Lucy Howard author page
2 puzzles by Lucy Howard
with Constructor comments
See the 17 answer words debuted by Lucy Howard.
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| Y | O | H | O | M | I | N | I | O | H | A | R | E | ||
| U | N | I | O | N | I | S | T | S | N | E | M | E | A | |
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| O | K | E | Y | D | O | K | E | E | P | E | E | S | ||
| R | A | J | G | P | A | S | T | A | N | D | ||||
| E | N | U | R | E | S | F | L | O | W | N | ||||
| S | E | G | O | H | A | Y | E | D | G | E | ||||
| B | T | E | A | M | A | B | S | O | R | B | ||||
| D | O | U | B | T | M | I | A | N | A | B | ||||
| M | E | T | R | O | T | U | R | N | K | E | Y | S | ||
| J | O | C | K | E | Y | F | O | R | E | E | K | |||
| A | V | O | I | D | E | M | M | A | S | T | O | N | E | |
| D | I | C | T | A | D | E | U | S | E | N | O | S | ||
| A | N | T | S | Y | S | I | R | S | L | G | B | T |
LUCY: When Ross first approached me with TURNKEYS as a theme idea, I loved the concept of the KEYs visually "turning" in the grid (he's so clever!). But between the limited options for theme entries and the tricky interlockings, I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to pull this one off at first. After expanding our word lists to include as many KEY words as possible (HOCKEY… BAG?), and many hours of grid tweaking, we finally landed on a grid we were happy with.
This puzzle was initially submitted with MONKEY POD as a theme entry, but the Times editing team thought something more accessible would be better. One more round of tweaking resulted in the puzzle you have today — yay!
ROSS: I love Lucy. Also, I just made a puzzle zine! It's a work of light historical fiction and 12 crosswords with a twist that NYT Spelling Bee fans will love. Order your copy of the Honeypot Puzzle Fragments here!
And, as ever, if you're interested in learning how to make crosswords, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter or my personal puzzle site, Rossword Puzzles.
| T | O | S | H | I | B | A | R | A | C | Y | B | M | W | O | R | G | ||||
| A | R | C | A | N | U | M | I | S | H | E | C | R | A | M | B | A | M | |||
| N | E | R | D | S | R | I | N | G | P | O | P | F | A | D | D | I | E | T | S | |
| K | L | E | E | U | B | E | R | S | O | I | L | N | Y | T | ||||||
| U | S | E | S | B | A | B | Y | R | U | T | H | S | N | I | C | K | E | R | S | |
| P | E | N | T | O | N | I | S | U | E | B | U | M | R | A | P | |||||
| W | H | I | S | K | A | S | R | E | S | T | R | A | S | P | Y | |||||
| C | R | U | N | C | H | N | O | W | A | N | D | L | A | T | E | R | ||||
| E | R | I | N | S | P | I | N | Y | E | T | I | K | F | C | ||||||
| L | A | T | K | E | S | U | S | G | A | E | E | L | Y | A | O | K | ||||
| A | Y | E | W | H | O | P | P | E | R | S | S | P | R | E | E | N | Y | U | ||
| N | O | R | E | A | S | E | D | I | S | C | R | A | F | T | E | R | ||||
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| M | I | L | K | Y | W | A | Y | S | T | A | R | B | U | R | S | T | ||||
| S | A | L | A | D | A | S | E | C | S | C | A | R | E | D | Y | |||||
| A | L | O | T | O | F | A | T | S | A | R | A | Y | S | A | C | |||||
| L | I | F | E | S | A | V | E | R | S | P | A | Y | D | A | Y | W | E | L | L | |
| B | T | U | J | A | Y | S | E | P | E | E | A | R | L | O | ||||||
| H | A | I | R | L | I | N | E | M | A | R | S | S | M | A | R | T | I | E | S | |
| A | B | E | U | T | E | S | A | K | I | N | P | R | O | T | E | G | E | |||
| M | A | R | G | A | S | O | S | L | O | G | E | T | S | S | E | T |
LUCY: I am beyond thrilled to be making my New York Times debut alongside the wonderful Ross Trudeau!
I started constructing about a year and a half ago when I made a puzzle for my wedding. I reached out to Ross this summer for feedback on some of my puzzles, and we quickly became good friends and collaborators.
Ross and I were working on another sweets-related puzzle when I started thinking about different ways of putting candy names together. MARS SMARTIES came to me first, but JOLLY RANCHER WHOPPERS made me think we might be in Sunday theme territory. I pitched the idea to Ross and here we are!
We spent many hours on Zoom reminiscing about childhood candy favorites, brainstorming punny clues, and hammering out a grid that we were happy with, before arriving at the puzzle you see today. We were sad to lose our clues for CRAYON ("How a young writer might wax poetic?") and I DOS ("Words that might ring a belle?"), but were glad to see most of our theme clues left intact.
Ross came up with SUGAR, SUGAR as a title, and we've both had the Archies song stuck in our heads ever since (thanks a lot, Ross). Much love and thanks to my husband for his support and patience throughout this process!