Thumbnails

I'm always trying to think of new themes involving grid art. When I came up with the idea of gender pronouns — a topic I feel is especially important — separated by slashes made of black squares, I knew I was on to something exciting! The three slashes turned into one big slash, though I still wanted to arrange the pronouns so each pair was separated by a "mini-slash" of three black squares.

One of my biggest challenges was coming up with an answer ending in "they." I'd originally planned to use the poet Robert SOUTHEY, but his name seemed a bit tough to me. I was pleased to discover that BUT HEY could fit with an extra black square, as BUT HEY both feels easier and hides "they" in a more interesting way.

Once I had the theme answers in place, I added the reveal PERSONAL/PRONOUNS for some extra theme material, and I was on to the fill and then the clues. My favorite clue is [Tattoo subject who might disapprove of tattoos] for MOM.

All in all, I hope many solvers see themselves represented in this puzzle. Happy solving!

– puzzle by David Steinberg

This puzzle started with ELEVATOR PITCH. As a college student who is eventually interested in getting a job, people constantly emphasize the importance of being prepared on the off chance you end up in an enclosed space with a CEO or hiring manager.

While running into someone in an elevator is significantly less likely nowadays, here's my quick intro: I'm a fourth-year student at the Ohio State University dual enrolled in a BA in Economics and History and a Masters in Applied Economics. I've been constructing for about a year and am so excited to have this puzzle go to print!

This was the second puzzle I ever made and first accepted. Looking back, I realize how fortuitous it was that I could interlock the theme answers and revealer to fit a 13-letter word down the middle without too much trouble — definitely some beginner's luck.

Thanks to the editorial team for helping me through a revision of my initial fill and dramatically improving the clues. Grease was one of my favorite movies as a kid that I only truly understood as an adult, so I love that they added that cluing angle on SUMMER FLING.

I hope people enjoy the puzzle!

– puzzle by Margaret Seikel

The archetypal Thursday Times puzzle, in my mind, is one that advisedly breaks the rules of crosswords in service of a clever theme. My favorite puzzles exist in a subset of that description: crosswords whose grids themselves are delinquent. As a solver, when my expectations of a crossword are subverted from the moment I look at the grid, I feel charged with discovering the trickery baked inside that unconventional shell. And, as a constructor, grid-bending Thursday ideas come more readily to me than themes based on wordplay or trivia.

Unfortunately, the technical constraints of publishing in various print and digital media spell trouble for many puzzles of this type. Today's puzzle was initially submitted with a nonstandard grid numbering scheme, which best indicates how the theme entries are intended to be read: starting at the grid number, continuing to the right, and then "bouncing back" to the left. Fortunately, the Times editing team found a reasonable solution in circling the first letter of each theme answer. I think it works, and I'm grateful that this puzzle was able to run in the Times at all, but ultimately it's a compromise. I hope it makes for a fun solve nonetheless!

On the bright side, WALLA WALLA WASHINGTON (20) was a neat find for this 15×15 grid, and I'm pretty stoked to debut GAY RODEO in the national crossword puzzle of record. I'm also happy that my clues for NOSE and METAL made the cut, and I like the editing team's echoing in the clues for ALL and NO ONE.

I'll end with a plug for Crossnerds, a cruciverbal podcast by broadcaster (and now, crossword constructor) extraordinaire Rebecca Neipris. I make a guest appearance on today's episode, and there are other familiar voices you'll hear if you poke through the archives.

– puzzle by Sid Sivakumar

Very, very excited to seed this puzzle with the first female congresswoman in US history. JEANNETTE RANKIN is fascinating to read about — she was elected for two separate terms, in 1916 and 1940. As a devout pacifist, she was the only person to vote against the US entry into WWII (knowing the vote would pass anyways). And, for a small part of her life, she lived in my hometown of Spokane. I've spent time off and on for the past year trying to track down any information about her time here, unfortunately to no avail beyond where she worked. If you do happen to know anything, please let me know!

Shout-out to the editing team for cleaning up a few clues, particularly 33-D. Construction-wise, I began by getting the middle to work with CREAM SODA and NOT SO FAST, then the top right/bottom left, and finally the other corners. Always content to break up a triple stack into a double if it makes the fill cleaner — which is what had to be done in the NW/SE.

– puzzle by Brian Thomas

Hello puzzledom! So pleased to be back in the Sunday magazine. And with a puzzle that was years in the making. I love constructing puzzles in which the grid numbers are relevant. As you can imagine, it's a difficult construction feat. Every time you insert or remove a black square, the numbers cascade and change. It's just the kind of torture that we constructors love.

