Karen Steinberg author page

DAVID: My dad, Paul, thought of this Reducing Fractions crossword idea years ago. In Dad's proposed implementation, the theme answers were three-square rebus arrangements such as FOUR LINE EIGHT. Dad wasn't a constructor yet, but he loved the twistiness of this idea, so he urged me to use it. I quickly realized that the three-square rebuses were impossible to construct around, so I moved on.

This idea stuck in Dad's head, though: Every so often, he'd ask, "When are you constructing the Reducing Fractions puzzle?" and I'd reply, "I told you: It's impossible!" Enter my mom, Karen. In 2021, she started constructing regularly, and Dad jumped at the opportunity to revive this idea. Mom tried hard but hit the same roadblocks. One day, I realized we could do a bidirectional, two-square rebus, but because the fractions had to be in order, the number of theme sets would be very limited.

Last year, Dad was diagnosed with atypical Parkinson's, and he's now in hospice. Crosswords are no longer in his life in the same way they once were, but when Mom and I told him Reducing Fractions was running in The Times, he was very happy. This one's for you, Dad!

I was a Russian major in college and have always been interested in how different alphabets look. My first idea for this puzzle, way back at the beginning of 2021, was to try finding words in which Russian letters that looked like different English letters (such as the Russian C, which is our S) might somehow make sense in both languages; that quickly changed to thinking about words in Russian that meant something very different in English. Unfortunately, I soon realized there weren't enough suitable candidates, and that transliteration would pose a problem. So I branched into other languages on what sometimes seemed like a wild goose chase.

I submitted the first version of the puzzle in February of 2021; although it was rejected, there seemed to be interest in the idea, so I completely redid it and submitted a new version in June. After several back-and-forths and another major revision that involved eliminating the reveal and changing one theme entry, the puzzle was accepted in early October of 2021. Many thanks again to Joel Fagliano and the puzzles team for their advice and patience with this one—hope you all enjoy it!

In April of 2021, I was reading Matt Walker's fascinating Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams and wondered whether there might be a way to make a puzzle with a visual of the circadian rhythm sleep-wake cycle. I decided to try putting CIRCADIAN RHYTHM in circled letters in a wave pattern across the approximate center of the grid, with SLEEP-WAKE CYCLES above and TWENTY-FOUR HOURS below. I also put DAY in the center of the first row and NIGHT in the center of the last.

After some tinkering (which included a couple of suggestions from my son, David, about block placement), I submitted the puzzle in mid-April. In July, Wyna Liu wrote saying the team was interested in the puzzle but wanted a few revisions to the fill. She suggested switching the positions of SLEEP-WAKE CYCLES and TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. I submitted a revised grid, and the team made a few additional fixes to one corner. I then clued the revised puzzle, and on July 27, it was formally accepted.

Many thanks again to Wyna and the rest of the team (and, of course, to David for his block suggestions!).

Paul's original proposed title for this puzzle was "One Way or Another" (like the Blondie song). His first thought was that the theme entries would have to be on diagonals (with circled squares) because he didn't think it would be possible to have them read both forward and backward. But David thought it might be by using a program.

Karen sifted through many, many single-spaced pages of candidates and, after removing the junk, whittled them down to 10 pages; everyone then discussed the best candidates to arrive at the final theme set.

Having flexibility in the grid size, because The Times occasionally publishes nonstandard sizes, was key to making this puzzle work. The taller and narrower 19x23 size David chose worked well, and he thought it might fly because it "played" like a 21x21 and even had 140 words.

Karen filled the grid, David made some changes, and because they didn't agree on one section (which neither of them liked), they decided they would separately fill it and then reconvene. They ultimately ended up using some parts of each person's fill. The 1-Across entry, MD-PHD, was the most controversial—no one was thrilled with it, especially in that position, but it allowed for the best fill in the upper left. After Paul did a draft of the clues, everyone helped finalize them.

Constructing newcomers Karen and Paul realize they're fortunate to have a crossword editor as a son!