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ADAM: Like many great things, this collab went down entirely in Twitter DMs. I proposed the (absolutely fiendish) pairing of KRZYZEWSKI and KYRGYZSTAN to Paolo, and we were immediately off to the races!

I consider KYRGYZSTAN a shameless tribute to the quiz site Sporcle, where the nation is widely celebrated for its elusive spelling. Sporcle even hoists the Kyrgyz flag at their Seattle HQ! I've made Sporcle quizzes for nine years now (under the name BanjoZebra, which I came up with at age 10), so it's only natural to be debuting their beloved KYRGYZSTAN in the NYT crossword.

I'm thrilled with how this puzzle turned out! It was an absolute blast to work with Paolo—he's such a talented constructor (and a god-tier solver), and brainstorming clues with him was boatloads of fun. Also, if my research is correct, this is the first NYT crossword collab with both constructors born in the 2000s. Gen Z is taking over, baby!

PAOLO: This puzzle started as a normal collab in January, building from Adam's sparkling minitheme idea + NW corner. Then, in mid-March, dorms got cancelled, I suddenly had a ton of free time, and Adam and I finished the puzzle in a quarancrossword spree from our respective homes, making this the first NYT puzzle I've worked on from both coasts. It was a joy working on this puzzle—the 29D/31D/32D stretch is my favorite run of clues in the puzzle, and they're all Adam's. I'm in awe of the guy—you can see his eye for great fill/clues/puzzles in general throughout this puzzle, and on display at his site. Thanks to all involved in this collaboration—hope you enjoy the puzzle!

– puzzle by Adam Aaronson and Paolo Pasco

I'm super excited to be making my NYT debut!

I just graduated from Harvard where I studied computer science and math, subjects that feel like puzzles to me. Since graduating, I've moved to the Philly area for a new job. My dad has solved crosswords for a long time, and I got into them by working alongside him. I hadn't considered making them until my girlfriend made one for me. Although that puzzle didn't exactly follow NYT rules, she does have one in the queue that you will hopefully see soon. I'm very thankful that she introduced me to constructing, and I am also grateful towards her, my parents, and brother for test solving my puzzles.

This puzzle started when I was thinking about how the revealer could point to the phases of matter in a funny way. I had a couple options for each of the phases, so I had a decent amount of flexibility with creating a grid. I noticed that BRACELET and SWIMSUIT could fit crossing three theme entries, and I built the grid around that. Originally, I had broken up ALARM BELLS and DAISY CHAIN, but I decided that they add color and grid flow. Also, I thought that solvers would likely not confuse which of the answers were themed because the theme was fairly straightforward. I'm very happy with how the fill ended up. I like the long entries, and I think that there are only a few minor subpar answers. Although the theme isn't too exciting, I think the fill helps make the puzzle fun.

I hope you enjoyed solving!

– puzzle by Eric Bornstein

I toyed with this idea for a couple of years, but it always stalled out at poppy. The theme doesn't work without it, but I struggled to come up with a suitable themer. Eventually, 17-Across came to me, and as bland as the entry may be, it was the spark that finally brought this puzzle to life.

The other key breakthrough was discovering that I could cross the main themer symmetrically with two other themers running down in the northeast and southwest, versus the usual approach of having all the theme answers running across. That created a lot more breathing room in the grid and allowed for some bonus fill that I hope enhanced your solve.

Other random musings:

• Do you consider this to be a tight theme set? There are other options for sure, but these seem like the Big 4 to me.
• Yes, I just wrote "the Big 4" about bagel seasonings. What can I say, I lead an exciting life.
• The list of moons that I would allow in a puzzle is short, but as the largest in the solar system, 42-Across makes the cut.
• I've been devoting a larger proportion of my constructing time to clue-writing lately, and I see that Will and team kept about two-thirds of my clues on this one which is encouraging.
• This is now my second consecutive puzzle based on food, which clearly means that for creative purposes, I need to start eating more.