Through earlier versions of the puzzle, I learned about some more subtle things that Will and the team look for. The first is "long answers to engage the solver." Previous versions of the grid got all the numbers to work but the answers were too short. So I had to rework the grid first and foremost to get some 21s in there. The second thing I learned is that Will doesn't like answers that are "too cluey." That means answers that are arbitrary in their wording. For example, I used to have the clue (Double) Dutch lead to GAME USING TWO JUMP ROPES. Answers, I've learned, need to be tight and canonical phrases.

My favorite part of this puzzle has always been the twist with 111-Across. I actually wanted to title the puzzle "Double Headers" and let the solver infer that the same principle, albeit with triple, needed to be applied to 111-Across. But with "Could You Repeat That Number?" I believe they are encompassing all the tricks under one title and that works quite well.

Last, in the bio that accompanies the crossword, Will was kind enough to mention my upcoming virtual puzzle show with the Geffen Playhouse, Inside the Box. Would be thrilled if all you puzzle-heads can join! There will be fun interactive games, twists and turns and surprises. Below is the poster for the show. There might be something else going on in this image ... if you know what it is, please message me on Instagram or Twitter (@davidkwong).

The show premieres on 9/29 with times for both the East and West Coasts. All ages are welcome! More info about Inside the Box is here at the Geffen Playhouse website. Happy solving!

– puzzle by David Kwong

KEVIN: I like horror movies if they're intelligent and well done. Psycho is a classic, so I felt it was deserving of a tribute puzzle. (It's my second movie tribute in the NYT; I had an "ET" puzzle published on 9/24/13).

I don't remember when I first built a version of this grid. Eight years ago, maybe. I wasn't happy with it. Two years ago, I noticed that the 60^th anniversary of the movie's release was two years away. I decided to ask for Brad's help fixing the crummy fill. I figured six months max working with Brad (it didn't take that long), six months for Will to get back to us (it didn't take that long), and we'd still be one year ahead of the anniversary date.

Brad came up with the idea to split PSYCHO into PSY and CHO and place them in those two symmetrical down spots, as a nod to the split personality of the main character. That's why I like to collaborate with people on puzzles. Two heads are better than one. I would never have come up with that on my own. Kudos to Brad.

BRAD: This puzzle has been biding its time in the vaults for a little while. My memory of the project is like Kevin says: I was invited on board to help spruce up the fill and to brainstorm with him about a revealer (eventually two three-letter words instead of one six-letter word). I didn't know if editors would go for a puzzle about fractured mental health, but on the other hand, it's not every day that an iconic movie quote and associated names fit so neatly into a grid. Kevin had packed it all in beautifully, just like he did for our Dr. Seuss puzzle of 7/14/15.

I think I've seen Psycho just once; if I rewatch a Hitchcock film, it's more likely to be North by Northwest or Rebecca. But I surprised myself by loving the "Bates Motel" TV series with Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore.

– puzzle by Kevin Christian and Brad Wilber

I'm excited to be making my solo NYT debut after a puzzle last year with my cousin Gabi Friedman.

This puzzle idea started as a Sunday puzzle where all the numbers 11, 22, 33, etc. appeared in the grid — I forget what the revealer was going to be — but I ended up with far more 99s than anything else, and so it turned into this. I think I had the idea for that puzzle after listening to the bows music, 99 Luftballons, over and over again each rehearsal for a play, Berlin, that I was doing lighting design for.

I initially imagined this as a Tuesday puzzle, but my clues are always harder than I think they are, so Wednesday is a good fit. I constructed this puzzle over two years ago, but it's been sitting in the queue for a while so that it could be published on a 9/9 with the appropriate difficulty.

I haven't been making many crosswords lately, as my team is writing the MIT Mystery Hunt this year, but hopefully, I'll get back on it once we've run our hunt in January.

– puzzle by Jakob Weisblat

ERIK: Grateful to Caitlin, one of the greats, for the opportunity to collaborate! She's responsible for most of this grid, including that bottom-left corner where I just could not find a good fill, and also many of the standout clues (e.g. 1-Across, 61-Across, 12-Down, 29-Down). I'm also thankful to the NYT team for adding a Rihanna reference at 11-Down — love to see it!

CAITLIN: You'd have to be a fool to pass up an opportunity to work with Erik, and I ain't no fool! It is always my great pleasure to work with and learn from him. Erik is such a master at writing clues, turning even the most usual fill like 50-Across into something fresh and clever. A lot of his other clues were softened up for this Friday offering, but rest assured they were likewise brilliant. I also loved the editing team's sneaky misdirection at 39-Down. I hope the fun we had in making this puzzle together translates into an enjoyable solve!

