Matthew Trout author page
1 puzzle by Matthew Trout
with Constructor comments
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The theme of this puzzle came together without too much trouble after I got the initial idea. My first thought was to create a puzzle around what would become the clue to the revealer — "happily ever after" — but I switched to FAIRY TALE ENDING pretty quickly, and the rest more or less fell into place from there. My apologies to the EIFFEL TOWER, which got replaced by its less well-known Canadian cousin after some grid design.
The trickiest part was coming up with an entry ending in PRINCESS, as there aren't many such phrases that are also unrelated to fairy tales or not too obscure. It's still the theme entry I'm least enthusiastic about, and I confess I don't have a super strong sense of how much Xena remains a part of pop culture today. Wikipedia tells me the show ended in 2001. But the editors didn't have any qualms about her, and my Xena-phobia aside (sorry, couldn't resist), I'm quite happy with the theme.
Anyway, I'm very excited to be making my NYT debut. This was my fifth or so submission after I started creating puzzles a couple years ago. I've been drafting a new puzzle every now and then, but I am trying to get in a more consistent rhythm. So here's to the first of hopefully many more.