I'd like to dedicate today's puzzle to two special ladies in my life — my wife Tara who celebrates a birthday on August 9, and my daughter Daphne who turned 3 months old on July 30. I'd also like to give a shout-out to all the first responders out there for their tireless efforts to keep us safe — and in particular to Engine 6 and Ladder 3 of the Elizabeth Fire Department. This one's for you.

– puzzle by Michael Paleos

DEREK: This puzzle idea was a hybrid of Jeff and myself. He reached out to me about co-constructing, and I bounced this idea off of combining black and white in the same square. The revealer in the middle was Jeff's idea, and it works great, as well as fitting OTHELLO in the grid to boot. I have a fair idea of what makes a good puzzle after blogging on crosswordfiend.com for a few years, but Jeff's input was invaluable, as well as his immense talent in filling the grid. It was a back-and-forth project, but the fill was mostly Jeff's genius.

I was born in Chicago, grew up in Cassopolis, MI, and now live in Mishawaka, IN. My earliest great crossword puzzle memory was solving an Ornery crossword in Games Magazine in the early 80s with my cousin Ardis from Chicago. I have a compilation book of Ornery's, and I can pinpoint that exact puzzle to this day! It was a glorious holiday weekend of open dictionaries and encyclopedia searching (this was before the internet!), and the feeling of satisfaction way back then when I was only 11 or 12 got me hooked on puzzles for life. I have been piling up Dell puzzle magazines and printing out crosswords from the internet ever since.

– puzzle by Derek Allen and Jeff Chen

We built this puzzle around MODEL MINORITY, a demographic myth we feel is important to highlight. We know, however, that this is a term that could elicit discomfort among some solvers, particularly those who look to puzzles to distract themselves from the world. As solvers ourselves, we notice our own tendency to conflate discomfort over an entry in a crossword puzzle with discomfort over the real-world phenomenon that the entry references.

By highlighting the MODEL MINORITY myth as a marquee entry in our puzzle, we hope both to introduce the concept to folks who aren't aware of it, and to make those who have experienced the social pressures associated with a perceived MODEL MINORITY — like Sid himself — feel seen. It's not the easiest topic to address in a crossword puzzle, especially given the practical limitations of crossword publishing (e.g., clue brevity). But it's prudent to shed light on racial bias at this critical time of societal reckoning—and crosswords are, undoubtedly, a reflection of our society.

This grid includes several other entries that we wanted to clue sensitively, and we're grateful to the editing team for their care and thoughtfulness. We're also glad that many of our original clues made it to print—some of our personal favorites are 58-Across, 3-Down, and 11-Down. Of course, the editing team came through with their own awesome takes; we especially love their angles for 22-Down and 52-Down.

In addition to our shared love of puzzles, the two of us share an alma mater and love for St. Louis: Sid is an MD/PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, where Brooke went to college. We're also both academics in the sciences: Brooke is a postdoc in mathematics in Berlin, Germany, and Sid's PhD is in biomedical engineering. Finally, while this may be the Husic–Sivakumar team's debut in the Times, we've collaborated extensively in other venues, including the extremely-worth-your-time Grids for Good charity crossword pack (available for just a $10 donation to the COVID/racial justice fund of your choice!), and Sid's indie puzzle site, Sid's Grids. We're also both excited to be contributing individual puzzles to this year's Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament, which will be held virtually one week from today!

– puzzle by Brooke Husic and Sid Sivakumar

It probably comes as no surprise that the biggest challenge in making this puzzle was creating the grid. There was a lot of thematic material to fit in: seven actual theme answers and five additional geometric elements. And to maintain symmetry, I couldn't place any blocks symmetrically opposite any circled letters. All in all, this made for a lot of constraints to work within.

Will and his team's first response to the theme was quite positive, if only I could improve the fill. We went back and forth several times as I tried to maximize the number of interesting words and minimize the number that I would have preferred not to use at all. I hope that the balance we achieved satisfies most solvers, and I hope that the graphic reward at the end more than compensates for a few unappealing entries.