– puzzle by Caitlin Reid and Erik Agard

When I hit upon the phrase HAS IT BOTH WAYS, I hopped on xwordinfo.com to check out my *ITTI* options. There are almost 600. I sought a way to narrow the set, and focused on two-word phrases with the IT_TI pattern. Suddenly it became a very narrow set indeed, and I barely managed to find phrases that suited the demands of symmetry. Also, there was no good way around the 13 / 8 / 11 / 8 / 13 pattern, which requires smooshing everything together and using ugly Utah-blocks, and restricts the placement of SIT TIGHT and WAIT TIME.

As for fill, I have a 76-word version of this puzzle that removes the block pair between ILK/ECO and WIT/KEG, but it required crossing SALIERI with LILI, and I decided to just keep it at 78 words. I do wish there had been room for a better pair of long downs, but if I managed to keep everything Monday-friendly, I'm happy. Oh, one more thing, I also tried a version of the fill that eliminated all other IT or TI bigrams (like ELITE at 6-down and KEITH at 39-down and WIT at 42-across); it was a thought, but it made the fill too rough. Enjoy your Monday!

– puzzle by John Guzzetta

The working title for this one was "Fast Food Critic." I'd noticed that several fairly recent slang expressions for disappointing items can be applied to fast food. I thought it would be cool to balance Weak Sauce and Nothing Burger with older expressions like No Great Shakes and (in my original submission) Hot Potato. This last one didn't quite work with the rest, but Andy Kravis suggested a revealer of HAPPY MEAL. Then the clueing angle of a fast-food critic's negative comments really came together. I think it's great how Will and his team are always willing to work with constructors to improve a semi-okay theme into one that has some zing.

Regulars at the L.A. Times Crossword Corner, where my puzzles appear quite frequently, have noted that I must be a foodie. Food-related themes pop up often in my grids. It's true that I love both eating and cooking. Back in the 70s, I worked my way through college as a frat house cook. Now that I'm retired, I have much time for both cooking and making crossword puzzles.

– puzzle by Paul Coulter

Very happy to be making my NYT debut.

I'm an architect living with my wife and daughter (and these days, my son on leave from college) in Brooklyn, NY. I initially got into this mess a few years ago when my then 2nd-grader took an interest in word puzzles; turns out brainstorming themes and gimmicks is great with kids who haven't yet learned to think inside the box. Major thanks to my good friend Rich Proulx (a great xword constructor and a real mensch) who has been a reliable sounding board for just about every puzzle I've worked on since then.

This puzzle came from thinking of ways to use grid art (evocative arrangements of black squares) as an integral part of the solve. Limiting the set to 15-letter phrases with the string /AND/ but not the word "AND" yields plenty of colorful options… but combinations of four such which can intersect each other are scant, which makes for a tighter theme. (Having /AND/ straddle two words would have been my first choice --like TASMANIAN DEVILS, say-- but, alas, that was one constraint too many.) Providing enough white space around the plus-signs to make them "pop" was another special challenge, but combining that with a minimal reveal ("AND") left room for some extra 8x slots, which helps in a grid which appears, at least at first, to have no long themers.

As a newb, I was sad to see some of my favorite clues edited out ([Joint holder] for SINEW; [Not a firm order?] for SOFTBOIL; etc.), but also glad they were able to keep a bunch. I'm starting to appreciate the editors' need to distribute sneakier clues in just the right places for a smoother solve, especially on a tricksy theme.

– puzzle by Simeon Seigel

ANNE: The two main seeds for this puzzle were BEYONDMEAT and NETNEUTRALITY. Both of them seemed vaguely topical, but hopefully not so much as to be outdated by the time the puzzle would be published. (We did not realize ahead of time how important WiFi and meat substitutes would be in 2020...)

DANIEL: It's always a little bit strange to have non-symmetrical seeds, since you don't get the equality of constraints on both sides that you get used to in writing themed puzzles. Funnily enough, though, we actually struggled more with the SE than with the NW. In fact, Will requested that we try to refill the SE. It was a bit of a challenge, since Anne was home when we initially constructed the puzzle, but she was in college by the time we had to redo that corner. I'm sure remote construction is another thing that has seen an unexpected rise recently.

ANNE: I remember Daniel calling me to re-clue the puzzle one night, and when I got off the phone with him, my roommate gave me this strange look and said, "What on earth were you talking about, and since when have you been into K-pop?"(This was for our original clue for IDOL, although that has since been changed.) Trying to clue a puzzle can lead to a pretty weird-sounding conversation, I guess.

