Robin Yu author page
2 puzzles by Robin Yu
with Constructor comments
See the 17 answer words debuted by Robin Yu.
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Hello Crossworld! I'm delighted to be back in The New York Times — it's always an honor to be a part, however small, of the crossword's decades-long history.
The core conceit of this crossword came readily from the revealer — in a way, with the pieces ROLLING, BLACK, and OUT, the theme practically writes itself — but I sat on the idea for months as I couldn't fill the grid cleanly. The construction is surprisingly involved; for example, the cheater squares are thematic, so using extra cheaters is a non-starter. Twenty failed drafts later, I cut the number of theme answers from six down to the four you see now. It's still not perfect — I can only offer my sincerest apologies for DONC — but I hope the puzzle was enjoyable nonetheless!
On the clues, 42A is my favorite by a mile — discovering this angle for an otherwise boring -ER word was nothing short of a miracle — and I'm very grateful that the team agreed. I also like 24A, 41A, and the team's laugh-out-loud 21D. I love wordplay and always try to include plenty in my clues (knowing many will be cut): 17A was originally [Worker concerned with strike action?], 44D was [Tailor for swift?], and 45D was ["Call me," maybe]. Sometimes, I need to remind myself I'm not writing for the Stumper!
Finally, I almost can't believe I'm introducing VTUBER to the Times! Crosswords are a great place to share a glimpse of one's interests with others, and flourishes like these, I think, make them uniquely human. If this was unfamiliar, I hope you found the crossings fair — and learned something new, too!
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Hello Crossworld! I'm a Chinese-Filipino software engineer currently living in Singapore. Absolutely ecstatic to be making my print debut here, and on my favorite day no less! (Okay, second-favorite. I'm a sucker for Saturdays.)
I caught the crossword bug about three years ago and fell deep into the rabbit hole of crossword construction, reading everything I could get my hands on. I'm pretty sure I've read every single one of Jeff's write-ups here, along with another couple thousand or so of Rex's blog reviews and hundreds of Wordplay, Cruciverb, Fiend, etc. posts and articles. These resources and more have been invaluable in making me a better constructor: this was only my second submission to the Times.
As a "foreigner," it always feels a bit weird making crosswords for an American audience. A large mass of my American cultural knowledge comes from crosswords themselves, so it can sometimes be hard for me to tell what's crosswordese and what's genuinely well-known. It's like being a chef with no palate! It probably won't be that surprising to hear that this was sent back for a few rounds of fill revision. Many thanks to Sam and the team for the help!
Thankfully, the language of wordplay is universal, and many of my punny clues made the cut. 14D is by far my favorite, but 15A, 45A, 70A and 13D were fun to write, too. The team had a few of their own great additions: my favorite is 61D.