It is always fun to see how the editorial crew tweaks the clues and comes up with some gems of their own (89-Across!), but of course, I enjoy seeing my favorites appear in print. In particular, I'm happy that [S as in soup?] for NOODLE and [Event that's a bit off?] for SALE made the cut.

Finally, to my artist friend who — when a broken ankle immobilized me — urged me to take up painting and couldn't accept crossword construction as a similarly creative pursuit: look, I did both!

– puzzle by Ruth Bloomfield Margolin

AMANDA: I periodically find myself experiencing a dry spell when it comes to theme ideas, so whenever I have one that really excites me, it's always cause for a bit of celebration. This specific theme is one that I was particularly excited about because it makes an otherwise pretty "whatever" crossword entry (EIEIO) into something that feels interesting to me. My first thought was "Are there even going to be any phrases that include only the vowels EIEIO, and in that order?!" Luckily for us, there were! To be honest, I don't remember much else about the making of this puzzle other than the excitement of stumbling upon the idea, but I hope that when you, too, stumble across the theme it brings you even a fraction of the joy/interest that it brought me!

Additionally, in an effort to be a bigger part of the movement to make crossword puzzles a more inclusive space for everyone, I would love to hear from anyone about the elements of your experience that you feel are largely missing from the puzzles you solve. Whether it's your heroes, your cuisine, your terminology, or any other element of your experience, I would love to know so I can try to be mindful of their inclusion in future grids, whether for a mainstream outlet or for the puzzles on my site. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@amandarafkin) if you have any thoughts about how I can help to make your puzzles a more inclusive space.

ROSS: I'm donating payment for this puzzle to the Lebanese Red Cross.

If you're looking to get into crossword constructing, and especially if you identify as non-male, LGBTQ+, or as a person of color, I'd be thrilled to offer whatever help I can to help you get your puzzles published. Contact me via Twitter (@trudeauross) or my personal puzzle site.

– puzzle by Amanda Rafkin and Ross Trudeau

Hey there everyone! So thrilled to make my debut in the New York Times and on XWord Info!

Crosswords started becoming a passion of mine in high school when my science teacher would take a look at the newspaper I brought to class, and we would solve the crossword (she would do the heavy lifting while I helped out with the sports clues). Crossword puzzle tournaments the past decade have been magical experiences, and I've had the honor of being able to share my thoughts on various crosswords at crosswordfiend.com since 2014.

I had thought about today's puzzle theme for at least four years, seeing OHIO PLAYERS displayed on my iPhone screen any time a song of their played. Initially, I wanted to see if CAV or CAVALIER could also be part of the theme as well but thought that would just slow me down even further. After dragging my feet on buying crossword constructing software and forcing myself to start this process for the first time for a 15 x15 puzzle, I finally put the final touches on this grid in April.

The goal was to make sure a sports-related theme was accessible to everyone, especially given the somewhat polarizing nature to the genre in crosswords. Initially, I wanted to have no clues in the entire grid with a sports reference outside of the gimmick itself. Was pretty close to that, but that darn ELGIN got in the way! Only a few edits on entries were made to the original submission, but I did want one other clue to reference sports afterward, as my ACE clue was [Many a winning shot by Serena Williams].

Speaking of Serena and Elgin, getting in a lot of Black figures was paramount in this first-ever submission, from ELGIN to SUN RA to SHAFT to the OHIO PLAYERS ensemble.

And if you're wondering, I wholeheartedly believe the Cleveland baseball team should change its name, and there was no way I was going to refer to INDIAN as the misnomer used for indigenous tribes of the Americas. Even in a small way, I hope this continues to a discussion about representation and the uses of identities in sports that are offensive and the need to rectify it.

Alright, got to check in to see if my old high school science teacher has tried solving my puzzle! Take care, everyone!

– puzzle by Adesina O. Koiki

It's great to have a third puzzle in the Times! This one underwent a few iterations before arriving at the finished product. I was tossing around a few famous phrases in my head, and realized that "All for one and one for all" would make an interesting crossword theme, and lend itself to some sort of substitution. I knew I would need a revealer, and since the phrase itself would be tough to work in, I noticed that luckily, THREE MUSKETEERS made for a tidy 15-letter entry.