DANIEL: It was a bit funny for me to see HOMEPLANET show up again in one of my themelesses. I guess the point is that I've scored it high, and it has common letters. Anyway, last time I clued it "Corellia, to Han Solo", which I thought might be too specialized. I was gratified to see that they kept the clue, but this time, I probably pushed my luck too far when I tried "Dathomir, to Darth Maul". Understandably, the editorial team rejected that clue (even Obi-Wan thought it was Iridonia), and moved the Star Wars to the clue for 45-down.

– puzzle by Anne and Daniel Larsen

I had been thinking about starting a crossword club for a while. Then the pandemic struck. When I heard about the Wave Learning Festival, a student-run initiative whose stated goal is to combat the educational inequalities that the pandemic has only exacerbated.

I applied to teach a course on crossword construction. Fortunately, they specialize in offbeat topics that might be offered at universities, but rarely show up in a school classroom.

My class consisted of about a dozen people. We met online three times a week for three weeks. I tried to make it as interactive as possible, with students constructing word squares in the first class. We ended the course by constructing a whole puzzle together. It was rejected. The New York Times had already accepted a puzzle with the same theme.

I enjoyed the experience, so I decided to sign up to teach the class again. The second time went more smoothly. We solved quite a few puzzles together. That gives you an appreciation for what goes into a good crossword. It was extended to ten classes, giving us time to cover all the fundamentals. We were thrilled when the editorial team accepted our puzzle.

Our theme started with a discussion of Mexican food. We were thinking about the ingredients of nachos and noticed that chips and dips rhymed. That got us thinking about rhyming phrases. We needed another wrinkle and thought that if the phrases themselves rhymed with each other, that would be pretty cool.

We needed to start with a word that had as many rhymes as possible. NIGHTLIGHT led us to try "-ite", which also has an unusually large number of 1-syllable rhymes. Even so, it was unclear whether there were enough such phrases to make a crossword.

There was a fairly intense debate about the final selection of our theme answers. Was it a problem that we had both "night" and "knight"? We could have gone for a different set of theme answers that would have instead included KITEFIGHT and LIGHTBITE. Ultimately, we liked the overall quality of this set enough that we were willing to overlook the whole night/knight situation.

This was a great experience for me, and I hope the class feels similarly!

– puzzle by Daniel Larsen and The Wave Learning Festival Crossword Class

Watching the opening rescue scene of "Black Panther" had me smiling and tearing up in the movie theater. Aside from being a terrific movie with a well-deserved Best Picture nod, what struck me emotionally was the powerful milestone — a spotlight shining on the first black superhero in a mainstream blockbuster. And the actor Chadwick Boseman was brilliant as Black Panther. Such an iconic performance!

I got inspired to honor this Marvel superhero with a puzzle. Found my first toehold into construction when I noticed the K in THE BLACK PANTHER can cross CHADWICK BOSEMAN at the middle. When two 15-letter theme entries cross like that, it's a gift from the Crossword Gods. No turning back at that point.

The Gods were merciful again, with Black Panther's alter ego T'CHALLA and his home WAKANDA locking symmetrically near the center. Just needed more theme to flesh out the North and South. I struggled a bit with fitting answers that included MARVEL, COMICS, or AVENGER. Finally, went back to Black Panther lore and was psyched that the source of his powers, the HEART-SHAPED HERB, could lock neatly across the top. After that, I was able to squeeze in SUPERHUMAN POWER just opposite the HERB, providing a nice tie-in.

For me, trivia-based themes can sometimes be less compelling to solve than themes with tricksy wordplay. Here, I'm hoping the dense theme interlock is interesting to discover with some fun supporting fill. A big thank you to Will Shortz and the editorial team for running this puzzle right now. I hope this puzzle does justice to the late Mr. Boseman's performance.

<Arms crossed, Wakandan-style>

– puzzle by Jeremy Newton

Thrilled to have my NYT debut today! I'm a primary care nurse practitioner living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I started constructing puzzles a couple of years ago as a way of battling the monotony of NP school. I had three puzzles very graciously rejected before getting this acceptance, which, when I read the email, made me laugh/cry in disbelief for five straight minutes. One year later, I'm still amazed it's made it to print! I like this theme of building a trail of words that trail the word PAPER, and I'm grateful to the editorial staff for giving me a few chances to rework the grid.

