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Florals? For a spring crossword? Groundbreaking.

If you're wondering if The Devil Wears Prada 2 sponsored me for a stealth marketing campaign to promote the recent release of the iconic film sequel in theatres now... sadly no (but my DM's are open, Meryl). I am an internist living in Montréal, and I am thrilled to make my NYT debut today with a puzzle that I hope will make people smile, as we transition from April showers into today's theme!

The idea came from seeing the 15-letter CROSS-POLLINATED in print, and thinking it would be(e) the perfect marquee revealer. I wanted the theme answers to be symmetrical, but when I found the current configuration with words like HOLY TOLEDO (BATMAN!), ODD NUMBERS, NOT FOR ME, and INTRIGUE... well I decided "not to force nature's plan." Sometimes, things are just a bit more beautiful in asymmetry.

Originally, I clued the flowers with literary and pop-culture references like PRIMROSE Everdeen, Iggy AZALEA and Ari ASTER, but the editors brought the puzzle back to botany. It keeps the grid feeling fresh and I learned new things about flowers along the way. For 1-Across (LIE), my original clue was [Many a reason for being late]. My boyfriend's thoughts? "You have trust issues." Well, that clue also got changed and I'm still suspicious that he had something to do with it.

For a more immersive experience, just imagine the flower crosses beaming into colour [sic] once you complete the puzzle, with a NYT Spelling Bee icon pollinating the B-E-E-S circles... or go to the park, you do you. Anyway, I'm still buzzing from the excitement of this puzzle. Buzz buzz.

Miranda Priestly glare

That's all.

– puzzle by James Mattina

Rachel: I absolutely loved creating this puzzle with Adam, who is a generous, thoughtful, and brilliant constructor, and who kindly did the heavy lifting on figuring out how to make the center of the puzzle work. I am in awe of his theme-brain, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him on a puzzle that really challenged me as a constructor. I generally prefer creating grids to writing clues, in part because grids usually have so many more interesting constraints than clues do, including rules requiring symmetry and all-over interlock. With this puzzle, however, we broke both of those rules (though not at the same time!) while piling on the tightest cluing constraint I've ever faced — by far the most fun I've ever had writing crossword clues!

Adam: Pop quiz — what percent of words in the English language do you think contain either an O or a C? I guessed ~18%. Turns out it's over 60%! Originally, that stat spooked me. I said to Rachel, "look, I think writing over 130 natural-sounding non-thematic clues without being able to use O or C is just impossible. What if we get stuck with a proper noun like CHEADLE that we have to clue without 'actor' or 'movie' or 'Don'? Or if we have to debut DALEK without being able to say 'Doctor Who' or BBC? Let's just make this as a Thursday."

But that's the thing about Rachel — not only is she an endlessly creative constructor (for more proof, go solve her '6/1' USA Today, or her 2022 Times collab with our shared bff Rebecca Goldstein), she's also the best kind of collaborator: someone who pushes you to be better. She immediately replied with the brilliant grid-spanning clue/answer combo at 32-Across. I was all-in from that moment on.

Both of us: One last thing — not only was this puzzle incredibly fun to clue — it was also a blast to title. There were SO MANY good options: Circle Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Getting the Band Back Together, Nothing To C Here. If you have any fun ones you can think of, come find us on crosscord!

– puzzle by Rachel Fabi and Adam Wagner

I'm excited to be back for my 2nd crossword, especially on a later day than my Mon debut and with a trickier theme. The idea for the theme came from noticing that multiple keyboard symbols could make for interesting fill, and exploring how there could be cluing tied to the number of the same key.

It's always nerve wracking to have a nascent theme you like and research whether it has been done before. The construction tool Crosserville at least makes this investigative work easier. I'm not the only creator to publish a puzzle with a SHIFT KEY revealer. There was a 2012 NYT puzzle that used numbers in the grid, which read in one direction as the shifted character in a longer phrase. And a 2016 LAT puzzle with clues where shifted symbols replaced numbers, like &$& instead of 747. Both are also clever executions of the theme. I felt like mine with the symbols fully spelled out in the grid was sufficiently unique, and I'm glad the NYT editing team agreed!

I'm also encouraged that my cluing skills are improving. In my first NYT puzzle, the published version used my clues identically or with a small adjustment on 82% of the answers. With this one, it was up to 95%.

It was still too bad to lose a couple clues I really liked. Paired clues "Bike wheel component" for SPOKES and AXLE, and similarly "Sports bar array" for TAPS and TVS. And my original "Swimwear line" for TAN. But I appreciate that the editing team listened to my pitches for the clues and explained their rationale for the final versions.

– puzzle by Brian Keller

Mallory: Zhou and I are back with more silly antics, this time in sartorial form. If we get enough requests, maybe we'll take a photo of ourselves in the outfit described by this puzzle's themers…

Zhou: Our first original themers for this puzzle had clues that involved different fonts and special images. We were rejected, of course. In our next version of this puzzle, we made sure to make all the clues Unicode friendly and not require any special images or fonts. This version was what I call "soft rejected" — the editing team asked us to replace two of our themers, including my favorite one (NO SHOW SOCKS, with an empty clue). I despaired at finding two [adjective] + [piece of attire] themers that could be a) clued in a clever way with the piece of attire being a verb, b) symmetric with the themers that were already approved and c) would maintain the right order of the outfit from head to toe. Luckily, Mallory was undeterred, and so here we are! Also — shoutout to the friendly crossword Discord for helping us brainstorm entries for this theme — thanks so much to all of you for your engagement and ideas!

– puzzle by Zhou Zhang and Mallory Montgomery