Initially, I wanted to create four other theme entries that would have one substitution each (two would swap ONE for ALL, and two would swap ALL for ONE), each making a new phrase. So, CALL OF THE WILD would become CONE OF THE WILD or something of that nature. I wound up deciding against this structure because most of the viable theme words would be pretty short (CALL/CONE, BALL/BONE, THRALL/THRONE...), and that seemed a little redundant. So, I decided to find some interesting phrases that had both ALL and ONE therein, and swap them in each.

Since the resulting theme lines would no longer yield coherent phrases, I geared the puzzle to a Thursday difficulty level, making the nature of the substitution the gimmick that one would need to unpack. Somehow, that felt more interesting than just having some punny phrases, like my first idea would have yielded. I submitted the idea with the option of including or excluding the circles, depending on how nasty the finished product should be. I think including the circles was the right choice, and probably made for a more enjoyable, less frustrating solve.

Regarding cluing, I like to make late-in-the-week puzzles, so I can sprinkle in some trivia clues and some misdirections. My favorite trivia clues were the ones for MALARIA and DOLPHIN. I thought "They might appear in cameos" was a fun bit of trickery for ONYXES, and avoided a more boring reference. As a cryptic crossword fan, I knew I had to throw in a cryptic reference for SILENT R, so "February 4th" felt perfect. Sadly, "Where to watch the big game?" didn't make the cut for SAFARIS, although the Teddy Roosevelt clue is a fun one. (The River of Doubt is an amazing read about his adventures in the Amazon!).

I hope this was a fun and challenging one, and look forward to giving you more puzzles in the near future!

– puzzle by Jon Olsen

Inevitably, when I clue a crossword, there end up being a lot of clues relating to stuff I've been up to recently. Of course, many of those clues ended up getting edited, but here's some peeks at things referenced in the pseudo-diary of the original clues.

Late last year, in the before times, my wife Lorinne and I went to see a good friend of ours perform in the juggling ensemble of the OPERA (3-Down) "Akhnaten," and we rewatched some highlights of it at home when it aired on "Great Performances at the Met." Naturally we also watched Phillipa SOO (75-Across) in the filmed version of "Hamilton" when that made its streaming debut. Honestly there's been a lot of TV-watching; our main binge has been catching up on seasons of "RuPaul's Drag Race" that we hadn't seen (having started watching in season 6), and so I gave the show a shout-out in my clue for LOGO (43-Down), since that was its original network before moving to VH1.

A different thing we've been doing as stay-at-home entertainment is performing play readings with friends over Zoom. Coincidentally, we just did a reading of TWELVE ANGRY MEN (23-Across), though that happened well after this puzzle was clued. We also did a reading of "Peter and the Starcatcher," an imagined origin story for Peter Pan, in which I played Black Stache and Lorinne played my sidekick SMEE (76-Across). I look forward to Lorinne performing onstage again; one of my favorite performances of hers was in a musical adaptation of "A Man of No Importance," based on the movie starring Albert FINNEY (34-Down).

Around the apartment are many products from SANRIO (94-Across), including Hello Kitty figurines and a plush Badtz-Maru, a troublemaking penguin who, canonically, shares my birthday; the Sanrio products, though, are probably outnumbered by our Tokidoki tchotchkes (sadly unrepresented in this grid).

– puzzle by Francis Heaney

ALAN: This idea came out of another collaboration with Andrea. I kept trying to work WAVES into our hair theme puzzle, and Andrea kept giving it the thumbs down, but it put us in the mood for a beach puzzle. Andrea is an amazing collaborator; funny and talented. We played around with every combination we could think of, it was fun to focus on the beach terms as verbs. The reveal came late and brought the whole thing together.

The editorial staff is great to work with and their final touches improved the puzzle. They did put the kibosh on a not so good SAND entry, but let us remake the whole grid with the new longer theme entries. We tried to make the bigger corners accessible for an early week level.

