tricks" will fly with an editor. Having a seasoned constructor help navigate the crossword world is a huge benefit. Two heads and all that. Plus, it's more exciting to share success with someone else.

The starting point for this puzzle was Patrick Berry's puzzle from March 9, 2008. Mr. Berry's puzzle was a little too complicated for my brain, but the idea of having answers branch in two directions led us to the "decision tree." Jeff ultimately built the grid skeleton for this puzzle. Thank goodness. It was quite a challenge, but in a good way. We only have seven theme entries, but they sure take up a lot of space. I kept trying to shove in one more with GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH, but it just wasn't reasonable to do so. From idea conception to submission, this puzzle took around three months.

If you haven't read Stockton's THE LADY OR THE TIGER, you can find the entire text online. It's a quick read, and a great short story.

I have (too) many hobbies, but creating crossword puzzles is the only one that makes me any money. Let's see ... $ computer software + website and newspaper subscriptions + (books used in research * n) = well, maybe not a huge profit, but I think I'll keep at it anyway.

My sister's birthday is tomorrow, so Happy Birthday, Paula!