Ian Rathkey author page
1 puzzle by Ian Rathkey
with Constructor comments
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Thrilled to be making my NYT debut! I'm a Mandarin Chinese teacher who started solving crosswords in college but lost the habit after moving to China. Quarantine in the US brought it back, and like many others, I became a pandemic constructor baby.
This theme idea came to me after somehow coming across ROCK ME AMADEUS and TICKLE ME ELMO in quick succession. The "verb me name" pattern intrigued me, but I wasn't sure I'd find any matching pairs. HELPMERHONDA eventually came next, but FEED ME SEYMOUR didn't pop into my head for a few desperate weeks (though it might be my favorite).
Pairs of 12s and 13s were killer for a novice constructor with limited gridding experience. I tried seemingly endless layouts to no avail. I plucked down the black square under OCT on a lark, certain the open NW and SE corners that created would spell doom. To my surprise, the grid began to fill, but all that open space required trade-offs in ASEC, OCT, USN. More black squares may have helped, but I'd rather have some glue than stagnant flow.
Thanks to the editing team for their support, especially for fixing my messy themer clues and adding the lovely hints for 27-A and 40-D. Glad my clue for 4-D made it. Also, as a former track athlete, chuffed to debut 17-A. Nothing like running an ANCHOR LEG! Hopefully, I'll continue to improve and be in the NYT again soon. In the meantime, you can find me at misfitpuzzles.com.