We hope you all enjoy the solve. Stay safe everyone!

ACME: As a partner, Alan's a dream. Easygoing, completely open to criticism and suggestions, bursting with ideas, and quite unflappable (a quality you want in an anesthesiologist and a writing cohort!).

Will initially nixed SANDADECK as a deal-killer; not enough in the language. (I now wonder if SANDTHEDECK would've flown?) We pushed back and suggested alternatives, including swapping in PALMSCARDS. Happily, Will and team agreed. We revamped the entire puzzle to make lengths match, and the rest was a breeze. ;)

– puzzle by Alan Massengill and Andrea Carla Michaels

I'm so proud to bring you this puzzle today. I created it while sick at home with COVID-19 in late March (so the entire process is a bit of a blur!). I was inspired to try to bring a female-centric puzzle to the New York Times after reading Natan Last's article entitled The Hidden Bigotry of Crosswords that explores some of the biggest issues in the crossword industry today. So when I realized this momentous anniversary was coming up, I knew that I wanted to make a crossword about it.

I was pleased to see that most of my clues made it through the editing process. I'm especially happy with the clues for ARIA, ART, IRONIC, and the canine trifecta, MEME, SALT, and BARK. And a special thanks to the editing team for keeping my clue for DRAG... I've been obsessively rewatching Rupaul's Drag Race this summer! I highly recommend it.

Finally, here's a bit of an Easter egg: I'm a proud VASSAR ALUM! While I studied there, I always felt that you could sense in the walls (in the policies, approaches, and culture) that unlike most other colleges, it began as a school for women, not a school for men. I am incredibly grateful for my experience there, and I love that I was able to give them a shoutout in this particular grid.

I hope you all enjoyed this puzzle, which celebrates the anniversary of something so important and so often taken for granted. So please, please VOTE this November.

– puzzle by Olivia Mitra Framke

I love me a good tricky "change-the-path-of-an-answer" Thursday puzzle. I realize turn-the-corner puzzles might be a bit played out now, but to my knowledge I haven't yet seen a "wrinkle," so hopefully, this one is a fun twist to solvers.

When making the puzzle, I waffled over replacing 45-Across with MORTIMERSNERD instead of MORTIMERMOUSE. Both references are surprisingly equally dated (Snerd the ventriloquist dummy debuted on the radio in 1936, the same year Mortimer Mouse was introduced in the short "Mickey's Rival"), but went with the mouse because of my Disney love and also the fact that he still appears in shorts and on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse occasionally, making him a bit more accessible to younger solvers. That, plus even to a non-Disney native, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out this character might also have the surname "Mouse."

Also, every time I look at 29-Across, I can't help but read it with an annoyed British accent because of Rowan Atkinson as Zazu the hornbill in "I Just Can't Wait to be King."

– puzzle by Grant Thackray

I sometimes wonder if crossword editors deliberately foreshadow difficult or unusual words, definitions, or trivia. For example, before a hard word appears in an early-week puzzle or as part of a difficult crossing, do editors try to use that word in the preceding weeks to semantically prime solvers to succeed?

If so, could that also apply to grid art?

Earlier this month, ONION DOMES made its NYT debut with the verbose clue [*Colorful architectural features of Moscow's St. Basil Cathedral]. It seems an odd choice to foreshadow the grid art, theme, and marquee entry of a puzzle running a couple of weeks later unless the intention was to prime solvers for success. Though if the foreshadowing was deliberate, I wonder why the editors used the less-common "Basil" instead of "Basil's" in the clue. The other two times the cathedral has been referenced in the Shortz era (in 2013 and 2009), the more common "Basil's" was preferred. Since today's puzzle also uses "Basil's," were the editors trying to amp up the difficulty by tempting solvers to try the "Basil" variant, which doesn't fit since it's one letter too short?

