Thumbnails

A theme like this lives or dies on the naturalness and humor of the theme examples. I thought these were pretty good.

– puzzle by Michael Blake

I don't usually run rebus themes on Wednesday, but every once in a while I make an exception. It keeps solvers from getting complacent. This rebus element is pretty easy, so the puzzle felt Wednesdayish to me. Still, I'm expecting complaints from newbies who don't usually do Thursday (or later) puzzles and have never encountered a rebus in a crossword before.

– puzzle by Paul Hunsberger

As you probably noticed, the grid is an atypical 16x15 squares, in order to accommodate the theme. I'm happy to run any sort of unusual grid size like this as long as there's a good enough reason and readers get their usual amount of crossword solving.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

The Monday through Thursday puzzles this week were used last Saturday at the 6th annual BAC Fill crossword tournament in Oakland, Calif. Each year all the money raised at the event goes to benefit Families of SMA, which is dedicated to finding a treatment and cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. More info can be found at www.bayareacrosswords.org.

– puzzle by Ed Sessa

In retrospect, I'm not sure why I accepted this puzzle. Jeff can't construct worth a damn... oh, hi Jeff! Just kidding, of course. You've turned into a first-rate constructor in a very short time. My favorite entries here are 1A, 17A, 37A, 59A, 62A, 64A, 11D, 25D, and 35D. That's a lot of nice stuff! My least favorite are 26A, 2D, 10D (which isn't made anymore), and 60D. Overall, though, the pluses far outweigh the minuses.

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

I'm so impressed with every crossword Patrick constructs — fresh, interesting vocabulary, with no junk. He makes constructing seem effortless, which it definitely isn't. His clues are excellent, too. My favorite one here is 35A.

– puzzle by Patrick Berry

As with all of Ian's puzzles, the fill in this grid is particularly clean and lively. Also, the theme has a twist I've never seen before.

– puzzle by Ian Livengood

This puzzle has been in my files for a long time, because I have a lot of puzzles with word-ladder themes, and I try to space them out. The two long non-theme entries at 3D and 34D are especially nice.

– puzzle by Patrick Blindauer

What I like about this puzzle is the unusual nature of the theme. There are no theme answers longer than seven letters. The information in the theme makes you go "huh, I didn't know that," which is nice.

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel

A note about ROULADE (43D) and AGORA (51D): I've heard some people say a Monday puzzle shouldn't have difficult words like these, but I strongly disagree. Of course a Monday puzzle is supposed to be easy, but it can have a hard word or two, if all the crossings are clear. This is especially so for a New York Times audience, which tends to be educated and intelligent. A couple of hard words, if they're interesting and useful, are not a detriment at all.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

Judging by the test-solvers' comments, the clue for 99-Down, "Pussy ___ (Russian girl group)," will raise some eyebrows. But the group's name has been much in the news for several years, including in several New York Times headlines, so I think it's fair game.

– puzzle by Pete Muller and Sue Keefer

The Times's test-solvers found this puzzle tough. And anyone who doesn't know the BURJ KHALIFA (1-Across), as one of the testers didn't, is in for an especially rough time.

– puzzle by Julian Lim

This is another lovely, clean construction from Brad and Doug. Most of the clues are theirs, too.

– puzzle by Brad Wilber and Doug Peterson

I'm amazed that Damon managed to find four pairs of theme answers that would work in this puzzle. And the addition of PORT, MORT, CORP and DORR is sheer brilliance.

– puzzle by Damon Gulczynski

Last week Joel finished his third year as my summer intern, while he goes to Pomona College. His constructions are always superclean, and he manages to include some great vocabulary besides. In this puzzle I especially like IT'S OK, TWOFACE, PARASAIL, LUDACRIS, and NEW MOON. That's impressive fill for a puzzle with this much theme material. It takes careful placement of theme answers and black squares — and some serious crossword chops, too — to pull it off.

– puzzle by Joel Fagliano

This puzzle had been languishing in my files for several years, because I'd run a couple of others with we/wee/Wii/etc. themes. But I thought Dan's treatment was nice — and after a few years the whole idea feels fresh again.

– puzzle by Dan Schoenholz

Josh is a twenty-something constructor who puts together both a mean grid and clues. Most Friday/Saturday Times puzzles get heavy editing, but this is an exception. Most of the clues here are Josh's, including the very pretty 23A, 27A, 47A, 3D, 12D, 32D, and 55D.

– puzzle by Josh Knapp

PEER ASSESSMENTS running across the bottom row is a little cheap, and I didn't care much for ATTS and EGERIA. Still, overall this is a pretty spectacular construction. I'm impressed.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

A longtime solver told me recently that his all-time most-hated New York Times crossword was the one by Elizabeth Long on April 1, 2011, in which all the vertical answers on the right side of the grid ran upward. Of course, at the time he solved it, he didn't realize it was an April Fool's puzzle. I'm thinking he's going to hate this puzzle by Timothy Polin even more.

– puzzle by Timothy Polin

Erik's a pretty good clue writer. I changed fewer clues in this puzzle (about a third) than I do in most. I look forward to more puzzles from him.

– puzzle by Erik Agard

Ian worked as my assistant back in the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011. It was the first puzzle job he'd ever had, beneficial for both of us. He's now at Penny Press puzzle magazines in Connecticut. Ian's constructions are always super clean (like this one), and he's very flexible. Easy, medium or hard — he can construct an elegant puzzle at any skill level.

– puzzle by Ian Livengood

E-mail from Rachel Colangelo, organizer of the Pittsburgh Crossword Tournament: "We had another successful event and 64 participants helped to raise over $2,200 in support of the mission of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. In the finals (today's puzzle), the three solvers were stumped for some time, but once they caught on to the rebus trick they flew through the solution. Mike Wilhelm, our winner, was a very impressive solver — he finished the Monday puzzle in 3.5 minutes."

– puzzle by Stu Ockman

The large amount of theme material in this puzzle impacted the grid in some unappealing ways. Balancing quantity of theme and quality of fill is always tricky. At 35A, the constructor had SERAL ("Of ecological stages"). I thought SURAL was better, but probably not by much.

– puzzle by Jonathan Gersch

This is the first of four crosswords used last Saturday at the 4th annual Pittsburgh Crossword Tournament, where all proceeds go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. You can read about the previous year's tournament.

– puzzle by Jean O'Conor

I don't know how Jeff thought of the theme examples. They're very cute. My favorite, of course, was SEE YOU IN COURT.

Because the four long answers in the puzzle are essentially unclued, I tried to make the rest of the clues slightly easier than for the usual Thursday.

– puzzle by Jeff Chen