Jem Burch author page

If this puzzle is any indication, I'm a big fan of Scrabbly letters. I enjoy filling puzzles with as many of these oft-neglected consonants as possible — –they frequently present unique gridding challenges, which call for creative problem-solving. And I feel like they force me to improve the quality of the surrounding fill — –if the fill isn't good, then how can you justify squeezing an extra Q in there?

I started this puzzle with the central stair-stack and quickly settled on this pattern for its plethora of Zs. The bottom half proved fairly easy to complete, but I struggled with the northwest — –ironically, the only corner of the puzzle without any Js, Qs, Xs, or Zs. This remains the corner I'm least happy with: the entries aren't as lively as I would like, and 28-Across is not ideal (although, since I'm studying both Russian and linguistics in college, I'm happy the editing team clued it the way they did).

Thanks to my parents for test-solving and for suggesting some clue improvements. My mom came up with ‘The "king's" speech?' for 20-Across, but the editing team sadly passed on it.

My first published themeless! Hurray! I made this puzzle last January, right after I received news that a previous themeless I'd sent to the Times — which I'd felt pretty good about — had been rejected. That crossword had also featured a central staircase, so when I started work on this puzzle, I decided to keep the design. This time though, the competitive Scrabble player in me insisted that I squeeze more high-point letters into the central stack.

The staircase seemed like it wasn't going to work at first, largely due to some weird letter combinations on the right-hand side. I nearly abandoned it after testing several hundred black square permutations, but then I realized that there was a phrase that could work at 28A, and the grid was saved! Filling the rest wasn't too difficult, although I did have to rework the bottom part of the puzzle due to some gluey entries.

If I were to remake this puzzle today, I'd change the upper left. I don't love the dupe at 2D and 11D, and 19A seems too esoteric. And I'm sad that I couldn't include an X, which would've made this puzzle a pangram.

Thanks to my dad for test-solving, Wyna Liu for helping me clean up the grid, and the editing team for strengthening my clues! I love what they came up with for 34A and 5D, but I'm pleased that they kept my clues for 39A and 45A. I was proud of those.

Hello Crossworld! (How I've longed to say those words!) I'm a word-loving high school senior with an interest in languages and linguistics (currently studying Latin, Russian, and for some reason Welsh). I submitted my first puzzle to the Times when I was 14, hoping to get a crossword published before the end of high school. 32 rejections later, and with only two months until graduation, I was surprised to learn that this was actually going to happen!

The idea for this puzzle came to me when my dad suggested that I create a James Bond-themed crossword. It occurred to me that "007" could be converted into a rebus, and I immediately set about creating the grid. I think I got a bit overexcited by the idea, as I submitted the first draft without really considering how gluey it was. It took another five drafts and countless failed iterations before this puzzle was clean enough for publication. I still don't love SCI ILE NLER, but the fill is light years better than it originally was, and I'm pretty pleased with the result overall.

Thanks to Wyna Liu for remaining patient while I struggled to remove the OCAS SOOTS VOOM CKS UNROOF ESTAS ALADY DIR SFC etc. which populated that first grid, and for her incredibly helpful cluing suggestions. And thanks also to the editing team for spicing up my clues (I love the Amanda Gorman reference). And for keeping "Page break?", which I'm particularly proud of.