Today's puzzle has been on file since January of 2018, so Will & crew had plenty of time to curate their publication schedule to achieve such a foreshadowing. Or perhaps it was the other way around — the editors were subconsciously influenced to publish today's puzzle after seeing ONION DOMES in the earlier grid. Perhaps we'll never know.

– puzzle by Alex Eaton-Salners

This puzzle started with PAWN PROMOTION, and its 13-letter length gave me an ideal opportunity to try working with a "stair-stack" layout for the first time. I was pretty excited to discover that BARNEY STINSON fit nicely underneath it, and once I found my third answer for the middle stack, I was off and running.

The upper-right and lower-left corners quickly fell into place, but I was unsure what I wanted to do with the remaining corners, so much so that I created two versions — one with 68 words and one with 66 (left). I really liked the three stacked answers in the upper left of the latter, though I wasn't as confident about the three cheater squares or the high density of short names in that corner (six in total). I even had my friend/collaborator David Steinberg weigh in (he liked the 66-word version too). After more deliberation, I submitted it, and it was rejected on the grounds that — you guessed it — there were a few too many short names, and it "felt a bit heavy on black squares".

I eventually came up with a fill I liked for the revised 68-word version. This time, it was accepted, undoubtedly because I addressed the concerns while keeping the best answer of the puzzle, HENRI, in the same place in the grid. (Just kidding, it was purely unintentional — which reminds me, no offense intended by the bottom row, Mr. Agard).

As far as the clues go, I'm particularly glad to see my clue of [Flipper] for SASSIER make the cut, which surely must be in the running for the most devious one-word clue of all time. Happily, my clue for IN YOUR FACE also survived (all previous NYT instances were clued as the adjective).

So, there you have it — a puzzle three years and several versions in the making. Hope you have fun with this one!

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

I'm thrilled to have my first Sunday puzzle in the New York Times. I started working on theme entries for this puzzle several months before I had the confidence to make the puzzle. Filling my first 21x21 grid, which this theme requires, was kind of intimidating. Thanks to the editorial team for keeping my best clues, and for coming up with others I wish I had thought of.

I don't remember how I initially came up with the idea for this puzzle. During a recent visit by my mother-in-law, however, I came up with a guess for how it probably happened.

My mother-in-law is an accomplished woman. She speaks several languages fluently, she taught Asian languages for many years in New York City public schools, she has worked at the UN and at Berlitz language schools, she published a Chinese cookbook, and she raised three successful children. For several years now, she has suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, a heartbreaking illness. My husband heard about Alive Inside, an award-winning documentary showing that many people with advanced dementia respond to music in an exciting way. He made a playlist of songs that my mother-in-law knew in her younger days; we found that the music helps her, so she hears the songs every day.

When she visits us, I hear the songs on the playlist multiple times. The first song on the playlist, the one we hear the most often, is a certain song from The Sound of Music. So I'd like to give my mother-in-law (and Julie Andrews) credit for sparking the idea that led to this puzzle.

– puzzle by Barbara Lin

I am 61 years old, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan with my wife, Mary, who very patiently puts up with my crossword habits. When I'm not puzzling, I sing in a couple of choirs, and I'm currently training for my sixth marathon (COVID permitting, which it probably won't). My mom got me started doing crosswords 50-ish years ago. Last year, having retired from my job as Controller at a theological seminary in Grand Rapids, I decided to have a go at constructing.

After several false starts, my sister-in-law (hi, Carol) suggested that I "Write what I know." Thinking that 16th-century choral music and governmental/non-profit accounting would be areas of rather limited interest, Shakespeare was next on the list. After many unfruitful hours trying to think of fun things I could do with familiar Shakespeare quotes, I landed on AY THERE'S THE RUB, and hit on the notion of quotes that aren't about food, but could be clued as if they were. THE POUND OF FLESH came fairly quickly; LEND ME YOUR EARS took a little longer. The fourth was a struggle.

Many thanks to Will and the editorial team. Although they vetoed my original fourth themer as too obscure (THE SOUL OF WIT — beer reference), Joel Fagliano, bless him, came up with WHAT'S DONE IS DONE. After a bit more grinding on the grid, and a bit more help from the editors, I got my "yes."

