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Chad: Hello Crossworld!

I'm extremely excited to be making my debut today!

A bit about me: I'm a consumer insights professional who's a beer nerd. I have the best job in the world, as I get to apply my craft with the folks who make Samuel Adams, Dogfish Head (and other brands). So cool.

Like many other solvers, I was curious to try my hand at constructing. I've lost count of how many rejections I received prior to this (pretty sure it's north of 40!). And even this puzzle — once conditionally accepted — I struggled to get it where it needed to be for primetime.

Enter Jeff Chen. I've worked with him for some time — helping me learn the ropes — and knew that by bringing him in, he'd very quickly help get this where it needed to be. So, a shout-out to Jeff for being patient with me! Also, a big thanks to my mom, Sonia — from whom I inherited my puzzle-solving abilities. And to my wife, Tania, and son, Lucas, for humoring my crossword-constructing hobby.

The puzzle itself: The impetus came from a re-watching of the 80s classic, "Sixteen Candles", starring Molly Ringwald*. There is a scene during which Molly's character's grandma reams out a would-be suitor, saying, "And as for our granddaughter, I'm sure she has more than enough sense to stay clear of the likes of you!" That IMMEDIATELY set off a light bulb in my head for a potential theme. Clueing-wise, my favorites are 38D (as well as the answer itself) and, as a huge fan of "The Silence of the Lambs", 54D.

*Dear Molly: I have no idea if you solve crossword puzzles, but if you do — and do so on paper — I'd love to have your completed grid as a keepsake. Have your people call my people!

– puzzle by Chad Hazen and Jeff Chen

Some thoughts on construction:

• The seed for this puzzle was 6-Down, which was stuck in my head after reading The Secret History for the first time. My favorite type of entry is one comprised of two known words that, when stuck together, create a standalone phrase that means something a little more specific. See also MOVIE MAGIC, DIVA CUP, etc.
• I submitted this on August 26, 2024 and it was accepted 80 days later on November 14, 2024. It ran exactly a year later on November 14, 2025.
• There are 72 clues in this puzzle. Forty-seven (65%) were kept identical. Ten (14%) were updated slightly. Fifteen (21%) are new from the NYT editors.
• My original clue for FEEDER TEAM was [Certain underage club?] and my original clue for GOTH was [Dark look?]
• I am a software engineer, and one of the things that I like about computer science (especially from a pedagogical standpoint) is how (similar to my first bullet point), regular words that we are all familiar with get repurposed to mean something a little more specific. My original clue for both HEAP and for LIST was [Computer science term for a certain collection of objects]. I like how even though that's technically jargon, it also works on a definitional level. Alas, both of these clues were cut.
• I write easy puzzles, but I also really want to hit for the cycle (except for a Sunday lol). I tried soooo hard to make this puzzle hard. When the editors accepted it, they accepted it to run on a Saturday!! I was so excited. A year later, just before it ran, they told me that test solvers had felt it was simply too easy for a Saturday. Ah well. Enjoy your personal bests, y'all.

– puzzle by Malaika Handa

A very creative (human) person recently said to me, "I don't want A.I. to make art. I want A.I. to fold my laundry and clean my toilet so I can spend more time making art." I think that captures my sentiment pretty well.

Personally, I would never use A.I. on the parts of construction that make crosswords such a wonderful form of human self-expression. A.I. could never replace the thrill of cracking a novel theme idea, or writing a ripper clue, or crafting a grid that feels like me.

But even as someone who loves cruciverbalism, I still find some parts of the construction process to be like... well... folding laundry and cleaning toilets.

For this puzzle, those parts were generating a massive list of men's names between 3 and 5 letters long, and writing code to search my wordlist for all entries that contain one of those names hidden every-other-letter in odd-indexed letter positions. Could I have done those things myself? Sure. But if A.I. is willing to clean my toilet for me, I'm not gonna say no.

Also, for the record, ChatGPT missed MEL in its name list — I added that one afterward — so the fact that 48-Across made it into the finished puzzle feels like a W in the humanity column.

See you again soon — if I'm lucky, maybe even before the year's out!

– puzzle by Adam Wagner

Funny story about this puzzle…

I submitted this to the Times back in the days of the old Zendesk submission system, pre-Submittable. It was very promptly rejected, with the following feedback: "We're being extra picky with "words that come before or after"-type themes." Ok, fair enough.

Two months later, I got another email, with the following: "I'm happy to report I have some good news for you - we'd love to accept your DUCK DUCK GOOSE 15x submission for an upcoming Monday. It's a fun theme, and each of the theme entries is just so lively."

Wait, what???

It turns out that my puzzle had been duplicated in their system, and so while one puzzle editor had rejected a copy of it, another editor had pushed the other copy of it through. Luckily, I had procrastinated on sending the puzzle out to another venue, so the acceptance email was pure delightful surprise.

There are two lessons I try to keep in mind from this experience:

1. Just because something gets rejected doesn't mean it's not good.
2. Procrastinators always prosper.

Ok, maybe only the first one is the actual lesson. Time will tell.

– puzzle by Zhou Zhang