Saul Pink author page
1 puzzle by Saul Pink
with Constructor comments
See the 1 answer word debuted by Saul Pink.
| D | I | S | K | A | M | P | E | R | E | F | T | C | ||
| O | C | H | O | H | O | O | R | A | H | O | W | L | ||
| G | E | O | R | G | E | B | U | R | N | S | M | I | A | |
| C | R | E | A | M | T | O | T | H | E | N | S | |||
| T | O | T | A | L | T | Y | R | A | B | A | N | K | S | |
| A | L | I | A | L | A | S | T | A | R | T | L | E | ||
| I | D | E | D | E | D | U | C | A | S | E | S | |||
| R | O | S | A | P | A | R | K | S | ||||||
| A | E | S | O | P | S | I | N | S | A | I | D | |||
| B | R | E | W | E | R | S | M | A | T | I | T | O | ||
| S | E | A | N | C | O | M | B | S | H | A | R | S | H | |
| C | A | L | S | S | A | L | N | A | C | H | O | |||
| O | D | E | J | E | R | E | M | Y | I | R | O | N | S | |
| N | E | G | A | T | T | A | I | N | E | L | M | O | ||
| D | R | S | M | O | S | T | L | Y | S | E | E | D |
I'm extremely excited to be making my NYT debut! I'm a 17-year-old high school junior from Washington, DC, and I made this puzzle for a school project. I know it sounds crazy. But, in tenth grade, we were asked to do a "personal project" about something that piqued our interest. I chose to take up constructing crossword puzzles. My mom, older sister, and grandfather love crosswords, and I had just gotten into solving puzzles myself. My English teacher, Tom Heilman, is an experienced constructor who guided me through the process and gave me great advice. Some of my classmates made fun of me because everybody was researching ways to save the world while I was trying to come up with a perfect puzzle, but it all worked out in the end.
I came up with this theme at the dinner table with my family. It started off as famous people whose names are also sentences, with BILL WITHERS instead of SEAN COMBS. I built and filled a grid, only to realize that focusing the puns on jobs would be more interesting. Creating a clean fill was a struggle because I was an inexperienced constructor, but I finally managed to come up with something that seemed worthy of submission.
I'm very happy about the way the NW corner turned out. I love the combination of 2-Down and 3-Down. My favorite clues in the puzzle are [Howl of happiness] and [Muppet with a smartphone friend named Smartie].
I'd like to thank Will Shortz and his team for the great feedback, edits, and clues. I hope everybody enjoys!