Tracy Bennett author page

Victor Schmitt, of Grand Rapids, Mich., is a fourth-year student at the University of Michigan, majoring in computer science. He's one of the founders of of the Games section at The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper. This is his second puzzle for The Times. Tracy Bennett, of Ann Arbor, is a digital puzzles editor at The Times.

The two met last winter when Tracy visited the Games staff to speak.

Tracy Bennett is a digital puzzles editor for The Times. She manages Wordle and helps with the crossword.

In this themeless puzzle, she took a bold grid pattern with lots of white squares and, in each corner, positioned a marquee answer — "something new or that had an appealing sound or cluing potential." Then she built out from there. FYI, those starting points were 23-, 48-, 50-, and 87-Across.

Curiously, only 1%-2% of themeless submissions I receive at the Times come from female constructors. The genre is almost entirely handled by men. No one knows why. I think it's healthy to have diversity, though, in all ways, and I welcome more female-constructed themelesses. It's unlikely a male constructor would have used the fresh and lively ALPHA FEMALE (55A) as a seed, which is a perfect example of why diversity is a good thing.