Keiran King author page
2 puzzles by Keiran King
with Constructor comments
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| N | T | H | N | Y | C | T | E | E |
Placing theme entries is always tricky. But when they're pinned to specific numbers, it's a major pain in the asterisk. Add or remove a black square anywhere and watch half the grid fall into misnumbered mayhem. Fix one corner only to break another. It took forever to set all seven themers. As a result, my first submission didn't have a revealer—it seemed impossible to fit in.
Of course, Will Shortz and Joel Fagliano then (quite rightly) requested one. Five months and seventeen layouts later — Q.E.D. The Monday slot feels like getting an A+ for keeping the puzzle relatively open and free of crosswordese.
Lastly, a shoutout to my own roots, as the product of an econ professor and a math teacher who've been solving problems together for 35 years.
| A | B | S | E | L | I | A | B | E | D | |||||
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| N | G | O | Q | U | E | S | T | Z | O | N | E | S | ||
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| O | N | E | S | H | W | Y | E | E | L |
As they say, the tenth time's the charm. After a year of encouraging rejections from Will and Joel, I'm happy to make my NYT debut on a classical note.
I like themes that require two steps to find the solution. (For example, Trenton Charlson's 'Battleship' NYT puzzle, in which an answer like PTCRUISER becomes PTXXX.) Matt Gaffney's contest crosswords often depend on this kind of double deduction.
The theme clues I submitted began with: "The sounds of..." followed by the relevant Down entries. This led solvers first to the composer ("The sounds of BATE + HOE + VENN?"), and only then to the idea of a famous composition ("The sounds of Beethoven?"). Will's re-cluing flattens these two steps, which I worry makes it less satisfying to solve. But in Shortz I trust.
The big challenge was fitting the 11 phonetic entries. My sense of order demanded they run downwards, intersecting the Across themers. But with such a constrained grid (45% of the fill is theme-related), I paid a high price in cheater squares.
Shoutout to Nancy Salomon for her mentorship and generosity. In the same welcoming spirit, Raph Levien and I built a free online tool so anyone can try their hand at puzzle-making. It'll even print a Times submission when you're done. Enjoy at keiranking.com/phil. (And feel free to get in touch. I like people and job offers.)