I'm thrilled to be making my NYT debut. Hope you all enjoy it — peace, and be well, everyone.

– puzzle by Dave Bardolph

Excited to have my 2nd puzzle published in the New York Times! This puzzle started simply by brainstorming phrases that ended in types of investments. The idea of cluing them as punny investments for different professions was there from the beginning. Initially, I had ATOMIC BOND until Googling uncovered that the accurate term is IONIC BOND. Who knew? I apologize to my high school science teachers.

I also started with OLYMPIC GOLD (the too-obvious "Investment for Gymnasts?") and JOHNNY CASH (the groan-inducing "Investment for Plumbers?"). I was planning on having five theme answers and no revealer but eventually stumbled onto WORK PORTFOLIO, which also allowed me to get rid of the CASH answer. With IONIC BOND/BEEF STOCK matched at nine letters, I struggled for a while to come up with a ten-letter phrase to pair with the stronger COMEDY GOLD answer. I finally hit on MENU OPTION, which with its clue, is the weakest theme answer, but I felt was acceptable.

This is the third puzzle I submitted to the New York Times, and it was initially rejected. While the editors liked the theme, the fill had a lot of issues — obscure abbreviations, awkward phrases. Looking back, I would not submit that puzzle today; it's pretty tragic.

A couple of months later, with some additional constructing experience, I revisited the puzzle. I started by redoing the grid, and things came together when I opened up the center and connected the three central theme answers with EL TRAIN. That seemed to free up the corners for better fill options. One thing I learned on this puzzle was the importance of trying different grid designs to see which fills best.

– puzzle by Carl Larson

NANCY: Rebuses tend to be my favorite puzzle type, so in this instance, I consciously went seeking a rebus idea. Using a phrase with "box" in it seemed like it would work well. There were many possibilities, but as soon as "chatterbox" crossed my mind, it seemed that that would produce the most amusing results.

I came up with the three short "chatter" words, but I'm sure there must have been snags along the way in incorporating them into themer answers. (Who can remember from so long ago?) But whatever they were, they did not remain snags for long, because my incomparable collaborator found ways to make everything work as he always does. And, of course, Will also constructed the grid. It was a smooth-as-silk collaboration as it always is.

I will now go and try to solve this puzzle when it appears, avoiding the theme answers and working on everything else — because, being me, I've, of course, forgotten everything else:)

WILL: I imagine CACHINNATE will be new to a lot of solvers. Normally, I try to avoid obscurities, but CACHINNATE is the sort of delightful literary word that I enjoy and that I don't mind including on a Thursday (with clean crossings, of course). If it's new to you, I hope you're happy to learn about it!

On a completely separate note: Nancy wisely talked me out of my half-serious idea of cluing BEN and EKING together as the singer of "Stand By Me." But man, I wish there were more ways to clue EKE.

– puzzle by Nancy Stark and Will Nediger

When I started constructing crosswords at the end of 2019, I certainly didn't expect my New York Times debut to be a themeless puzzle! For one thing, I only started solving themelesses a few years ago. And anyone who knows me knows that my memory for trivia and names is terrible. However, I fell in love with constructing themeless puzzles once I realized that the whole game is to cram the grid with maximum fun. And I love fun.

I chose to build this grid around the central PYRAMID SCHEME while listening to "The Dream," a podcast about multi-level marketing organizations. Some of my favorite clues were rearranged in the final edit — WANNABE's clue originally contained the lyrics "zig-a-zig-ah," and I still refer to this puzzle in my mind by GOLD TEETH's original clue, "Grill bits" — but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to the editors for toughening it up.

Some very heartfelt shoutouts to Erik Agard for helping unblock me when I was just getting started, to Andrea Carla Michaels and all the other cruciverbalists who have been such enthusiastic cheerleaders, to my wife Tory for patiently solving all my drafts, and to my amazing family for fostering my love of questions, puzzles, and games for the past 31 years.

– puzzle by Kate Hawkins