Big shout out to Erik Agard, who I reached out to via the Crossword Collaboration Directory. After working on some puzzles for USA Today, I've become a much better constructor, and I've gotten so much value from his coaching. And thanks to my test solvers, only half of whom actually enjoy doing crosswords: my parents, who slogged through my early work; my husband, who is my biggest fan; and my sister, who made our year so much better by moving in with my family during this pandemic. I'm donating my payment for this puzzle to the NDN Collective, supporting Indigenous communities affected by COVID-19.

– puzzle by Margit Christenson

The germ idea of this puzzle dates back to 2016 when I first started constructing. My original puzzle lacked the homophone element, so it had clues like [M, e.g.] and equally contrived answers like ACTRESS RYAN. I didn't have a great revealer, either, so while I thought the concept had potential, I didn't feel like it came together well enough to be worth submitting.

Over two years later, I came up with the version of the theme you see today, made a draft, and sent it off to Will and company. It was rejected because my clue for 18-Across, [Cay, e.g.] didn't work for them, as some people pronounce "cay" like "key." I had never heard this pronunciation, but as it seemed like they otherwise liked the concept, I suggested [Kay, e.g.] as an alternative. The change was approved, and that's how I turned a rejection into an acceptance by changing one letter of one clue!

I'm pleased with how this grid turned out, with the stacks of long answers in the upper-right and lower-left corners, and some other nice entries like INK SAC, BAD VIBE, and TRUST ME. My favorite clues include 15-Across, 11-Down, 16-Down (a slightly altered version of a previously used clue that I thought was wonderfully devious), 37-Down, and 58-Down. I'm also glad that my clues for 2-Down and 3-Down both survived, as it's fun to have back-to-back clues that echo each other when the opportunity presents itself, and I thought this pairing was particularly amusing.

I enjoy puzzles that play with crossword conventions both as a constructor and solver, so I hope you have a good time with this one. Happy solving!

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

I started constructing in early 2019, right after achieving my lifelong goal of appearing on (and winning an episode of!) Jeopardy!, with the support of the Universal Crossword Equal Representation Project (UCERP). Fun fact: my very first puzzle, through UCERP, was co-constructed with the very Jeff Chen on whose blog you are now reading this note!

Since then, I've constructed and published puzzles for other mainstream venues, including the USA Today crossword, where I coincidentally also wrote today's puzzle. I've also worked on a few indie crossword publications like Queer Qrosswords, the Inkubator, and Grids for Good. I'm grateful to the editors of all of these publications for their mentorship and guidance, and crossword Twitter and the wider crossword internet for being such a supportive community. Outside of crosswording, I am an assistant professor of Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, where I work on the ethics of immigrant health policy and teach bioethics to medical and Ph.D. students.

Today's puzzle started with the seed entry THE MANDALORIAN, which I desperately wanted to be the first person to put into an NYT puzzle. Mission accomplished! I'm really pleased with the long entries I could pair with it, especially PRIDE PARADE and DON'T GET CUTE. I'm grateful to the NYT crossword editing team for excellent clue edits, and for preserving some of my favorites, including [High anxiety?] for ACROPHOBIA and the reference to the "plum pudding" model in the clue for ATOM.

– puzzle by Rachel Fabi

Although today's gimmick is similar to my Sunday from last August entitled Bird Play, the idea here predates that puzzle by a couple years. It was originally conceived in 2016, though in a slightly different form.

Themer choices were pretty limiting. BANANA SPLIT had just a couple of alternatives: BANK OF GHANA and BANK OF GUYANA. CHOPPED LIVER was my choice for "chopped" in the original version of the puzzle, though it didn't have any good options at the lengths I needed in this re-imagining. I was really happy to find MASHED POTATO in FOOT PATROLS. It would have been easier to settle for a shorter anagram string, but I think uncovering a 6+ letter sequence makes for a more enjoyable solving experience.

Of course, when picking viable theme entries, I was also constrained by crossword symmetry. I'm super happy that I achieved ordering consistency between the upper and lower sets of themers. Doing so required cross-pairing the lengths. So, for example, the 12-letter BANK OF GUYANA pairs with MASHED POTATO while the 11-letter FOOT PATROLS pairs with BANANA SPLIT.

Favorite clues cut in the editorial process: [It might picture a pitcher] (BASEBALL CARD), [Possible side effect of drugs?] (R-RATING), [Do one thing after another?] (MIMIC), [Junk collector?] (PIRATE), and [Cat nap trap?] (LAP).

For the record, my favorite theme answers to eat, in order, are BANANA SPLIT, MASHED POTATO, CHOPPED SALAD, and STUFFED OLIVE.

– puzzle by Alex Eaton-Salners